Honestly? A smidge overrated.

Super Star Ultra is a solid remake of a good game. My favourite thing about Ultra is that it feels very "DS-core", despite not even originating as a DS game. The anthology approach just works so much more naturally on a handheld than on a home console, and the bottom screen adds some quality of life improvements that improve the experience. The game also looks a bit better too, and I enjoyed the CG cutscenes. The sound is worse, but that's minor. I'd still stick with the original if I wanted to play multiplayer, but if I ever want to play Super Star in single-player in the future I'll definitely play this version. It's just a straight upgrade.

However, Ultra still keeps the flaws of the original game and in some ways worsens them. My biggest issue is the helpers. Helpers are a cool idea, but they absolutely trivialize the entire game's difficulty, in addition to just being annoying due to spawning in every time you try to discard an ability. Since Kirby games usually give you many different ways to play the game, I find it baffling that they didn't add an option to turn off the helpers. I think that single feature would've made the game SIGNIFICANTLY better.

I am also annoyed by this game's reliance on recycled content. I already disliked this in Super Star, as Milky Way Wishes and the Arena were already mostly recycled content from the game's other modes, but every single one of Ultra's new modes just exacerbates this. Revenge of the King is the only new mode that has any new level design, but is essentially just a harder Spring Breeze. Helper to Hero and the True Arena are just more Arenas. And... Meta Knightmare... what a horrible mode. I think the concept of Meta Knightmare's gameplay loop is interesting, but playing through every previous mode in the game as Meta Knight is not it. It's just lazy padding using nothing more than recycled content. It's even more annoying since that means we're playing through Great Cave Offensive, Revenge of Meta Knight, and Milky Way Wishes all over again but this time without the gimmicks that made them unique. Just a thoroughly boring mode through and through. I really don't think Ultra is as much of an improvement over Super Star as most people seem to think, because the new modes just aren't that good or interesting.

Gotta say though, Masked Dedede and Galacta Knight are fantastic. Gotta give Ultra credit for that.

I played a few Kirby titles growing up and this is one that I'd always heard was beloved but always ended up eluding me. I'm glad I finally decided to give it a shot because it's a lot of fun. Milky Way Wishes, Revenge of the King, Revenge of Meta Knight, and Meta Knightmare Ultra are my personal highlights here, though most of the games are pretty fun! I think the only ones I struggle to enjoy are the boss rushes, but that's because I'm not a fan of boss rushes in most titles. I'll cut them some slack there; they deserve a place in the game.

My DS nostalgia game. A refined 2D platforming experience that I enjoyed as a kid and love now. SSU is what video games should look and sound like to me. As glamorous as Great Cave’s Crystal Area and as foreign and euphoric as Milky Way Wishes’ Halfmoon. This game is ever so welcoming but rewards perseverance and practice like nothing similar I’ve experienced. The Arenas are difficult and I could not beat them by myself and although that makes me feel somewhat inept, the DS nostalgia in me is ecstatic to be able to give my DS to someone else and let them have a try too. SSU unites.

Kirby Super Star Ultra is pretty good. A unique approach with it's anthology-based structure and this allowed it to come up with some pretty creative modes in the form of Great Cave Offensive and Milky Way Wishes and both modes kinda make me wonder how a Kirby Metroidvania would work. There's some foundations here for that.

Then there's Meta Knight's Revenge, which was an enjoyable high-speed mode. I actually came quite close to running out of time in some parts. Speaking of high-speed, Gourmet Race is a classic. I did play that one in the original and i feel it controls better here?

Spring Breeze and Dyna Blade are fairly standard Kirby adventures. The former is just a remake of Kirby's Dream Land. So fun but nothing to write home about.

Ultra did add some new modes, mainly Revenge of the King and Meta Knight Ultra. While Revenge of the King is a good "hard mode" version of Spring Breeze (and even introduced Masked Dedede, this whole time i was being gaslit to think that was a Triple Deluxe thing), Meta Knight Ultra is fun at first but it's just redoing the original modes (minus Gourmet Race and Great Cave) as Meta Knight. The only difference is you fight Galacta Knight at the end but honestly i would've preferred it if it was more original.

As a whole, Super Star Ultra is very fun and i wouldn't mind if they did something like this again. Maybe now that the series has fully gone 3D, they could do a "3D Super Star" or something.

Truth be told I’ve never been as big a fan of the Superstar formula as I wanted to be—the anthology structure is certainly unique, but I’ve always felt it left the experience as a whole feeling a tad disjointed. Each minigame is fun on its own, but most just don’t get the space or time to feel as fleshed out as I’d like them to be. That being said, I still enjoyed Superstar, and the same can more or less be said for this remake.

Superstar Ultra is a pretty straightforward translation of the SNES original: it’s got all the games you remember, and they play more or less how you remember them. Spring Breeze and Dyna Blade offer truncated (if basic) classic Kirby adventures. The Great Cave Offensive is a bit more inspired: a more robust, exploratory journey that’s always been a personal favorite for my collection-obsessed lizard brain. Return of Meta Knight is probably the best-realized game of the original roster, a fast, high-octane action movie parody full of frenetic combat and charming dialogue. Gourmet Race and the microgames all provide brief, almost Warioware-esque reprieves. And then to cap it all off you get Milky Way Wishes, which I think is actually kind of a confusing mess but the Marx fight is really cool so yeah sure whatever!

Any changes Ultra makes to that core lineup are minimal, mostly in the form of small but welcome optimizations. A more zoomed out screen, a better English translation, some more informative UI elements (a huge help in TGCO actually). The presentation has also been updated, although that’s something I’m more mixed on. I quite like the GBA/DS Kirby aesthetic, but it is a real shame to see one of the more distinct and vibrant Kirby games reimagined in this “house style”. The sprites looks great in their own right, but I do find myself missing the off-model charm of the original, particularly in the backgrounds and these crunchy 3D-rendered cutscenes.

Probably the change I’m most fond of is the fact that hey, we’re on the DS now! I always struggled with Superstar’s 8-in-one structure but it really does make so much more sense on a handheld, especially one as geared towards short, on-the-go play sessions as the original DS. It’s a great game to play in between other tasks when you got like 15-30 minutes to kill, something that was a lot harder to do when the game was straddled to a home console you had to hook up to a CRT (or in my case, a Wii to a monitor).

As far as the new modes go, they’re nice, harmless additions but ones I’m not terribly impressed by. I have no interest in boss rushes so I didn’t bother with any of the three arenas and I felt myself going through the motions with Metaknightmare. Revenge of the King was a genuine treat though, a great synthesis of everything that worked in the main games, all capped off by an instantly iconic boss fight. Probably my favorite experience on the cartridge. The new touchscreen microgames are nice as well, it’s something they basically had to do considering the game and the hardware but they got a lot more going on than I expected.

All in all, Superstar Ultra is a pretty appealing package. Is it better than Superstar? I dunno, probably? Not by a lot but I suppose it’s a bit more finely-tuned where it counts. It’s still not my favorite in the series, but I can’t ever have a truly bad time playing Kirby. A real nice one