Dream Land is under siege again! Our hero, Kirby, returns to instigate a rescue. King Dedede is snatching up Dream Land’s food supply, but he is not the only one! Dyna Blade, Meta Knight and a slew of other evil baddies are on the loose and wreaking havoc throughout the land.
Use any of Kirby’s amazing powers to create a “helper” to assist you in battle. Or have a friend join you for some two player action by taking control of Kirby’s helper. Help Kirby work through EIGHT challenging games filled with action and adventure. Enter the fray in Spring Breeze, enter a foot race against King Dedede in Gourmet Race and tackle a winged warrior in Dyna Blade.
Tweak your reaction skills in Megaton Punch and Samurai Kirby, then battle your way through the Great Cave Offensive, Revenge of Meta Knight and Milky Way Wishes. Each game is different AND some extra special surprises are in store for you!
The Gameplay:
It is classic Kirby game play and much more in 8 great games! The gameplay is both fun and challenging at times. Everyone will enjoy controlling Kirby around the Dreamland and beyond. You make your way around by swallowing Kirby’s enemies and then using them as projectiles or you can steal their powers if the enemy you swallowed has one. There are lots of enemies with powers so you won’t always have the same old powers over and over again.
The powers you get also do more than one thing, for example: if you acquire the beam ability you can shoot the beam regularly, charge it up for a powerful blast, grab an enemy and shoot it up and make these blue dots come out of the wand hurting enemies. When you have a power, you can also create a helper based on the power you have. The partner will then help you on your quest and can either be controlled by AI or a friend of yours can control it instead.
You can also find powers and touch them to get them in some places instead of sucking in and swallowing enemies. Kirby can fly, if you already didn’t know that and if you want you can fly over things. When underwater you can use certain powers but otherwise you have a special underwater attack.
The levels are fun and the enemies are well thought out. The bosses are great they range from easy to very hard and provide a good challenge while being fun at the same time. When Kirby stops flying he spits out a cloud of dust, which is capable of hurting enemies. Kirby can also slide when he is running to hurt enemies.
Here is a run down of the games in Kirby Superstar that are shown in the instruction booklet…
Spring Breeze – King DeDeDe has stolen all of the food in Dreamland and once again it’s up to Kirby to stop him. Spring Breeze is a simple yet fun way to introduce new players to the world of Kirby. With the classic Kirby formula of swallowing enemies and stealing their powers you make your way through the 4 stages you must get through. Each one containing a boss you must fight. It isn’t a challenge to most players but a good way to sit back and have some classic Kirby fun.
Dyna Blade – A giant bird called Dyna Blade is terrorizing the land and guess who is up to the task to stop her. Yup, that’s right Kirby is! Offering more levels, which will provide a greater challenge to players than Spring Breeze, Dyna Blade is a much bigger Kirby game contained in Kirby Superstar. There are also some secrets, which I will let you find on your own.
Gourmet Race – After climbing a really tall mountain to get the precious food that lies on top, Kirby discovers King DeDeDe is on the mountain too and he intends to take all the food. Kirby and King DeDeDe decide to have a race collecting food to see who gets it all. Basically you race King DeDeDe to the finish in the stages and collect the food while you’re at it. You can also play time attack to try to beat your best times.
Great Cave Offensive – While on a picnic, Kirby falls into a hole and discovers a gigantic cave rumored to have millions of dollars in treasure. Kirby must make it through the cave and collect all the treasure. Well you don’t have to collect it all but if you want 100% on your game file you need to collect it all. The Great Cave Offensive poses a challenge to even the most skilled players because some treasures can be quite hard to find and acquire.
Return of MetaKnight – The evil MetaKnight and his crew have set out to conquer dreamland with their giant flying ship. Naturally Kirby jumps on the warpstar and heads for the action. Revenge of MetaKnight can pose quite a challenge to people and it has a great story. It also uses the classic Kirby formula but many surprises and challenges await you.
