Nintendo's greatest warrior with incomparable strength boasts an amazing game for the NES.

Kirby's Adventure is the first Kirby game I've played, and definitely believe it's an amazing first impression of what his series offers. Kirby is a true monster in what he's capable of, and it truly makes the game feel like you're an overpowered entity just demolishing everything in your way. For a NES game in particular this is truly a monument for how clean and complete it feels, it has beautiful graphics, plenty of mechanics, and is a lengthy game in general. There are also fun minigames that can be played, as well as secret paths to find, so the levels are pretty interesting.

The enemies are also really varied throughout the game, and of course they offer powerups to Kirby should he eat them. This feature is brilliant since it offers so many different ways to play, and they really fleshed it out by having quite a lot of them. The game also has bosses as well which are enjoyable all the way through, the last boss sequence in particular was especially fun to fight.

Overall, definitely a strong contender for the best game on the NES console, I would greatly recommend it. It certainly has me excited for future Kirby games down the road!

The original Kirby’s Dream Land, while still being a good game on its own, is what I would consider a mere appetizer at the end of the day: it is pretty good while it lasts, but it only serves to keep you satisfied until the main course. Because trust me, it only goes up from here in terms of quality, folks. Shortly after that game’s original release, the next Kirby project would be to port Kirby’s Dream Land to the NES, but as you could probably guess, that project ultimately didn’t go anywhere. However, just like with Link’s Awakening, the project wasn’t ultimately abandoned, but instead, reworked to become a brand new, completely original title for the Kirby series, which would not only expand the base game, but also expand Kirby’s abilities even further. Not only that, but they would, you know, actually make Kirby pink, instead of being gray. Can’t believe it took them 2 games in order to get that right, but hey, that’s what a lack of communication can do to a product initially. Anyway, after some time, this game’s development would be completed, and it would go on to be released as Kirby’s Adventure.

This may just be one of, if not the most, important Kirby games ever made, in terms of establishing what Kirby is all about. Sure, Kirby’s Dream Land did set up the foundation for the series’ main gameplay structure that it would rely on for many years to come, but in terms of many of the series staple elements that are still some of its strongest to this day, we have Kirby’s Adventure to thank for that. That alone deserves some level of praise and recognition, but even if we don’t take that into consideration, Kirby’s Adventure is still a pretty great game, even after 30 years. Sure, it may be pretty basic for a Kirby game, and there are some things holding it back from being perfect, but when it comes to progressing the series further, as well as just how fun the game is in general, it manages to retain that sense of fun and quality to this day.

The story is pretty similar to that of the first Kirby game, but instead of getting back all of Dream Land’s food, you are instead getting back all of its dreams, which may or may not be more important depending on where your priorities lie when you think about it, the graphics are pretty great, not only capturing the essence of Kirby through and through, but also having a very distinct style and look, taking full advantage of the NES’s hardware, the music is solid all around, having plenty of cheery and catchy tunes, which would go on to receive plenty of remixes later down the road for future installments, the control is basic and easy to pick up and understand, with no real issues that I could find with them, and the gameplay is, in many ways, the same as Kirby’s Dream Land, but in plenty of other ways, it is expanded upon and made even better.

The game is your typical 2D platformer, where you take control of the pink puff himself, go through a set of seven worlds, each with plenty of levels for you to run through and have a blast in, suck and swallow or spit back out many different innocent creatures that you will brutally murder, because what else is Kirby known for other than senseless destruction and genocide, gather plenty of health items and extra lives to help you out throughout your journey, and take on plenty of charming and enjoyable boss fights, both old ones returning from Kirby’s Dream Land, and new ones that would also become recurring threats in the franchise, or just one-offs only dealt with in this game. At its core, Kirby’s Adventure’s gameplay is more or less just the same as Kirby’s Dream Land, except bigger, better, and more colorful, which is already pretty good on its own, but there are several new additions that would define what makes Kirby who he is today.

The biggest and best new inclusion in this game would without a doubt be the Copy Ability, where whenever Kirby inhales and swallows a certain type of enemy, he can steal their power to use for himself. Not only was this a pretty cool idea that ended up working really well, but a lot of the Copy Abilities in this game are pretty fun to use, even if they are a bit basic, such as with Sword, Fire, Cutter, and Spark. Of course, this would become a staple of the Kirby franchise, with many different games after this utilizing this formula and introducing plenty of new abilities that would get even more weird and creative. In terms of the original set of copy abilities, again, they are pretty basic, but they are still really fun to use, and definitely make this game much more fun than the previous game. I mean, really, there was only so much sucking and spitting that you could do before it got boring after a while (if you didn’t find this phrasing inappropriate before, you probably do now).

