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EatThePath's Kirby's Adventure (NES)
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| [January 22, 2007 01:26:16 AM]
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My experience playing K’s A was definitely different this time. This is because the game got harder, so the “creative expression” I was talking about last time wasn’t as prominent, though it certainly still present. I love that almost everything can be done a few different ways, like hitting the “blow me up” blocks. Or getting through a room might entail using the laser power to shoot down floating baddies to clear the air for jumping over spiky holes, or if you have one of the various shoot across the screen attack powers, like the tire ability, you can just zoom over each gap and forget the bad guys.
Even so, there were a lot more rooms where quick reactions save you from losing a life point to a suddenly appearing hazard. Also, the density of bad guys has increased, which serves a few purposes. Obviously, it makes things more difficult. But more guys (usually of different types) means more “weapon” choices, and more guys also means unleashing those “weapons” can be more spectacular when a whole series of baddies bite it in one explosive action.
Speaking of mass destruction, I saw some new powers which keep pace with the increased dangers Kirby faces. I fought an alarm clock miniboss who’s showed up twice so far who grants you a three time “clear the screen” ability. I also got the “hyper” powerup which is not something you ingest and keep, like Kirby’s other powers. It’s essentially just the star powerup from Mario. And as always, you can still fly past everyone, though there are more and more dropping and flying and jumping bad guys to make that less effective.
K’s A reminds me of Mario at times, and also MegaMan. There are similarities in the “weapon” switching and the platformer layouts. There was a particular segment of a level which involved dodging intricate patterns of projectiles fired by cannons which gave be a powerful déjà vu association with the airship levels of Mario 3. There have been some door sequences too that are straight out of Mario castles. The boss fights are very similar to MegaMan fights, though probably less trying. Definitely a similar feeling though when you find a powerup which makes it easy.
All in all, I see a lot of things in K’s A that probably would have blown me away at the time it came out, if I didn’t realize they weren’t innovations so much as techniques taken from other games. But good design is good design, and using things you’ve seen elsewhere doesn’t detract from the fun had by the player. In fact, I’ve seen and played a lot of bad games that try to be “innovative” by avoiding good things that other games have and trying something new. Too often it’s just a bad idea, the game isn’t fun, nor innovative. So I can respect K’s A as an amalgam of successful NES designs, because everything it does, it does well, and almost every inclusion is a thoughtful one.
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| [January 19, 2007 08:30:02 AM]
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I am lucky to have chosen another great game for our second week's assignment. (Of course, it's from a hand selected list, so it had something going for it from the beginning.) I had a lot of fun playing the first "world" of K's A, which consisted of a few stages accessed via a level select screen which is actually just another level of the game, something I thought innovative when I saw it years later in other games. The controls are pretty standard, and where K's A deviates from other platformers they are intuitive and easy to pick up. The gist of gameplay is quickly apparent: evade bad guys and their attacks while traversing Mario-esque levels. The special part of K's A is that you can ingest most bad guys with Kirby's signature inhale move, now familiar to legions of Super Smash Brothers players. The more powerful bad guys will even give you a power up when you "eat" them, which is generally a sort of attack. This lends a kind of RPG element to the game on a very very small scale, but you don't have to put any hard thought into what your course of action is. To wit: KIRBY. CAN. FLY. Pesky basically-goombas clogging your route? Getting tired of obliterating them with firebreathing Kirby? Just take a nonstop flight to The End of the Level. If you read my logs from last week, you'll know that I'm starting to sound like I did writing on RoboBlitz; this is because K's A is reminding me a lot of that game. You have so many abilities that are so strong, with hardly any actual limitations on your strategy (in terms of what attacks harm what guys etc. etc.), that achieving the in-game goals take a back seat to having fun with all the ways you can get there. Right, did I mention you can eat the guy who turns into a whirlwind, granting you the same power, so you can turn into a twister and slide through 4 screens with essentially the same invulnerability as a star would grant in Mario. ...? Did I? Cause you can. For as long as you want. If you're not already flying past everyone.
I would end there, but on a serious note, consider that most games make you wait for character enhancements, but from the outset you have everything at your fingertips in K's A. I think this bolsters the argument that games are a form of art, because in such a setup the focus is on creative expression, not challenge and victory. This distinction as art is especially interesting because as I've just described it, there is a performance component as well as a creation/consumption component to games as art. So. Back to more interpretive thrash you with your own powers that I stole from you dance. :D
This entry has been edited 1 time. It was last edited on Jan 19th, 2007 at 09:14:31.
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EatThePath's Kirby's Adventure (NES)
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Current Status: Playing
GameLog started on: Friday 19 January, 2007
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