Retronauts - Retronauts Episode 462: Kirby, Part 3

Episode Date: June 20, 2022

After taking off during the go-go '90s, Kirby had a bit of an identity crisis in the 2000s. With HAL hard at work on the resource-intensive Smash Bros. games, they barely had time to work on their once-signature series, outside of a few remakes—leaving them with no choice but to leave their pink puffball in the hands of other developers. And all of this was happening as Kirby's hit 100-episode anime hit the airwaves! So what did this terrible decade have in store for HAL's famous food monster? On this episode of Retronauts, join Bob Mackey, Stuart Gipp, Kallie Plagge, and patron Andrew Oliveira (who generously sponsored this episode) as the crew continues their Kirby journey. Retronauts is a completely fan-funded operation. To support the show, and get two full-length exclusive episodes every month, as well as access to 50+ previous bonus episodes, please visit the official Retronauts Patreon at patreon.com/retronauts.

Retronauts is part of the HyperX Podcast Network. Find us and more great shows at podcast.hyperx.com. This week on Retronauts, we demand Amnesty for the Squeak Squad. Hello, everybody. We're back for another installment of our Kirby retrospective. I'm your host for this one, Bob Mackey. And of course, this is another episode of Retronauts. Like our last Kirby episodes, this one is once again sponsored by one of our top tier patrons, Andrew Olivera. And this time around, we're covering where the series was kind of upheaded's ups and downs throughout the 2000s. We're going to be discussing a few remakes, a few outsource games and animated series. Before I begin, who is here with us today, I said, name up front, but who is the patron who sponsored this episode? That'd be me. Mega 10 patron, Andrew Oliver. Welcome back to the show, Andrew. This has been a

very fun series, although I had to play another game, another Kirby game I really didn't like for this one, but I will forgive you because I played some other very, very good ones outside of that. Who is our UK correspondent? Hello, I'm Stuart Jupp, and I'm happy that we've escaped from the

NSNAS and N64 games and have moved on to the Game Boy Advance. Yes. Kirby is where he belongs in the world portable gaming. And who do we have on the line? One of our returning guests, you have not been on the show for a few years now. Yeah, it's been a while. I'm Callie Plagy. I have been all over the place in games media, but I'm now at Polygon. Awesome. And Callie, you have not been on any of our Kirby episodes. Can you talk a bit about your history with the character in the games? Yeah, I still have my Kirby's Dreamland cartridge. So I started very early, and I played a lot of

Crystal Shards, as many of us did. I was a big handheld gamer in this era, so I'm excited to talk about these games, and I recently 100% had forgotten land, which was a big achievement for me, because that was super hard for some reason. Yeah, I'm kind of still on World 2 of that game, because I want to get every extra challenge in every world and all the bonus hat challenges, all the bonus power-up challenges, and yeah, some of those are harder than things in Eldon Ring. Yeah, I switched from Eldon Ring thinking this is going to be a great palate cleanser.

Like, I'm going to have such a relaxing time. And then the bosses were actually super hard. And to 100% it, you have to beat every boss without taking any damage, which I somehow achieved. But I really enjoyed it. I also was definitely that girlfriend who played Kirby in Smash to everyone's chagrin. I forgot to add that part. So Callie is more than qualified to be on this episode. And by the way, just to note to our listeners, I'm recording this from my own place.

I normally recorded Henry's. I can't do that today. But because of that, you may hear a secret fifth guest on the show, and that's my parrot, Louis. I'm going to try to mute myself when I'm not talking, but you may hear him babbling on in the background or squeaking from time to time. I apologize. It's a not ideal setup, but it should be fine. He just whistled to let you know he's here. So let's move on into our first item on the discussion here.

and it is not a game but I'm glad Andrew included this because it's a very important part of Kirby history that I was frankly too old to watch and I was kind of bitter that they made it so late it is an anime series it's called Kirby right back at you I don't like the title of the series

I'll get into Y soon but has anyone have experience with this cartoon that it ran in Japan of course but also it ran on Fox as well Saturday mornings no I also did not watch this a resounding no I had to look at it. I didn't like the 3D looking, kind of ugly

CGI stuff in it. I didn't like, sorry, I didn't like any of the voices. They were all very kind of four kids voices. Nothing wrong with the voice actors, by the way, except for that one. But I just didn't really care for it. It just wasn't what Kirby was to me, you know. Yeah. But it was probably fine, I don't know. I wasn't sure if Callie, you're a bit younger than me, Callie. I wasn't sure if you were of the right age.

group to be watching this when it aired on TV. Maybe you're a little older for this. I think I was slightly too old. Maybe not. I watched a lot of cartoons. I did not watch this though. My boyfriend did though. And he's always singing the theme song. So I watched the theme song intro and I really, I had the same reaction where I was like, this is real four kids. And the CGI of DDD was particularly not to my liking. But Escargoon is an inspired localization. I will say that. Good job on that one. Yeah, they make some creative choices. Andrew, what's your experience with this anime?

You included it, you know, as part of the discussion. I don't know if you are pro Kirby, right back at you, or anti-Kerby right back at you. What is your opinion on this series? I think the general consensus, you know, of just being too old for it, it was definitely geared towards kids. And even though it was done by the four kids group that usually butcher's everything, I don't think there was much to butcher with this Kirby anime. You know, I remember it airing and being excited that, you know,

oh, something video game related was going to be on TV, and I remember watching it and thinking, this is not what I like and then just moving on. And the mix of traditional animation with the CG is it makes the Berserk 2016 series look good. Yeah, it does look incredibly dated. I think at the time, I was 20 when this started airing in America, by the way. I think my main takeaway was that I was bitter that seemingly a much better video game cartoon was on when I was too old to be watching it. Because when I was a kid, it was the era of video game cartoons being very bad for the most part.

The Super Mario Bros. Super Show and Captain N. The Game Master and things like that. This seemed at least to be of a slightly higher level, a little more creative, not as phoned in, but you're right, Andrew. There are some really weird choices in terms of like 3D. like polygonal graphics like for some reason Kirby is a 3D element in this 2D show which I guess kind of makes sense if he was the only element that was 3D but also Day Day Day and

Escargoon the like villain characters they're mostly 3D but sometimes they're not I feel like they were just using the show to experiment with that technology and they weren't really concerned with how well it integrated with the actual show I did have I had looked at it a few times just like on and off bits and what I mostly remember from it

is Kirby was kind of the sidekick of these two yellow characters and one of them was just moaning at all time and just telling him not to do adventures and just to behave and I was just like this is a bummer like just let Kirby

blunder into an adventure like he always does he doesn't need agency, he just needs to have his strawberry shortcake stolen by a mouse this isn't necessary I guess like they didn't want to I mean, Sakurai, the creator of Kirby, he didn't want Kirby to talk too much, even in the games, because he doesn't want Kirby to have a typecast personality.

He wants the player to just, you know, have their own vision of Kirby. So the one setback in the series for the writers is, okay, the main character, the star of the show, he can't talk. So because of that, they have to create these two nobodies you've never heard of who have not been in any games. I don't think they even put them in games after this anime came out. And a lot of people saw that as a violation of the world of Kirby. Like, who are these two losers that are kind of like hogging the spotlight? I'm here to see Kirby.

Well, they don't look like anything in the Kirby universe either. They look too humanoid and they're living with Cappies, which Cappies are part of the Kirby universe, but they just stick out like sore thumbs. Wasn't DDD beholden to a human, like, executive-looking character with like a kind of a quiff haircut, or am I imagining that? It was like complex for never. your hair cartoon. It was like a big TV

that he would get shouted at by it was sort of like DEDA was a working, well not working for maybe he was. I was actually skimming through some of these but it seems like he was the guy who was getting kind of screwed over by a corporation who was selling him things to

dispatch Kirby. So in the American version he's more of a used car salesman type but I guess in the Japanese version he is a like a very polite kind of salesman stereotype. I took it as like, you know, if Wiley Coyote was calling the Acme Company and this is the kind of guy on the other end, you know, stupid things to, you know, sell them. Yeah, that's a good analogy. And they made a lot of this for an anime. So it ran for 100 episodes. It ran from 2001, 2003 in Japan, 2002 to 2006 United States. I believe it ended up not finishing its run on TV in the U.S. I was looking online and apparently you had to buy a DVD to get. the last three episodes and they were kind of put together into a movie, which was the style at

the time, like having a direct to DVD movie style experience, except they kind of had to create one out of existing TV episodes. That's a really long run for an anime. I mean, we think of a lot of anime, the ones that are really prominent, especially in the U.S. at the time, being very long running. But as far as anime goes in general, 100 episodes plus is a lot. And for a video game adaptation as well. It's like surprising that it had that much longevity. Yeah, it's true.

I was trying to think of, I was going to start. I was just saying, I was trying to think if there was any kind of equivalent. The only thing I could think of was Sonic X, but I don't think even that got 100. Maybe when it came back, it got another. They got up to 100. But that was a pretty long-running TV, localized video game anime. Yeah, I mean, most anime series are, I mean, nowadays I feel like it's 12 episodes. 26, if you're lucky.

and then things like One Piece and Detective Conan are like a thousand but those are the outliers but yeah Kirby is sitting at a hefty 100 and it looks like they localized almost all of it so this is all available and if you go on YouTube people have just uploaded it there both the Japanese version somebody even though this is being localized officially by four kids somebody subtitled the entire thing you can watch that all on YouTube if you want to if your life is needing that right now if we have another quarantine I think that could be someone's to sit down and watch all 100 episodes, and you tell us how they're different. But, yeah, some of the people behind this have interesting histories. Like, you know, Masa Hiro Sakurai, he is, you know, putting down some guidelines like Kirby, he doesn't talk, you know, don't give him too defined of personality, things like that. But the director is someone who has a lot of history, and he was working back in anime when things like Astro Boy were being made. In fact, he was working on Astro Boy, and the name is Soji Yoshikawa, and he's basically an old-timer at this point in the early aughts, but this is kind of the last thing he does. But he worked on things like, I guess his first directing credit was the first Lupon, the third movie. So the one before Castle of Cagliostro, which is the one, the only one, anyone ever talks about for good reason.

But that's how far back he goes in terms of anime history. But he had to move on from those things to reach his true masterpiece, which is, Kirby, write back at you. That's how I want to go out. He was doing a lot of writing, so he's writing 100 Kirby episodes or at least overseeing that process. And if you were watching, the Saturday morning block was known as Fox Box at the time. If you were watching that or if you were just aware of the four kids, you know, empire, you would recognize a lot of these voices from things like Slayers.

And there was just this group of New York dub actors who were kind of in everything. around that time from the late 90s to the early odds for me they're the slayers actors but for a lot of people they're the original Pokemon actors uh from the original four kids run and they make some really weird choices uh for some reason king day day like i i think he has been defined as a as a penguin although earlier materials call him an eagle but whoever was writing this localization was like oh he's foghorn leghorn and uh his his sidekick is basically paul Lind. So they're having fun on this dub. Someone's always basically Paul Lind in these localized kids' anime. Like in Samurai Pizza Cats,

they've got basically Paul Lind in there as well. It seems very common. I think that DDD as Fokongleikorn is kind of inspired, to be honest. I have to say, I'm very much in favor of that. I mean, it kind of comes out of nowhere and you're like, I guess this is what you chose

this guy to sound like for 100 episodes. Okay. sure. Congrats for your creativity. In my head, that's the voice I hear when I think about CDD, so good work to them. It's interesting that Nintendo normally doesn't allow their properties to be turned into anime. This feels like one of the few outliers, and whenever it happens, it's usually with a side character or a B-level character. There hasn't been a Mario anime after the initial things they made in the 80s. There was never a Zelt anime. I'm surprised there hasn't been a fire emblem.

anime outside of the one OVA they made in the 90s. There are all these things they could adapt now, but they are still like extremely selective. I think because a lot of these properties were mishandled originally when they were adapted. Now, there was an F-0 anime, wasn't there? That got localized as well, I think. That's right. That's right. I totally forgot about that just now.

Yeah. I forgot about it until just now. That was also the early odds. So I feel like that was the last time they were really interested in something like this. And now they're like, well, we're going to work with the people who make minions. for our Mario thing. We're not going to do some cheap TV thing. Chris Pratt as Mario, that's sure

to be a winner. That's Jesus. We went right to the Minions people and Chris Pratt. Now these are smart choices. What world are we living in with a Sonic movie is more appealing than the Mario movie? It does, it's pretty crazy. I mean, we're going to be talking about it, I guess, next year because it got

pushed to April, but that will be a podcast and I will force myself to watch it for the sake of my job. But, But I hope Chris Pratt does a good job. Are there any other final thoughts on this? I mean, I feel like everyone in this room was all too old for this. Maybe if you're a listener and you're, let's see, 30, you could be around the right age to have seen this 30 or younger, I'm guessing,

because this was like an early odd show for people like 10 and under. It's going to be someone in the comments who's just like, how dare you dismiss Kirby right back at you? There's a formative anime for me. Well, I think this is a good example of, like, you know, people want a Zelda anime or show, but they want them to, link to be silent. And I think this is a good example of you can't really do that because in this case, they kind of babify Kirby too much. And it's either going to go that route or, like, they're going to seem like, you know, the main character is a complete invalid and incapable of, you know, functioning in that world. So, you know, a silent protagonist is really, I don't think, the way to go with Zelda.

And it definitely wasn't really the way to go with Kirby, or at least to be, to find him the way they did. I feel like if they had a Zelda anime and he didn't talk, it would be like, well, here's links to new friends to join him on his adventures. And they'll be filling in most of the empty air here. We can move on, though, to our next, an actual game on this list, and it's the first of a couple of remakes we'll be talking about, and that is Kirby Nightmare in Dreamland. Yeah, Hal is kicking off the aughts, not with a new game, but with a remake, because the story goes, the Kirby anime is in its second year, and Hal is like, oh, no, we don't have a new game to sell, and we really need one, and we don't have time to actually make an entire new Kirby game from scratch. So this was a compromise. like Sakurai apparently he didn't want to do a GBA port of an existing Game Boy Advance game

because the Game Boy Advance was lacking in buttons and also he wasn't sure if people of that era would care about seeing Super Nintendo graphics of that vintage on the Game Boy Advance so the compromise was let's remake the best Kirby game one of the best Kirby games in a better graphical style and kind of fine-tune things for the expectations of gamers of the early aughts. And yeah, that's essentially the story behind this. And this decade is really how, I wouldn't say being hands off with Kirby,

but I will say that they can't be as focused because the odds are really when Super Smash Brothers is taking off. And we've seen how tired Sakurai looks in every video where he's showing off something new. At this point onward, it is consuming his life. And like I said, in the last podcast, he'll be working on these games after he dies. I think.

Poor guy. Any thoughts on this? I'm going to come off on this podcast as kind of surly because I was a surly person in my early 20s during this era, but I was kind of miffed by all of these remakes in this era. And having played this on the Wii U, I'm like, oh, no, this is actually really good, but I didn't have 30 bucks to spend on a game

I had played a lot already. But I think this is a good remake. I don't think it's a good remake. I really hates it, to be honest. I didn't want to be super. negative, but I don't see that there's anything they've done to the game that makes it better. I don't like the new graphics. They've removed nuance from the Nes game. They've removed interesting effects from the Nes game that were once cool and now just a normal thing.

They've removed logic from the Nes game, so there's stuff just floating in the air now that makes no sense anymore. It's just there, because they've replaced it with this random green or something. I don't really care for it. I don't really see any reason to play it when the NES game, well, I suppose it wasn't freely available, to be fair. but I would just always choose the NES game over this. This is just, I mean, it's fine, it's perfectly playable. It's just a not as good version of the game. Like, all the subgames are boring and take forever now

compared to the originals, which were like five seconds long and awesome. I guess the multiplayer is good, but, no, not for me, not this one. It's just a bit of a misfire for me, unfortunately. Yeah, I will say, I think you're right about something, Stuart, that it's not the ideal way to play this game and I feel like the ideal way to play it is probably the 3DS port because if you go back to play the NES game

you forget how much slowdown there is you forget how much the NES is buckling under the weight of that game and everything it's trying to do and while I do enjoy this remake you are correct it's lacking in some ways and that's because it was made in a hurry

it was made to have something to sell there was no creative drive behind it's like we have an anime on the air we need a product attached to I mean, like I say, I don't think it's horrible. It's perfectly playable. I'm just being a bit fussy, basically. You know how it is.

Eliminate clutter and embrace the freedom of HyperX wireless gaming gear for PC and console. Power through all the great monthly PlayStation Plus games with the Cloud Stinger Core Wireless for PlayStation. Enjoy lightweight comfort with reliable wireless freedom. So you won't miss plot points when you head to the fridge. High quality HyperX wireless products can be found at most fine retailers. as well as online at Target, Best Buy, and Amazon. Or you can shop for them directly at hyperX.com and HP.com. Yeah, I think even visually you can tell that it was kind of not the first choice of something to release.

Because I feel like, I mean, throughout these games that we're going to talk about, Kirby looks very similar. You start out with Nightmare and Dreamland, though, and the backgrounds almost don't fully match the way Kirby looks. And I found that kind of jarring. But I mean, it doesn't make it unplayable or anything. But that's the thing I noticed was just like, huh, they made Kirby look this way. And like the style of everything else almost doesn't go or something. I think you're right. The NES game has a consistent visual style.

And in this one, it's like, well, Kirby and the enemies look like how they should. But what if he made the background's really pretty, but not of the same like kind of graphical style or art style. as Kirby and his friends and his enemies around him. I think the extra, you know, meta-nightmare mode is a cool addition for people that have played through the original, you know, and they also added extra mode as a separate thing so you can play through the game with only half the life. Yeah. So, you know, those kinds of considerations at least help with the replayability for people

that have played adventure, but people that are expecting something, you know, substantially different. will be disappointed, like you all are. This was the first time you could play as Meta Night, wasn't it? Because I don't think Smash Bros. Brawl was even out yet. I might be wrong on that. It might be something I'm missing, but, yeah, that was a cool. And that went forward in the series as well. There was, after this, they usually included some kind of mode like this,

where you would play as another character and you played through basically the whole game in one huge chunk, which is what Meta Nightmare was. I don't recall if you unlock anything for doing it, but, yeah, it was kind of a cool extra. a way to play the game. Yeah, I agree with that. Yeah, you can't save during it either, so you better hope those batteries last. Yeah, that's a really good point in adding a harder mode because, you know, a lot of the, like,

part of it adds decreased difficulty, but adding a harder mode does help with replayability a lot. I also think, you know, this is the beginning of the, the Kirby-looking angry cover art. And that was definitely a marketing choice for North America. And I think that kind of reflects. like we got to market this to a new demographic so I don't know if maybe the intent was for people who hadn't played adventure to get this or if it was they were really thinking about returning players but I think the angry eyes artwork says a lot about oh we got this guy's pink and round and cute we got to we got to try to expand our audience a little bit it just makes you wonder oh sorry go ahead Stuart I was just going to say this was full till edge lord era wasn't

it, so yeah. Yeah, this was the new metal era for Kirby and it just makes me wonder who would not buy this game unless those angry eyebrows were there. I just, I want to know who that kind of person is. I love to imagine that. This guy

looking at the case going, I mean, I mean, it looks okay, but he just seems so happy. Well, it's weird in contrast to the anime we just talked about because he's so beeped in the anime and now they're trying to make him look cool and it's like, what do you choose one avenue, you know?

Yeah. I mean, Kirby's a badass anyway. When he uses the needle power, all the needles stick out of his flesh, it's disgusting. Yeah, when you really think about Curry and you interrogate what he's doing, it's like that this guy's doing the most. I don't think he's a baby, but he looks baby. So I guess I understand, but like, don't worry, he looks like a baby, but he could really do some damage. Let's get away with everything, yeah. Could he kill me without even blinking yet?

Do I want to kiss it? Yes. It's the best of both worlds. It's interesting about this game. Miyamoto was pushing Sakurai to do multiplayer in his Kirby games. And Kirby cracked something before the Mario series does, and that's four-player simultaneous gameplay. I don't know if anybody on this podcast has played this game or the next one with that setup,

but it was something they worked really hard to make happen. it almost didn't come together. The guy who was tasked with doing it didn't want to do it, but they did this technology and the only issue was like, oh, well, the game was built for one Kirby and the enemy placement

is built for one Kirby. So you're going to steamroll this even faster with four people, but because they came up with the technology to sync up four people in one game, they really took advantage of that in the next game. Did anyone ever play this game with that kind of connection?

with that kind of like a functionality? I did not have friends at this period of time, so no. Okay. That was a problem for me with a lot of multiplayer games. And then the online error was like, oh, these random people who I can mute, they're my friends. I think I played it on an emulator when that functionality was added, but it was quickly abandoned when it became clear

that Kirby's adventure is incredibly easy. And with the second player, it's horrendously easy and not really that much fun. we talked about the meta night mode and that would really start a trend in these games that I really like although it kind of started in the first game where you know you finish the first game and there's a slightly harder adventure

from this game onwards they usually find a way where after you finish the game it's like you play as a different character who is mostly like a melee character or is different than Kirby in some way like in triple deluxe when you beat the game as Kirby you play a different mode as day day and that's really cool

There's even a mode like that in Star Allies. I haven't finished the newest Kirby, but I don't know if there's something like that, but I have to assume that there's some other kind of play style that makes the game harder after you finish the game. I can confirm there is a, it's not the same as this sort of thing, but there is a like hard version of the levels in the spirit of other Kirby games that I found challenging.

Without spoiling it, It's a twist on the usual take, and it's really, really cool. It was better than the main game for me, and I enjoyed the main game. So, yeah. Yeah, that does feel like a very Japanese design sense to me that has gone back for at least 20 years, where you get an ending, and it's like, well, that's kind of like, you can stop there if you want, but there's actually another back half of the game if you want to keep playing. And I get a love with it.

Kirby is really good at giving you the capacity to make your own challenge if you want to, essentially, I really appreciate. I agree. And I've got to say before, because I've got to mention it because it's just too good, that mode in triple deluxe that you mentioned is called DDDTor, which is just Muw. Yes.

F-kiss. Beautiful. How good is that? Yeah, usually the puns are on point with all of these Kirby games. A few other things about this, yeah, again, made to just be a product on the shelves to go along with an anime. And they had a few more ambitious things. in mind, but they had to cut them to lack of space and time.

There were new abilities that were implemented into other games. Apparently, the assets exist. There was going to be original dance sprites for every version of Kirby, like every copy ability version of Kirby, but they had to take those out to the space issues. So that's something they had to cut. And, yeah, I just, again, not the ideal way to play Kirby. It was a fun, a fun little, like, gimmick in the, in the early 2000s, like, a prettier Kirby on the go but again the 3DS port is the ideal way to go and there are so many ways to play this

game now that this seems like the least essential way to play it although it's still available Unless we have anything else to say, we can move on to Kirby in the Amazing Mirror. Now, this is where people in the comments will get mad at me because I was a big Crystal Shards hater, and I'm also an amazing mirror hater because I'm not a fan of anything this game does, although I do appreciate its ambition. Before I badmouthed this game, does anybody else? actually like this game on this podcast. Yeah, I kind of like it, but I also think it sucks, is that

weird? Like, I think everything it does structurally is an absolute hot mess. I think it's a disastrous attempt at a Metroidvania, but I really like it for some reason. All the components are just so fun. It's just the way they're threaded together sucks so badly

that it drags the whole thing down. The map makes no sense. It's impossible to follow. Even when you've got it completely done, it's useless. and it's always one-way doors that you can't then go and find where you need to go. It doesn't give you any kind of indication of, hey, you need to go to this place. There's no one talking to you, giving you a mission. It's completely free and open.

And that's kind of cool. I kind of dig that. I guess when you're playing with four plays, you'd all be off in different places saying, hey, come this way, come this way, go here, go here. But by myself, which, let's face it, is the way most people are going to play it now. It's a real sloc. And there's at least one part of the game where you need to have. four Kirby's

sucking at the same time and that's really hard to do when you're playing single player because the AI will not play ball but sorry I'm not going to go on and on but I really like this game a lot I think it's a lot of fun but I also think it's horrible I would recommend it just for the kind of

I don't know if you're stubborn enough to stick with it if you find that you get bored I would just stop basically that's my advice don't bang your game because it's not going to get any easier from beginning to end it's a nightmare to get around in basically it's really frustrating i played about four hours of it before i had to tap out but to explain the premise to our listeners is essentially a an open world uh Metroidvania style game and this was back when we got a Metroidvania every 20

months instead of like five a week so this was a special game at the time which i think is why people uh really liked it because you know there was symphony of the night and like shanty and then not much else so you had to you had to accept what you got and this was one of them and and And, yeah, like, it's an open world with many objectives. You're not given a lot of guidance. The level design is not, doesn't really guide you in that way either. And the ideal way to play this game, and this concept is really cool, is that it's an open world game in which four people can play it once and explore it once.

And you can kind of call each other into certain places, like, oh, I found something. And you can, like, use a little Kirby cell phone to call in your friends. But the thing is, like, I think the game was tested this way at Hal. and people really like playing it in focus tests. But then the ideal, like the reality is, rather, that you're going to be playing this alone. And while you're playing it alone, there are three other Kirby's controlled by the CPU exploring.

And when you run into them, it's like, where were you? What were you doing? You're not helping me? Because they essentially don't do anything except help you attack bosses. So it is kind of frustrating that when you're playing alone, there are CPU Kirby's exploring,

but they're not helping you or finding anything in any way. It's a really frustrating game. I think the smash ability is cool, though. I'll say that. I just like that as somebody who played a lot of smash around this time. I just think that's neat. So there's that. I also think the cell phone is just very of its time as a feature, which I find charming.

Just including like, and it looks like a Nokia brick in the game too. And I just, I really like details like that because I think it kind of gives the game a sense of place. or a sense of time, I guess. But, yeah, it's one of those where you didn't have friends, like I didn't, kind of difficult to really get into. Andrew, what do you think about this one? Over the past year or so, I've picked it up and put it down a couple of times, just trying and just bouncing off every time.

And, you know, this last time in prep for this podcast, I tried to, you know, really critique what is wrong with it. and, you know, Stuart hit up on a lot of, you know, issues like the one-way doors, which in this type of game is just unforgivable, you know, and the terrible AI, but I noticed that also it seems like it doesn't matter how you get hit. Any single hit will make you drop your power up, and that is just awful. Yeah. Like, I don't know how they do it in other Kirby games, whether it's a percentage or, you know, how much damage is done or whatever, but it's definitely not every single hit where in this game, it feels like it. And the enemy spons are too instantaneous. It reminded me of Ninja Gaiden back in the day when a screen would just be off a little bit and then it would shift over and the enemy would instantly spawn and attack you again. And the map is just completely incomprehensible. Yeah. It might be the worst map in any game I've ever played. Can I jump in and just quickly say the Mega Man Z-X map might be worse, but that's why.

Oh, okay, thanks. Note to self, never play those games. Advance okay, but don't play ZDX. It's a nightmare. Yeah, when I found a single path connecting two worlds and then realizing that there's actually two paths that bring you into two different sections of your destination, but that wasn't illustrated on the map,

I'm just like, okay, I'm done. Yeah. It might be worth mentioning that the mission is to find and beat all the buses basically because then you get these mirror shards and once you've got all of them you can go through the mirror on the main hub and that takes you to the final bus but as you said there is literally no guidance nobody says where they are you just have to find your own way to everything and while that's kind of cool it's also kind of uncurby you know yeah i mean i'd say the goal is more to find the map because yeah i mean for people who haven't played the best example i can

give to the map is, you know, unless you have the map item, you can't see anything. It's essentially like a constellation without any connected lines, you know, like you would do in school, you'd like connect the dots. I'd actually forgotten about that. It's, it's just dots. And then when you get the map, it kind of fills in a bit more, but it's still in, in competition. Can I, one thing I do want to praise about this game, and this is kind of a spoiler. I don't listen if you don't want to spoil her. The final boss is kind of cool

in the sense that the sheer excess of it is absurd. I think you fight it about six times in about five different forms. Like it just keeps coming back and keeps coming back and in the end the final phase is a schmop and during the fight the credits start rolling. And there's something kind of epic

about that. I really like that. It's almost worth watching that on YouTube the final boss just to see how cool it is. I'm not sure what the law implications are because it's called, I think, dark mind. But we'll worry about the law on the dedicated four-hour Kirby Law episode. There's a surprising amount.

I forget who said that this doesn't feel like a Kirby game, like not an ideal Kirby experience, but you're right. