Kirby Super Star Ultra

"If you didn't like Squeak Squad, you'll love this. Hell, even if you don't like Kirby, you'll love this."

Kirby Super Star Ultra is the kind of game that makes you feel happy about the gaming industry. Instead of a simple remake or port, the company actually decided to add genuinely new material and improve the final product (Final Fantasy IV advance, I'm looking at you). This game is a remake of Kirby Super Star, known to fans as the definitive Kirby game, originally for the SNES. The Kirby series is a series with few remakes and ports, barring the Wii's Virtual Console, so it's nice that such an important game gets remade for a system capable of handling it. Kirby Super Star set the mold for almost all the games to come (barring spin-offs), and its position as fan favorite is even more cemented by this reacknowledging of the SNES classic.

Gameplay

The Kirby series is known for being simple, yet at the same time enjoyable. No game is overly stressing, yet they all have their ceratin bonus modes which are rather difficult to complete (Crystal Shards' Boss Rush, for example); this game follows the tradition. The core of Kirby gameplay is based on absorbing other monster's abilities (of which there are a whopping 19, all distinctly different) and using them to defeat bosses/other enemies, etc. While previous titles have only attributed one attackto each ability (Squeak Squad, Amazing Mirror, NiDL), this game plays like an extremely watered-down fighter, where different combinations of buttons (running and pressing B, for example) will cause an ability to take a different course of action.

This sounds complicated, but is rather easy to learn, even if you haven't played the original. The Sword ability, for example, usues a normal slash when Kirby is standing still or walking, but if he runs, he uses a sliding stab. In the air, he falls toward the ground, blade out, finally, pressing B a number of times executes a very rapid stabbing attack. In case you forget any of this, pressing start while playing shows a comprehensive list of all the possible attacks with a certain ability.

A more overlooked innovation Super Star introduced was its life meter. Instead of having just 5 hits, as in NiDL, Kirby's energy is shown as a bar. Some enemies take away more health than others (compare Waddle Dees to Grodos, for example), and some boss's attacks, particularly the newer ones, can quickly empty half your life guage. It creates a more fair experience, as bosses have the same meter, and different attacks will take away different amounts of health.

Super Star also introduced the guarding system, which, strangely, has not been featured in any subsequent title. By simply pressing L or R, Kirby blocks weak attacks, which can make all the difference between a very easy and a very difficult boss.

Most importantly, Super Star is remembered for its partner system, where, by pressing X, Kirby sacrifices his present ability to make a 'friendly enemy'. This helper is CPU controlled, meaning, of course, that it suffers from terrible AI, but if you have a friend who has this game as well, you can play co-op through the game, making some features in certain modes much easier to get. This is one downfall of the game, because this cooperation was part of what made the SNES game so popular. While you can still use it with one DS and one game card, it works in only one mode. This doesn't sound too bad, but the person who does not have the game must look onto the other's DS to see where they are. While I have not seen this scenario in real life, one imagines it to be rather amusing. Of course, the cooperation is entirely optional and the game can absolutely be enjoyed to its fullest playing by yourself.


Super Star was sort of a hard game to explain to people--it is not a game in its entirety, but is composed of games too short to be stand-alone titles. It is an injustice to call them mini-games, although there are the traditional easy-to-play mini-games present, but the different modes are a sort of 'gameling'.

For instance, Spring Breeze, the first mode available, is a bare bones remake of Kirby's Dream Land, originally for the GameBoy. It plays like a normal Kirby game--a rather simple, yet enjoyable platformer, with Waddle Dees, Bronto Burts, and of course, King Dedede. After Spring Breeze is beaten (which takes about 10 minutes at most), the first 'non demo' mode is unlocked--Dyna Blade. Dyna Blade is a more complete game, composed of 5 stages. While there is no deviation from the traditional Kirby style loosely based on platforming and copying enemy's abilities, the game is varied enough to hold interest. For instance, Revenge of Meta Knight is a fast-paced trek through Meta Knight's Airship the Halberd, while Milky Way Wishes is an intersting variant on the ability-copying Kirby, who is now forced to find hidden artifacts called "Copy Essence Deluxes" in order to use abilities (his normal method of swallowing enemies does not work), but once he finds them, they stay with him permanently, and you can choose which ability to use using the touch screen. Great Cave Offensive is a Metroid-like rendition of Kirby--in this massive level, there is only one goal (at the end), and the worlds connect with each other. It is up to the player to find the sixty treasures (items from other Nintendo series, such as the Legend of Zelda's Triforce), or to just rush to the end. Some treasure is easy to find, lying right out in the open, while some are intricately hidden.

New modes have been added as well; Revenge of the King is a supposedly more difficult Spring Breeze variant with a harder boss at the end, and Meta Knight Ultra allows the player to play as Meta Knight (as in Nightmare in Dream Land) and opens up all five main modes for a time trial. This mode is a nicer addition to the game; instead of appearing tacked on (as NiDL's was), HAL actually put some thought into this. By defeating enemies, Meta Knight gains skill points, which he can use by using one of his special abilities by pressing on its respective button on the touch screen--abilities such as calling a Knight partner, speeding up, healing, or unleashing a very damaging attack. While the abilites make the game very easy (Heal is a paltry 10 points to use, and most enemies give 2 or 3 points), the point of the mode is to make it through the game as quickly as possible, not to provide a real challenge. This mode also features a new boss at the end of Milky Way Wishes...

There are two other complete modes in the remake--the True Arena, available after the regular Arena is beaten, which features the new bosses, and Helper to Hero, which is the most interesting new mode. Helper to Hero is a sort of stripped down Arena, where, not Kirby, but one of the formerly CPU helpers must defeat 20 bosses. Every ability that has a helper is available in this mode, meaning that there are 19 different helpers with which to beat this mode, and mastering it with all of them nets the 'Video 00', the old SNES introductions. While it may seem boring to only be able to use one ability, it is surprisingly fun, perhaps because you are not playing as Kirby, but as that enemy that killed you too many times.

One of the nicest gameplay features to this game is that it uses the DS's touchscreen intelligently. Gone are the days of 2004 and 2005 where it seemed games had to use the touchscreen in the most inconvenient ways. In most modes, the touchscreen serves to display Kirby's health and the boss's or his helper's, if either is present and his ability. The only modes that are exclusively touchscreen controlled are the new mini-games, and they make very basic use of it, using basic swipes and taps.



Graphics- 10/10
Kirby platformers have always been confined to two dimensions, even on consoles capable of supporting three dimensions (the N64). KSSU keeps this style, but improves from the graphics of the SNES. Most notably, Kirby no longer has that irritating plastic-like look to him, and instead looks like the other handheld Kirbies of Nightmare in Dream Land, Squeak Squad, etc, although when the old mini-games are unlocked, they have been literally unchanged, so plastic Kirby is still in the game. Old enemies like King Dedede look infinitely better than on the SNES, like their Nightmare in Dream Land counterparts, but cleaned up a little more. The old movies which introduced each separate game have been replaced with beautiful, but still harmonious with the Kirbyverse, CGI videos. As an added bonus, the old intro videos are available for unlocking (though it is rather difficult), along with the CGI videos for rewatching. Since it is a Kirby game, things never get too hectic, but even against some more graphically advanced foes, there is never slow down. Oddly, Super Star had bigger blocks and enemies than other games (the star blocks are a bit larger than Kirby now), so everything has been made a bit bigger in comparison to older Kirby titles.

The Kirby series is not known for its graphical complexity, but it still delivers; the graphics of the SNES have been improved upon and fit in more with previous titles in the series.

Sound-9/10
The Kirby series has its own theme music (Green Greens comes to mind), and all the classics are in this game. The sound is always nice to listen to, the battle themes are appropriate, as are the ending themes. There seem to be minor downgrades from the SNES's sound, but they are extremely minor and not worth complaining about in general.

Overall, this is an excellent game to get for the DS, as it seems to be rather lacking in platformers at the moment. This is a remake of a solid game, and it brings hope back into the Kirby series. Even if you didn't like Squeak Squad, give this game a chance, as it defines the series.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 10/20/08, Updated 07/02/09

Game Release: Kirby Super Star Ultra (US, 09/22/08)