Milky Way Wishes – The sun and the moon are having a fight causing the days and nights in Dreamland to become all mixed up. Guide Kirby through many different planets in an attempt to get things back to normal. Instead of the classic swallowing and copying powers, Milky Way Wishes is different. You find the powers and then you have acquired them permanently. You can then switch between different powers any time you want and this concept puts a whole new fun twist on Kirby action. Milky Way Wishes is extremely fun and quite difficult also at times.
Megaton Punch – This minigame is quite entertaining but also quite easy. You can play 1 or 2 players and select a level for yourself. First you set Kirby’s power meter by pressing any button when the power meter is full, then you press any button again when the two cursors flying around meet exactly to form one and finally you press any button when the swinging pendulum is inside the ring. Now you have your score and if it’s greater than your opponents you win. It’s that simple.
Samurai Kirby – Like the other minigame you select the amount of players and the level of difficulty in Samurai Kirby. This game is a test of reflexes and requires you to press any button as soon as you see “!”. Who ever presses it first wins. Don’t press any button to early because you will be disqualified if you do it too fast. Samurai Kirby offers lots of challenge and fun.
Graphics:
Some of the best on a SNES ever, Kirby has never before looked better. Most of the enemies look really good and well detailed. The food you use to restore Kirby’s health is also very good. The backgrounds are simply amazing and show Dreamland’s fascinating world well. All the movements on the screen look excellent; Kirby’s and the enemies. The little cut scenes are near perfect and really well detailed. Kirby Superstar is one of the best games in terms of graphics on the SNES.
Sound Quality:
Everyone loves to listen to the Kirby music, right? It’s pleasant to the ears and flows well with the game. Some stages may have mediocre music but most of it is simply the best. The sounds are also great and match with the actions cleanly and near perfectly. If you hit something with a certain power the sound you imagine to be heard will be heard. When you become invincible, you get a great fast paced music and who could forget the music from the Kirby dance. Everyone loves the Kirby dance, or at least I would think so.
The Game Controls:
The controls in Kirby Superstar are really good and easy to learn. You use the D-Pad to move Kirby around and can double tap the D-Pad right or left to dash. You also can press up on the D-Pad to go into a door and press down to make Kirby sit/duck. While pressing down and B at the same time will cause the star warrior to slide. Pressing the B button will make Kirby jump while pressing it continuously will cause Kirby to fly.
Your flying time is infinite so do not worry about falling. The Y button is probably the most important in the entire game as it causes Kirby to swallow enemies, which you can then spit out at other enemies or use to acquire an ability. The Y button also can be used to shoot air bullets while flying and use the water gun while under water. When you have a power you can use the A button to create a helper and if you have no power you can use the A button to get rid of the helper.
The L and R buttons cause Kirby to guard protecting him from most but not all enemies and obstacles. Start pauses the game and if you want to reset it you just have to press the Start, Select, L and R buttons simultaneously. You can also use the A button to warp to Kirby or self destruct yourself if you are the helper and can’t go too far away from Kirby but this is not too big of a problem.
The Replay Value:
With eight games in one plus the mini games, you will be playing Kirby Superstar for a long time. Collecting all the treasure in the Great Cave Offensive and all the powers in Milky Way Wishes will take you a while. If you have a second player to be the helper, you will be beating these games over and over again simply due to the fun of the multiplayer feature.
Final Thoughts:
So that is Kirby Super Star in a nutshell. I highly recommend this game to anyone with a SNES, and I am really disappointed that we never saw a port for GBA or something, but oh well. They took what was good about the first Kirby game, put in some more mini-games, made it about finding all the secrets to get the real ending, and made it two player. What else could you want?
Even with the release of Kirby Crystal Shards for the N64, I still think this is the best of the Kirby games. This one did everything perfectly, however the first one was still more innovative. If anyone ever has the chance, they should give this game a try, they surely will not regret it!
