Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards

Platforming with a unique twist

There's nothing particularly unique about the platforming environment of Kirby 64. There are, well, platforms of course, sprinkled with enemies, projectiles, and various obstacles. What makes this game unique instead is Kirby's copy ability, which lets you inhale enemies and digest them to gain one of 7 special powers: Burn, Stone, Ice, Needle, Bomb, Spark, and Cutter. Even better, you can combine two powers to create yet another power, resulting in 49 unique powers you can experiment and have fun with. As a kid I had a nice sheet from Nintendo Power depicting all the combos, but it's now nicely documented on WiKirby, the Kirby encyclopedia, for more modern gamers.

The powers themselves range from completely useless (I'm thinking in particular of the stone + cutter combo that turns Kirby into an immovable fish akin to Magikarp) to steeply overpowered ones (bomb + cutter = exploding ninja stars) that let you easily kill any boss without even trying. So in some ways, it feels unbalanced and broken, but as we learned from more recent games like Balatro, sometimes it's fun to break the game and feel all-powerful. Certain powers are necessary for collecting all the crystal shards, an optional challenge that contributes to the 100% completion of the game. Sometimes, the powers needed to collect hidden crystals are obviously planted within the level; sometimes, you have to backtrack to another level to collect powers, which isn't the most fun, but does make the game more replayable.

An aside about Adeleine

As a kid, my favorite character in this game was Adeleine, a painter with a stereotypical artist's beret. At first, she is an enemy, posessed by a dark fuzzy blob that's part of the 'Dark Matter' antagonizing the fairies' home planet of Ripple Star. After a quick battle, however, she becomes a helpful friend to Kirby, painting Maxim Tomatoes and other items that assist you on your journey. I'm actually kind of bummed to see that Adeleine doesn't appear meaningfully in any other Kirby games, because as a young girl obsessed with art she was one of the only relatable characters in the games I played as a kid.

What didn't age well

There are just a couple things I don't love about this game: First is the way the gigantic UI needlessly takes up about 25% of the screen area. And the second is the choice to use the N64's d-pad controls instead of the control stick. There are hardly any games that used the d-pad so this one feels so unnatural. It makes sense, being that all the previous Kirby games used directional pads for movement, and since this game is locked to a 2D-ish horizontal perspective.

Difficulty (or lack thereof)

Aside from the D-pad controls, this game is short and fun and doesn't test your patience like many platformers do. The fact that Kirby can fly means the platforms are a little forgiving, and having 6 health points along with plenty of healing items peppered throughout each course means there's more room for experimenting with power combos. Like most of the core Kirby titles it's an easy game, but not in a bad way -- not every game needs to be Super Meat Boy or Ghosts n Goblins or whatever. The levels are pretty simplistic and there aren't that many of them, making this a fun game to beat in a weekend or to play with a young kid.

Music

I adore the music in this game. It is so frantic and cooky-sounding as you'd expect from the vibrant, rainbow-colored art. Not exactly "chill" but so, so creative and fun.

Minigames

One other thing that rips in this game is the minigames. Though there are only 3 of them, my friends and I played these for an absurdly long time. In 100-Yard Hop (above), players must race to the finish by pressing A to jump two spaces or pressing B to jump one space, avoiding puddles and banana peels along the way. It's one of those perfect games that's super easy to learn but hard to master, especially on 'Intense!' mode on single-player which I still haven't managed to beat. "Checkerboard Chase" is also fun, slightly longer than a typical Mario Party level and pretty replayable too. The gameplay in "Bumper Crop Bump" is pretty basic but sabotaging other players' attempts to catch falling fruit can be really funny.