Kirby's Adventure

The Good
Kirby's Adventure is a NES game released late in the life of the NES, and however it's still a notable game. although this game has now quite a few sequels for others game consoles, this is the only Kirby game I've ever played yet so I cannot say how the series turned out or anything, I'll review this game as a standalone game.

Being one of those late NES game, Kirby's Adventure really impress on the graphics department. You'll be constantly thinking (wow, the NES can do this ?). The whole game is really cute and nicely designed/flavored. It's really easy to fell in love for the game's universe with it's cute graphics. You control Kirby (not so surprising) a little pink ball with eyes and a mouth, and that can take almost any form he likes. He's really cute.

This game is a linear platformer, and you go from one level to the next one, occasionally having to defeat bosses on your way. Kirby has a really impressive load of moves possibles, and that's probably one of the most impressive thing with the game. Basically he can jump and slide (like Megaman), nothing too impressive so far. However, he can also inhale air to float in the air (effectively allowing him to fly), and he can swim as well. While he basically cannot attack and can only dodge, he still have the ability to inhale enemies and then either throw them back to other stuff, or effectively eat them, and then he gains the ability of the eaten enemy. Not all enemies have abilities (nor all of them are eatable, some will damage him instead), but those who does mostly have great abilities. After inhaling enemies, Kirby can have really great powers such as using weapons or magic that have various effects and ranges. Even if a couple of abilities are useless, most of them are cool (also there is one enemy that makes Kirby sleep instead, and then he's vulnerable, just like the sleep aliment in most RPGs, so beware !).

Most music in Kirby's Adventure, while not awesome, is definitely worth noting for being fast-paced and overall happy. For some reason it sounds really different from all other NES music around, I don't really know why. I just uses different "instruments" than most NES games. The boss music annoyed me tough, so did a couple of other music heard in the game.

Finally the gameplay is very varied and the controls are perfect and responsive, there is no reason to really dislike Kirby's Adventure, as the game is solid and works well. Also something I liked is the fact that even if the game is linear, all stages are re-visitable, and there is a considerable amount of secrets to be found around, in case you'll be bored.

The Bad
Kirby's Adventure doesn't come without its set of flaws. The bigger flaw is that the game is really short, easy, and unvaried, so that after beating it there isn't much reason for you to come back. Sure there is extra minigames (who aren't fun anyway) and a "bossfight" mode which allow you to fight all bosses in a row, which is cool, but you've already beat them anyway.

Because Kirby can do so many things, there is many way to bypass the difficulties of the game, and this definitely make the game too easy (more specifically Kirby's ability of flying simply make all holes completely harmless). although an excuse for this would be that the game basically targets children audience, some later bosses are still really tough. More specifically the final bosses (there is 3 of them) are all 3 REALLY hard, I mean all the difficulty that lacks through the whole game is compensated by how hard the final bosses are. While most NES games are hard all the way along but have a really easy final boss (Contra, Gradius, etc...), Kirby is really the other way around.

Oh, and yeah, a backwards from having that much gameplay features on the NES is that the game suffers from really heavy lags/slowdowns, often it's hard to bypass them. Another flaw is that the game features battery saves, which is rare for a NES platformer (saves were initially reserved for RPGs), but however, whenever the game saves your game is a complete mystery. It just does so automatically when you complete a stage without telling nor asking anything to you, and that sucks. They should have added a proper save feature that allow you to either save or not.

The Bottom Line
Kirby's Adventure is a NES game that really show what the NES can do graphics and gameplay wise. However, while the game is impressive and has a lot of features, despite the inspired levels and cute characters and enemies, the game is still too easy and you'll likely not found the adventure epic for some reason. However, it's still a good little cute game and while I'm far from being a hardcore fan of this game, I still think it's decent and should be tempted for people who want a break form violent games and want a nice little and unique NES platformer. I don't consider it as one of the best games around not is it a must-have or anything.

While people that like the NES and platformers should definitely give it a try being warded of its flaws, other people probably don't miss much by not playing this.

The Good
There are a lot of different enemies and you just keep discovering more as the story progresses, this is nice since most games (Like Zelda II) have specific enemies for each zone whereas in this game you can always be surprised by something. This is also important because you need those enemies to give Kirby weapons like a sword or a boomerang. Also nice is that the enemies and Kirby don't get any stronger during the game, so even the enemies you encountered in the first level can prove a challenge due to the brilliant level design (read: spawn-locations).

