Dream Land is under siege again! Our hero, Kirby, returns to instigate a rescue. King Dedede is snatching Dream Land’s food supply, but he’s not the only one! Dyna Blade, Meta Knight and many other bad guys are on the loose and wreaking havoc across the country.
Use any of Kirby’s awesome powers to create a “helper” to aid you in battle. Or have a friend join you in two-player action by taking control of Kirby’s sidekick. Help Kirby work through EIGHT challenging games packed with action and adventure. Enter the fray in Spring Breeze, engage in a foot race against King Dedede in Gourmet Race, and face off against a winged warrior in Dyna Blade.
Adjust your reaction abilities on Megaton Punch and Samurai Kirby, then blast your way through Great Cave Offensive, Revenge of Meta Knight, and Milky Way Wishes. Every game is different AND some extra special surprises await you!
The game:
It’s the classic Kirby game and more in 8 great games! The gameplay is both fun and challenging at times. Everyone will enjoy controlling Kirby in Dreamland and beyond. You make your way 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 many enemies with powers, so you won’t always have the same powers over and over again.
The powers you get also do more than one thing, for example: if you get the lightning ability, you can shoot the lightning regularly, charge it up for a powerful blast, grab an enemy and shoot them and make these blue dots come out of the wand hurting to enemies. When you have a power, you can also create a helper based on the power you have. The companion will help you on your quest and can be controlled by AI or a friend of yours can control it for you.
You can also find power-ups and tap on them to get them in some places instead of absorbing and swallowing enemies. Kirby can fly, if you didn’t know that and if you want you can fly over things. When you are underwater, you can use certain powers, but otherwise you have a special attack underwater.
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 and are fun at the same time. When Kirby stops flying, he spits out a cloud of dust, which is capable of damaging enemies. Kirby can also slide when he runs to hurt enemies.
Here’s a rundown of the Kirby Superstar games shown in the instruction booklet…
Spring Breeze – King DeDeDe has stolen all 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 fight your way through the 4 stages that you must overcome. Each contains a boss with which you must fight. It’s not challenging for most players, but it’s a nice way to sit back and have some fun with classic Kirby.
Dyna Blade – A giant bird named Dyna Blade is terrorizing the land and guess who’s ready to stop it! Yes, that’s right, Kirby is! Offering more levels, which will be more challenging for players than Spring Breeze, Dyna Blade is a much bigger Kirby game contained in Kirby Superstar. There are also some secrets, which I’ll let you find on your own.
Gourmet Run – After scaling a very high mountain to get the precious food on top, Kirby discovers that King DeDeDe is also on the mountain and intends to take all the food with him. Kirby and King DeDeDe decide to have a food-gathering race to see who gets to keep 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 against the clock to try to beat your best times.
Big Cave Offensive: During a picnic, Kirby falls into a hole and discovers a gigantic cave rumored to hold millions of dollars in treasure. Kirby must go through the cave and collect all the treasure. Well, you don’t have to collect everything, but if you want 100% in your game file, you have to collect everything. The Great Cave Offensive poses a challenge for even the most skilled players because some treasure can be quite difficult to find and acquire.
Return of MetaKnight – The evil MetaKnight and his crew have set out to conquer the land of dreams with their gigantic flying ship. Naturally, Kirby jumps on the warp star and heads into action. Revenge of MetaKnight can be quite a challenge for 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 fighting, causing the days and nights in Dreamland to mix. Guide Kirby through many different planets in an attempt to return things to normal. Instead of the classic swallow and copy powers, Milky Way Wishes is different. You find the powers and then you have acquired them permanently. You can then switch between different powers anytime you want and this concept puts a fun new spin on Kirby action. Milky Way Wishes is extremely fun and quite difficult too at times.
Megaton Punch – This minigame is quite entertaining but also quite easy. You can play with 1 or 2 players and select a level for yourself. You first 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 is higher than your opponents, you win. It’s that easy.
Samurai Kirby – Like the other minigames, you select the number of players and the level of difficulty in Samurai Kirby. This game is a reflex test and requires you to press any button as soon as you see “!”. Whoever presses it first wins. Don’t press any button too soon because you will be disqualified if you do it too fast. Samurai Kirby offers many challenges and fun.
Graphics:
One of the best on a SNES, Kirby has never looked better. Most of the enemies look very nice and well detailed. The food you use to restore Kirby’s health is also very good. The backgrounds are simply amazing and show the fascinating world of Dreamland well. All the movements on the screen look excellent; Kirby’s and enemies. The small cut scenes are almost perfect and very well detailed. Kirby Superstar is one of the best games in terms of graphics on the SNES.
Sound quality:
Everyone loves listening to Kirby’s music, right? It’s easy on the ears and flows well with the game. Some settings may have mediocre music, but most are just the best. The sounds are also great and match the actions cleanly and almost perfectly. If you hit something with a certain force it will make the sound you imagine it will make. When you become invincible you get great fast paced music and who could forget Kirby’s dance music. Everyone loves Kirby’s dance, or at least I think so.
Game controls:
Kirby Superstar controls are really good and easy to learn. You use the D-Pad to move Kirby and you can double tap the D-Pad left or right to run. You can also press the D-Pad up to enter a door and press down to make Kirby sit or crouch. While pressing down and B at the same time, the star warrior will slide. Pressing the B button will make Kirby jump while continuously pressing it will make Kirby fly.
Your flight time is infinite so don’t worry about falling down. 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 can also be used to shoot air bullets while flying and use the water gun underwater. When you have a power up you can use the A button to create a helper and if you don’t have a power up you can use the A button to get rid of the helper.
The L and R buttons make Kirby protect himself from most enemies and obstacles, but not all. 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 teleport Kirby or self-destruct if you’re the helper and can’t get too far away from Kirby, but this isn’t much of a problem.
The replay value:
With eight games in one plus the mini-games, you’ll be playing Kirby Superstar for a long time. Collecting all the treasure in Great Cave Offensive and all the power-ups in Milky Way Wishes will take a while. If you have a second player as your helper, you’ll be playing these games over and over again just for the fun of the multiplayer feature.
Final thoughts:
That’s Kirby Super Star in a nutshell. I highly recommend this game to anyone who owns a SNES, and I’m really disappointed that we never saw a GBA port or anything like that, but oh well. They took the good stuff from the first Kirby game, added a few more minigames, set about finding all the secrets to get to the real ending, and made it two player. What more 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 even more innovative. If anyone ever gets a chance they should give this game a try, you surely won’t regret it!
