Kirby’s Adventure harkens back to the days of old when Nintendo supported their older hardware long after introducing a more powerful console. The Super Nintendo was released in 1993, but due to the popularity of the NES some developers were still releasing titles for the aged 8-bit system. That’s not to say that the market was flooded with new titles for the defunct console, because it wasn’t, but the slow trickle of new software was a nice nod for those who weren’t quite ready to upgrade. The most famous of these is Kirby’s Adventure which was developed by Hal Laboratory. This was the second title in the franchise, and though it wasn’t a direct sequel to Kirby’s Dream Land this is what laid down the foundation for the future of the franchise. Furthermore, it also proved to be one of the very best platformers at that point in time. While most of us had moved on to the Super Nintendo this was an incredible reason to dust off the NES.
Kirby’s Adventure is the first follow up to Dream Land on the Game Boy. The handheld adventure was a simplistic but mildly entertaining platformer, but it wasn’t until this release that the pink puff ball finally found his groove. The story here is as follows; our protagonist (Kirby, in case you couldn’t already guess) is a round creature with the ability to suck up and swallow most enemies. He lives in Dream Land and one day discovers that he’s incapable of having dreams. It turns out that his nemesis, the evil penguin King Dedede has stolen the star rod which is the source of this phenomenon. It’s up to Kirby to retrieve it and save the dreams of every living thing. It’s pretty cheesy but at least this installment introduces us to the nefarious Meta Knight character that has since become a fan favorite. At its core Kirby’s Adventure is a side scrolling platformer, but it features several mechanics that make it far from typical. You choose a stage from an interactive hub world with each being represented by a door. By completing levels (requiring only for you to reach the end with your life bar intact) you unlock more areas in the hub world featuring new stages and even bonus games to gain power-ups or extra lives. It’s similar to world navigation in Super Mario Bros. 3.
As I mentioned earlier Kirby at first appears to be your typical platform game. You guide Kirby from left to right across stages full of enemies, environmental hazards, and pits. He can run, jump, and swim but his primary attack involves sucking up enemies into his mouth. You can choose to either swallow them or spit them out as a projectile attack against other foes or obstacles. The big new feature Kirby’s Adventure brings to the table is the introduction of the character’s now signature ability to consume specific enemies and gain their primary attack. This made a huge difference, and is the reason why Kirby exploded to such heights of popularity. While not every single enemy has an ability that you can copy from them a significant number of them do and offer a variety of effects. These are mostly projectiles and include breathing fire, freezing opponents with arctic winds, boomerangs which can be thrown, a laser attack, and more. Upon taking damage you lose your current ability but is represented by a star icon that bounces around the screen for a short while. Should you suck it back up you can regain it, but you only have a small window of opportunity. Either way these powers are plentiful and you’ll rarely find yourself without one.
Unfortunately Kirby’s Adventure suffers from the same problem just about every other installment in the franchise does. It’s just too darn easy. It’s clear that Kirby is a character marketed more toward children, but that hasn’t stopped Nintendo from making a hair pulling title in the past (especially around the time of this release) and so it doesn’t make sense as to why they stunt the difficulty so thoroughly. Thanks to Kirby’s life bar he won’t lose a life unless he takes six hits. That’s a bit too much by platformer standards. The only time I found myself challenged here was during the boss encounters when I didn’t have a special ability, and even then the patterns are easy enough to memorize. To make matters worse his innate ability to fly takes the challenge out of any platforming. The only time I actually fell down a pit was when I forgot I had an enemy in the pink puffball’s mouth and that is a rare occurrence. While being too easy can be the kiss of death for some games Kirby is able to transcend this issue thanks to it’s excellent level design. Each stage is creatively designed and an absolute joy to play. The ease of play paired with the creativity and diversity make this a leisurely affair. It can be completed in just a few hours with little to no tension, but it’s so memorable and enjoyable that it sticks with players long after the credits sequence.
This is a late release in the life span of the original Nintendo, and by the time of release developer HAL had unlocked a ton of tricks on the aged hardware. They put all of them to use here; Kirby’s Adventure is a technical feat. It’s not quite up to par with Super Nintendo releases of the time, but it’s still impressive nonetheless. The sprite work is phenomenal. There are a ton of different enemy designs and they all move fluidly and with a lot of character. The only thing that’s lacking are the backgrounds, but some areas make use of incredible (by system standards) rotational effects as well as parallax scrolling. Had this game released just a few years earlier it would have been an absolute sight to behold, but even now I still find my jaw dropping with what the original Nintendo was capable of. Unfortunately you have a fair share of flickering and slowdown, but any gamer who owned a NES is more than familiar with this and it’s not any worse than usual here. The soundtrack is also really well done. Many of the themes here have gone on to become series staples, and the various background musics will get stuck in your head forever. The soundtrack is whimsical, bouncy, and fun. It’s well worth seeking out a compilation of this music.
Kirby’s Adventure is one of the quintessential NES games. It’s a tragedy that it was released at a point when it would be overshadowed by the 16-bit generation because most people didn’t play this at the time of release. Had HAL pushed this release out sooner I have no doubt that it would have made waves on the level of Super Mario Bros. 3. Kirby’s Adventure is a timeless classic that still holds up amazingly well. So well in fact that Nintendo released a remake for it on the Gameboy Advance. While that’s a great version there’s still something magical about the original cartridge release. This deserves a spot in every collection.
