It's very strange to look back at this game in a time where it's remake outclasses it in almost every way, but also where the series it hails from has evolved artistically far beyond itself.

There are times where the art direction is very detailed and makes great use of perspective to indicate scope (like Dyna Blade's nest in the mountains or Meta Knight's ship looming in the orange sunlit skies), but there is an overuse of prerendered and image-based graphics that leave a weird uncanniness. For example, those weird flat green mountaintops in Cavios, those swinging bells in Gourmet Race, and those terrible compressed cloud JPEGs in the last area of Great Cave Offensive. They all clash pretty heavily with the otherwise lovely spritework of bosses and other characters.

Although I may not always like its presentation, it is distinctly charming for its era. I think the soundtrack is what truly elevates it to that weird dreamy status a lot of early Kirby is shrouded in (like pre Nightmare in Dream Land), especially the Dyna Blade subgame. My personal favorite subgame was Milky Way Wishes, although Revenge of Meta Knight is very close behind it.

I used to consider this my favorite game when I first played it on the Wii U Virtual Console. idk what kid me really saw in this to think of it as such, it's likely they weren't the same reasons that made me appreciate it so much now because damn..

Everything in this game just oozes personality, from the different UI elements in all game modes, all the cute lil enemies,the ability portraits.. in particular, the prerendered CG backgrounds are the coolest fucking thing and seeing them around the time where I started to draw seriously inspired parts of my style even today.

The combat (?) is also a pretty big step up from the previous games since the abilities have multiple moves but I don't really fuck with how they chose to condense multiple ones from Kirby's Adventure into a single ability. e.g Fire and Fireball is now just Fire and ->+Y is the Fireball move but.. Fire is lame! Couldn't the whole moveset be Fireball with 8-way movement >_>? Some of them are pretty cool though. Blocking is interesting considering this is a "baby game" but they at least had the grace not to make you completely invincible against grabs and whatever so you can't be like, 100% safe at all times while your partner character fumbles around like a fucking idiot against the boss. Oh yeah, the partner mechanic is pretty meh when playing alone and also not really an adequate multiplayer mode since the second player is almost completely on a leash. It's fun when you need to do save a partner in a rush, not as fun when you press the A button and suddenly open this whole can of worms. It... really shouldn't be the A button, why is A the dedicated "partner" button??

I'm curious to also replay the DS version, but in my only playthrough of that, it didn't impress and looks way duller in comparison. It does have "more stuff" but Super Star is already almost the perfect length so. idk, we'll have to see. If you only played the DS version, I'd certainly recommend this. If you played neither one, I'd also certainly recommend this.

It's a complete game! I had the pleasure of finishing it all the way through on my SUPA BOY and y'know what? I kind of miss back when games came out fully complete and we didn't have to compromise on "just wait for the patch bro, they'll fix it later".

Every stage and every game in Super Star just offers pretty much anything you'd want out of a retro Kirby game and more, it's pretty clear how much of a leap forward this game must've been at the time, and how it serves as the foundation on which the series continued to build on.

Colorblindness Rating: A
I don't recall there being any issues regarding to color in this game, but someone feel free to correct me since it's been a while since I last played this game.

If I have to name games that shows the full potential of the Super Nintendo I'll always reply: Final Fantasy VI, Super Metroid, Chrono Trigger, F-Zero, Donkey Kong Country trilogy...and this.

This is one of the best SNES games avaiable. You can clearly see how much love Masahiro Sakurai and his team put into this one. They crafted what was a collection of short games into inter-connected adventures perfect for short sessions.

Imagine to play a mix of many Kirby's Dream Land(s) and Kirby's Adventure.

Kirby's animations and transformations are also so expressive you'll keep play it just for those.

Kirbo is a silly fella. In all honesty I feel as a franchise is able to outshine even Super Mario in terms of quality of the series as a whole.
And Super Stars one of the many reasons for that.
It amazing how one of the first titles in the series, a game from 1996 is able to provide such a unique experience that stands out even to this day.

The formula of the series is already incredibly solid, both incluiding not just the immensely deep copy abilities, but the chance to trasform them into playable charcacters for co-op immensely raises the quality of the already perfect gameplay.

Not only that, but the different modes offer so much variety, outstanding even for the time. Spring breeze is a chilling homage to the first game in the franchise, Dyna Blade is a solid harder mode, Gourmet Race is a great racing experience, Great cave offensive turns the game into a literal metroidvania, and Revenge of Meta Knight is one of the best things I have ever played in a 2D platformer...... oh and Milky way wishes features Marx. Marx is the freaking best. I love that guy.

The extra modes included in the DS reamke can make you feel like something is missing in the SNES release... but other than that Kirby SUper Star is a game that will be able to appeal to any fan of videogames. A must play for everyone.

"8 games in one?" Alright, come on now.

I usually consider Kirby to fall within the action platformer genre. With Super Star though, there's a different vibe going on. The game toys around with some ideas that put it closer to feeling like a Smash Bros prototype. With each copy ability sporting a couple unique moves that can be activated through simple combinations of inputs, Super Star is more akin to a beat'em up platformer. What helps contribute to that feeling is how enemies take more hits to take out now, and that there is generally a larger focus on engaging enemies in combat than before. The pacing has been tightened up too, throwing you from one major battle encounter to another in the span of 1-2 minutes each. And then there's the 2-player mode of course, primarily handy for making battles more efficient. Putting all of that together, Super Star is actually an arcade beat'em up Smash Bros prototype. That also happens to have some platforming in it, but it's kinda irrelevant, honestly.

I think that change in priority is what makes Super Star's gameplay just... alright for me. It's great visually, it produced a ton of iconic songs for the franchise, and I mean, look. The "8 games in one" marketing is still outrageous, but I do like the variety that IS here, it keeps things fresh. However, I don't jive with this increased focus on combat. It feels punchy, sure, but it's a lot of technique for a set of enemies that are barely capable of fighting back. By comparison, the platforming sequences haven't seen much evolution mechanically, so they feel more like an afterthought, a bridge to get to the next fight. But even the fights are far too tipped in your favor, leaving the overall package as doing a whole lot of things with not a lot of focus on real depth and challenge.

To be fair, challenge is not really what most people seek in a Kirby game. I'm down for an easy game myself, I enjoy a bit of lax platforming every now and then, and if the exploration is fun, then all the better for it. But this Kirby is way more about a frantic, chaotic sense of action, which makes me strongly desire a greater sense of challenge. I don't think Super Star satisfies that craving, as it's too easy to get away with a reckless, button-mashy playstyle. As for the exploration, "Milky Way Wishes" is the closest to getting this right, introducing a pretty interesting spin on how you get your powerups. Aside from that however, I wasn't into most of the other exploration. That includes the treasures found in "The Great Cave Offensive," an interesting concept that is entirely superficial in execution, offering little incentive to get all treasures, or even a single one of them.

Overall, I love Kirby and all, but the franchise was still very experimental at this point of time, and didn't quite perfect its formula yet. This has led to some hits, this has led to some misses. Super Star is somewhere in-between those, it's a game I'll occasionally pop into with a friend, to kick some ass and appreciate its hyperactive energy. But as far as fulfilling platforming experiences go, this game just ain't my speed.

Yeah this game's pretty solid. I know this is considered one of the bests and I both agree and disagree, though the existence of Ultra doesn't help this version's case. I know both versions have pros and cons but I definitely enjoyed Ultra more when I played it two years ago. The selection of minigames is pretty solid, though there are parts I find to be somewhat weaker. For this review, I'll rank each minigame and explain why.

7. Spring Breeze: This one's just really short and I don't really care for it too much. It's about 10 minutes long and it's a smaller version of Kirby's Dream Land. I don't dislike it or anything, but I'm very neutral about it. I know it's intended for beginners but I really think Dyna Blade is fine since it's not that much harder or longer for that matter.

6. Dyna Blade: This genuinely feels like it could've replaced Spring Breeze because it's not that much longer and gets the job done well. Pretty solid levels but definitely one of the weaker parts.

5. The Arena: This is where the ranking gets tricky. I'm going to put The Arena here because while it's a great concept and I love to see it (and the True Arena) in other titles, it's not a game mode I would see myself going back to much. Bosses in Kirby are pretty good but they're not exactly the highlight for me, though they are pretty fun for the most part.

4. Revenge of Meta Knight: I love the cooperation and banter of Meta Knight and his crew, and the music is really damn good. I think this one gets the short end of the stick for me because I don't particularly like the levels outside of The Halberd, but that's just me.

3. Gourmet Race: Can't go wrong with it, it's a very short minigame but it's a fun one with great and iconic music to boot. Definitely the most replayable one of the list.

2. The Great Cave Offensive: As someone who really likes Amazing Mirror, this definitely works out well for me. While Metroidvania Kirby definitely still needs work, I think it was executed pretty well here. I didn't go for all the treasures here like I did with my prior playthrough of Ultra from my time pre-Backloggd, but I enjoyed it a lot when I did it back then.

1. Milky Way Wishes: Genuinely such an interesting concept with great gameplay and levels to boot. The Heart of Nova and Marx fights are also a great way to end the game (other than The Arena but technically we can just count this as the ending).

So yeah, most of these are pretty good minigames. I don't think the entire package is perfect here, especially since there's less minigames than in Ultra, but it's a pretty fun time for a majority of its runtime. Overall, very solid collection of minigames that are really creative and iconic.