Between now and that last post, I’ve got my PC’s audio working! Huzzah! Turns out I haven’t completely forgotten everything I used to know about computers. It’s just hidden under many layers of dust and dates I now have to remember.
Many months ago Nintendo released some screenshots for a new Kirby game on the DS. They didn’t put a title to it, but I could tell right away that it was a remake Kirby Super Star. I was ecstatic. Sure, ports are generally frowned upon, but KSS is the best Kirby game ever, and given the generally tepid quality of Kirby Squeak Squad, there’s no guarantee a new game would have been better.
When I was a young ‘un, I first saw Kirby Super Star in an issue of Nintendo Power and knew it had to be mine. I owned and loved every Kirby game up until that point (minus Kirby’s Dream Course), and ran as fast as I could to tell my parents that I needed it or I would die. I had used this excuse before (Chrono Trigger, Earthbound), and it had been unsuccessful. Fortunately, my birthday was right around the corner, and what did I receive? Oh yeah. Kirby.
I played that fucking game so much that I’m surprised the cartridge never died out. I played alone, I played with my brothers, I played with friends. I played through all the games in Kirby Super Star upwards of twenty times (it took a lot longer back then!), and never got bored of it.
So naturally I grabbed the port. I had blazed through a ROM version of the original game in a single sitting not six months earlier, but was anxious to get my hands on this prettier version. And it was so much more! There are nearly twice as many games to play in this new version, and most of the new ones are really hard! Revenge of the King is a sweet “dark world” take on Spring Breeze, and Meta Knightmare has you burn through most of the original game as Meta Knight. Helper to Hero and The True Arena are great variations on the classic The Arena, and make it hard again. I used to get so frustrated with The Arena back in the day, but lately I can breeze through it without more than a couple nicks, and the new games just prove that while I’ve mastered what the original game threw at me, I’ve still got a lot of work before I can say I’ve truly conquered the fresh material.
In the end, Kirby Super Star Ultra is exactly what I’d hoped it would be: a prettier version of a game that I dearly loved in my youth. And then it’s more too, with all the extra games! Of course, it’s a Kirby game, so for the most part it’s super-easy, but Kirby games are always fun, even that unusually lame Nintendo 64 entry. Do I recommend? Hells yeah! Just make sure you have someone else to play with: half the fun of Kirby Super Star is playing God with player 2. Also stealing all the food from your dying friend.