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TranceJunkie's Kirby's Adventure (NES)
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| [January 23, 2007 08:33:21 PM]
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It took until the Sun and Moon boss at the end of the fourth world to get to something challenging in this game. It took probably a good 5 minutes to figure out exactly how to defeat this boss. Normally the player simply waits until the boss throws a projectile at Kirby, and suck it up and spit it back at him. This time there are two enemies, the sun and the moon. One is always in the sky and the other is always on the ground charging at you. Ever so often the one in the sky will shoot projectiles, but these are difficult to catch because of the enemy on the ground. Eventually, I got the hang of it and beat them handily.
A wonderful aspect of the game is the sprites and background art. HAL Laboratories, the creators of Air Fortress and Super Smash Bros. are quite good at using what is available to make the best of things. Although, it looks eerily like Super Mario Bros. in some places, the castle for instance, and most of the first world, they have done an amazing job at creating clean and interactive levels with the limited palette of the NES they are working with. One of my favorite levels is the air ship level, again looks a lot like Super Mario Bros. which consists of blimps and platforms with propellers on them. The propellers make Kirby's floating ability, and in fact jump at all, difficult to use, thank you, and therefore forces the player to carefully time their jumps as to not be blown off the blimps. The propeller animation is also just cool to watch. The good production value of this game is also evident in the tower level which uses an almost hypnotic parallax effect for the tower. As Kirby moves across the screen he seems to move around the tower, which looks really cool for the NES. Kirby may be only a few pixels across, 16 x 16, which is quite small even for an NES character, but there is a lot of feeling and motion expressed in those few pixels.
Finally, an all important aspect: the music. Kirby's Adventure has some great music. Similar, again, to Super Mario Bros. the music is fast paced and catchy. Very catchy. I find myself humming the tunes now and again while not playing the game. This adds to game play by making it exciting to play the game. The fast music encourages the quick completion of the level. Somehow, just carefully walking through the level destroying each enemy is not much fun to do. Speed is what it is all about.
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| [January 23, 2007 08:32:55 PM]
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The intro clip of this game really sets the mood for how fun it is to play. “First you draw a great big circle. Then you dot the eyes. Add a great big smile. And presto, its Kirby!” This is the jingle the appears on screen before the slash screen. At first play the game seems far to simple, and much like Super Mario Bros. The fact that Kirby can float indefinitely definitely makes the game too easy for the first few dozen levels. I found myself beating almost the first world entirely by floating over everything. Not a single enemy could touch me. I think it would have been better to have perhaps a limited amount of floating around would have made the game a little more difficult. Despite this, the game is still a lot of fun. First of all the level selection takes place in rooms where the unexplored areas are covered. Once the player has beaten a level, Kirby plants a flag and more of the levels are revealed. The mystery of what portions of the map will be revealed next creates as sense of accomplishment because the players actions have created real change in the world not just opened up the door to another level.
In addition to levels, there are also fun mini games such as catching eggs, fighting mini bosses, claw machines, and other interesting things. They may sound a little lame, but they show that the game doesn't take itself too seriously, something that I think makes the relationship between the game world and the player stronger and more palpable. In some respects, the game designers are communicating with the player in usually a fun and humorous way. It adds a human element to a mechanized computer system such as the Nintendo Entertainment System
Another fun feature that differentiates Kirby's Adventure from the hundreds of other NES platformers out there, it the powers system. Kirby gobbles up his enemies and, by pressing down, takes their powers. The power system partially makes up for the game so easy. Now the player has a choice about how they are going to go about destroying enemies. Also, some aspects of puzzle games are added and provide additional challenges. For example, there may be an extra life or health behind a series of boxes and only the laser power or bomb power can destroy the boxes. Kirby must find the correct enemy and keep the power, by not receiving damage, and backtrack through the level.
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TranceJunkie's Kirby's Adventure (NES)
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Current Status: Playing
GameLog started on: Tuesday 23 January, 2007
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