Aside from that though, there were also several other elements introduced in this game that would become staples of the franchise, such as the side content. Most Kirby games after this would implement some selection of side-games of minigames to help increase replay value of the game, and while they could just be seen as a waste of time and too simple for their own good, they are still fun to play through whenever they are included. For this game though, the minigames you do get only serve to give you extra lives throughout your journey, which you don’t really need, considering it is a Kirby game, but even then, it is all worth it just to play these minigames. Seriously, if you somehow don’t find Egg Catcher or Quick Draw at least somewhat fun, then I don’t think you have a soul, frankly. Alongside those are also museums that store copy abilities for you to get whenever you want, as well as arenas where you can fight minibosses for extra lives, so it is safe to say there is plenty to do across this whole game.

And finally, the last new element that this game introduces would be with a brand new character, one that would go on to become one of the most recognizable faces in the franchise: Meta Knight. Meta Knight is my favorite character in the series, without a doubt, as not only does he have a fantastic design and a personality that I adore, but usually when it comes to Kirby games, his fights are always one of the highlights of them, whether they are simply just sword fights, or fights that are turned up to the extreme, which typically happens in this series. As for Kirby’s Adventure though, his fight is pretty standard, but it can still be tough if you aren’t too careful while trying to slash at him, and it ends up being fun enough. He mainly just serves as the instigator for these arena fights you have with his henchmen, which I will admit, aren’t really all that great, as they are pretty tedious, but they don’t bring the game down that much.

As much as I do love Kirby’s Adventure though, I can still admit that the game isn’t perfect by any means. First of all, while I do appreciate that Copy Abilities are introduced here, and a good number of them are fun to use, some of them just seem completely unnecessary. For example, there is the basic Fire ability, which just lets you breathe fire, but then there is also the Fireball ability, where you can fire yourself forward while engulfed in flames. That’s cool and all, but did we really need two fire abilities in the same game? The same can be said for both Ice and Freeze as well. Secondly, there are some abilities that I just don’t like at all, such as the Ball ability, where you… are a ball, and you roll around, and… that is about it. There may be more to it that I am not seeing, but I just can’t get a hang of this power, and I never like using it. And then there is the Sleep ability, which… do I need to go into any more detail with that one?

Finally, this may just be my own personal gripe, but I think this game just may be a biiiiiiiiiit too long. Yeah, I know, it is ironic, saying that after I said the previous game was way too short, but I have always thought that about this game, even when I first played it. Sure, I do have a lot of fun when it comes to a wide majority of the levels, but whenever I get to, like, the second half of World 6, I am usually thinking to myself at that point “Man, how much more is there”, which I don’t typically think too much when playing other Kirby games. This is probably down to there being not too much variety when it comes to a lot of the levels in the game. I don’t know, I can’t be the only one that thinks this, right? There’s gotta be someone else that shares that sentiment.

Overall, despite some pointless and flatout terrible copy abilities, as well as the game being a little longer than it needs to be, this is still a fantastic game all the way to this day, and what I would consider to be the TRUE start of the Kirby franchise. I would definitely recommend it for those who are fans of the Kirby series, for those who have played through Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land, or for those who wanna see what the Kirby series is all about, because this is certainly a great place to start. I mean, come on, there aren’t many other games out there where you literally have to beat up the Sun and the Moon. That alone should be enough to convince you to give it a shot.

Game #394

Fittingly one of the best end-life NES games ever developed by none other than the wonderful HAL Laboratory with their helm held by Masahiro Sakurai.

The gameplay structure is pretty solid compared to most of the whole NES library which usually have subpar design values in them (while some do actually deserve actual mention) and plays out very well among gameplay elements ranging from graphics, sound and coding. Its advanced coding and hardware limitations manage to bring out cutting-edge tweening animations, anticipating frame stops to signal crucial moments, surpassing sprite limitations and a YET wonderful soundtrack that utilizes at full capacity the NES' own Ricoh 2A03 sound chip's power.

As it was aimed not only just to veteran players but also newcomers, Kirby's signature Copy Ability system permanently changed, even at its early years, the whole series' discourse. Rather than simply beating up enemies by sucking them in and blowing back up, you can acquire abilities depending on the enemy you capture, which grant you different types of attacks, but there are also some quite silly ones (the Sleep ability in particular, which is a really provoking one as you fall asleep for few seconds before you lose the ability). As of nowadays, Sakurai mentioned the fact that you can also beat this game without relying on Copy Abilities, which i do personally agree this sentence as i did certain bosses that are well suited without using them.

