Kirby gained his identity with this entry. This is what you expect out of the series, the ability to take the abilities of your enemies and use them to your own advantage. Naturally, this is the earliest form of this staple mechanic, so you shouldn't expect Smash Bros-like movesets where holding each direction lets you use a power in a different way. The abilities here come down to one single move, one single advantage. But swapping in and out of them is still just as quick, and even this early on, using each power is encouraged to solve bite-sized puzzles for 1-ups, health items, and the occasional secret button. Of course, you could also just try and stick to one powerup, if you're interested, but that'd mean you wouldn't be taking full advantage of the level design given to you. I won't fault you if you really grow to like that Sword, though, I know I did.

Being a very late NES title, Kirby's Adventure has some wonderful art direction on display. The closer you get to the end, the more you start appreciating the variety of colorful and dream-like backgrounds. This was undoubtfully a team that was ready to work on a SNES title, but had to make-do with making one of the best looking NES games instead.

There is plenty of charm to this game, amongst a relaxing difficulty, a great soundtrack, an exciting final boss, and a couple neat one-button minigames to play around with. Under these circumstances, I'd rate it 4.5 stars at least, but there is one single major flaw that really puts a stain on Kirby's Adventure's otherwise impeccable quality: Unresponsive inputs. In other words, sometimes when you press the jump button... Kirby doesn't jump.

Now, I thought I was crazy at first, because this is barely talked about on the internet. I thought it might've been my controller breaking down, and it was time for a replacement. But, every game I've played before and after this one did not have this problem. And I managed to officially confirm it when I asked my friend to keep an eye out when they played the game themselves, and it turned out they also reported instances of the controls randomly failing to respond.

And this fucks the game up, because it feels completely random and unpredictable when it happens, and it has predictably led to several instances of me running straight into an enemy or a bottomless pit because Kirby did not jump when I pressed the button. There's nothing worse than a game where you cannot trust the controls to do what you want. It may be hyperbolic to call it "unplayable," but it's certainly a big enough annoyance to deter me from wanting to play it agai- oop, hold on.

The GBA remake is out there, and plays overall better, although you'd have to to accept that the art style on that one is way different, and imo did not hold up as well as the NES counterpart. I did however, learn just now that there's a romhack for the NES version that's meant to fix the inputs. So, perhaps this is the definitive way to play the game? I should try it out sometime! Especially since playing the game without it does not seem like a good idea these days.