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Video Game Review: Kirby Super Star Ultra
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Published: October 14, 2008
System: Nintendo DS
Publisher: Nintendo
Reviewer's rating: ***1/2
ESRB rating: Everyone
Game type: Action Platform
Kind of like: "Super Mario Bros." with marshmallows
Best feature: It's a fantastic remake of the Super Nintendo classic with some new unlockable minigames.
Worst feature: The action starts off mind-numbingly easy and the new minigames are pretty lame.
The bottom line: The original "Kirby Super Star" debuted in 1996 on the Super Nintendo just as video game enthusiasts were junking their classic 2-D systems and turning their gaze to the polygonal 3-D horizon. It was a wonderful 2-D platformer that suffered the same "system gap" fate that another top-shelf Nintendo platformer, "Yoshi's Island," saw.
When Nintendo decided to release a GBA reworking of "Yoshi's Island" to the masses in 2002 (as "Super Mario Advance 3"), it found a new audience of die-hard platforming fans that had missed it the first time around.
Here's hoping the same happens for our little pink friend.
The gameplay mechanics can be summed up easily: You control Kirby — a pink puffball thingamabob — through advancing 2-D platforming levels filled with hoards of evil baddies.
What sets Kirby aside from other pink puffballs is that he can suck up those evil baddies and acquire their powers. Throughout his adventures, he spends time as a fire-breather, a ninja, a snorkler, a swordsman — even a rock.
The fresh angle on the original "Super Star" was that it contained six separate adventures in one cartridge. Spring Breeze, the first available adventure, is nothing more than a glorified tutorial. The others ramp up in difficulty and vary in quality. One frustrating game is a treasure hunt of sorts that finds Kirby needing to find all 60 hidden chests to proceed. Milky Way Wishes, one of the final unlockable adventures, puts Kirby in the middle of an intergalactic battle between the sun and moon of a distant planet. Yeah, it's as awesome as it sounds.
The DS remake has all these originals plus a few extra minigames. They are of the "hey look we used the touchscreen" variety that early DS adopters found scattered as novelties in games like Super Mario 64 DS. They aren't horrible, but they are relatively uninspired efforts that feel like they were just thrown in for box art bullet points.
Luckily, the new extras aren't a deal breaker. "Kirby Super Star Ultra" is an absolute gem of a platformer, even after all these years. It's a worthy addition to any 2-D enthusiast's collection.
And hey, if you're low on the funds right now, you can always buy the original off of the Wii Virtual Console for a mere $8. Portability aside, the extra features are not worth $22.
You probably could have timed that a little better, Nintendo.
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