To me, Kirby's Adventure marked a huge positivity in Japanese game design history as it gave a influent birth of 'cutesy', family-friendly platformers consisting of quirky world design and rapid action, and is also considered the 'BASE' of all following Kirby entries in the future. I highly recommend to play this to begin with, as for the NES it marked a wonderful swan song that outruled the whole library in a flash.

For a 30 year old game, it is impressive how well Kirby's Adventure holds up. In many ways it's like something you'd see on the SNES but put onto the console before it, and you can feel that emminating from every aspect of the game.

It's sprite work is absolutely beautiful, filled with so much life and beauty and pushing what the NES is capable of to the max. Every enviroment feels unique, they're all so pretty to look at, and the character sprites themselves are adorable and just as charming as the rest of the game.

The music is a bop from stage to stage, with compositions so good they'd go on to reuse them countless times throughout the franchise, but never truly making the original versions of these tracks obsolete.

The level design here retains that challenge from the latter half of Kirby's Dream Land and expands tenfold on it, never reaching fully unfair territory and yet still standing on it's own. I actually found myself getting a game over multiple times during my playthrough, sometimes which was once again welcome due to how much easier later Kirby games get. This one is still fairly simple, and yet not mindless, which is my preferred choice when it comes to Kirby. As for the way the stages themselves are designed, they're also really good but it does have the issue I find in a lot of other Kirby games where hovering over everything can make you avoid entire platforming sections, although it's not as big of an issue here and in other games, so I can give it a pass.

Finally, the controls are essentially the same as Dream Land's, but the gameplay is still massively switched up by the introduction of copy abilites, which are such a fun and well excecuted mechanic that they've become a mainstay of the franchise ever since. Every one of them feels unique and the game usually provides them to you before a section you'd wanna use them with, but it still makes you want to mantain them as long as possible and not be reckless with your use of them due to how one hit means losing them, plus you need a few ones here and there in order to access the many hidden switches that are needed for 100% completion, of which I got a fair amount of, but not every single one,since some of them were just to hard for my stupid brain to comprehend.

Overall, Kirby's Adventure is a massive step up from it's predesecor and absolutely worth playing, even 3 decades after it's release. Easily one of the best NES games out there, and one of my new favorites from this franchise.

It’s absolutely wild that I had no idea how foundational this game was to the further Kirby series and especially Super Star, though I suppose it shouldn’t be so surprised how much it has in common with the latter. I did play the GBA remake back in the day, though at the time I had the incorrect impression that was spruced up in specific ways to resemble the anime. I was quite wrong! Or rather, I suppose the anime took a lot more from Kirby’s Adventure than I initially expected. Also the Kirby’s Avalanche soundtrack. This is where all those tracks were from…

It’s a little weird playing this after Dream Land 2 and 3, because while the copy abilities feel pretty fragile compared to later in the series on account of Kirby losing them after one hit, they feel a lot more geared towards faster-paced action than my experience with those two games. Perhaps… too geared towards faster paced action, as this bad boy causes the NES to chug. I’m told this isn’t a quirk of the NSO emulator but accurate to the hardware, which doesn’t really surprise me. This game has a LOT going on for a NES game, between the variety of abilities and the quality of the spritework.

I gotta say, I LOVE all the cute little copy ability status indicators and, generally, how quirky everything is. It was fun seeing the origins of some of the later minigames even if some of them have been altered, like how Quick Draw has been reimagined as Samurai Kirby. The stage designs are really striking, too, and I cannot fucking BELIEVE they got away with making a nostalgia love letter level to the first game back on the NES. It wasn’t even that old! But it made me grin with delight anyway, because holy shit. Well played.

I did not feel remotely compelled to get all the secrets, but I do appreciate that they’re there for people to track down if they like. I think if it had more modern control I’d give it a shot, but I feel pretty confident in being done with the game for now.

Despite my effusive praise, I do have one pretty strong criticism that I’m not sure was relevant on the NES or if it’s a result of the controller I’m using to play on the Switch, but hitting the up button on the D-pad causing Kirby to float rather than tapping double jump made the game a lot more frustrating than it needed to be. Initially it was just muscle memory from later games tripping me up when I wanted to glide, but more often I found myself accidentally pressing up and sending Kirby into a float when I didn’t want to because I needed to attack. It caused the otherwise Pretty Fun boss fights to be a lot more frustrating than they needed to be.

Still, in spite of that big point of frustration, I’d probably say that from my experience giving honest to god NES games without any reworks from later re-releases the old college try because Why Not, They’re There and Free (Kind Of), this is probably my favorite of the ones I’ve played. It’s just good shit! God I love Kirby man.