The whole game is very cute and colorful which is very nice for the kids and for some reason I kind of liked it myself as well, does this mean that I am not manly anymore, I don't think so, I just think that it's because game doesn't rub it in your face. Yes, you are a pink blob trying to save a land of dreams by defeating a penguin, but the game focuses on platforming in colorful environments, you never have to go care-bears on anything or use the power of love to solve problems. The kids are probably the only ones who notice the cuteness while I only noticed that platforming.

I will admit it: This game was quite a challenge for me, the guy who played roughly 500 games since he started in 1998, had to try his hardest to beat a Kirby game, I am ashamed. The problem is that I never really played 2D-platformers all that much and the level designer made sure that a lot of jumps are very tricky to pull off without bumping into enemies, he also made sure that you often run into the hardest combinations of enemies possible. Luckily this game is very child-friendly, so if you die you start at the beginning of the screen you were on and if you go game-over you just start the stage again (instead of the whole game or the whole level).

I really like the music in this game because it really fits with the cheerful tone and it's probably in the top ten best soundtracks on the Nintendo Entertainment System which was probably very important because this game came out very late (1993), the Super Nintendo was already available for quite a while, so I can understand a lot of people stopped buying games for the older systems. it also shows that this game was one of the last ones graphic-wise, it's right up there with Super Mario Bros. 3.

You can do a lot of mini-games in between the stages that give you more points and lives, these games are pretty creative (like a western stand-off or eating eggs while avoiding bombs). It's too bad that aside from the arena fights you can't retry any of these games because they close after doing them once, but I can understand this since they are probably meant as a short distraction from normal platforming... and they probably didn't want people to farm lives like crazy.

I want to know who was the person that walked into the office one day and said: "You know what would be cool, if people could play the game with a save-feature, so they don't have to do everything in one sitting", that guy/girl deserves a golden trophy and nothing less. In my Super Mario Bros. 3 review I made the point that I just don't have the time or interest to cancel all my appointments to play through the entire game in one sitting, but in Kirby's Adventure I don't have to do that, I can put the game down for a week and play some other game.

The Bad
There were a few annoying control problems from time to time, like when you want to jump up, but Kirby goes into his flying mode which makes him unable to attack (this was especially annoying during the last boss). At other times it was very hard to hit an enemy with a certain power without getting hit yourself and some powers were just overpowered (such as a spike shield that kills everything it touches or the powers that you get from eating the bosses. I also want to mention entering doors which you do by pressing up, but was often confused for jumping.

I experienced a lot of glitches, mostly graphics related, but the most common one is when I am trying to start up the game and it just keeps repeating two seconds from the opening cinematic over and over again, that one often takes several cartridge-blowing sessions to fix. Most graphics errors involved my screen going dark or textures having seizures, but these were easily fixed by clicking the reset button after finishing the stage. The cartridge is in a perfect state, so I think this is a programming error, although I could be wrong.

The Bottom Line
Kirby's Adventure is probably one of my favorite games and the fact that I got a box with the original price tag on it (69.90 Gulden) gives it some emotional value, it reminds me of better times. The game itself is also great and without a doubt my favorite platformer (not counting Zelda II) thanks to a great level design and a very colorful and charming aesthetic.

If you really don't want to play something this cute, don't worry, I won't force you, but if you want to play a good platformer with a very interesting (a brutal when taken out of context) way to fight enemies, then Kirby's Adventure is definitely a recommendation. This is also a nice game for kids, if I may point out the obvious.

The Good
I must say that everything I have found on this 10 year old cartridge was about as good as Yoshi (NES). I love everything from the levels to the music and gameplay and the way they did the enemies and bosses. And the bonus mini-games were really fun to play.

The Bad
THE GAME WAS WAAAAAAAY TOO FREAKING EASY!!! I swear I could start a brand new game and I could beat this game in less than an hour and a half with ease and RARELY lose a life.

The Bottom Line
You want to have some major fun while playing on the NES? This is DEFINITELY a game to include on your shopping list. Just give this game a try, you WON'T be sorry, trust me.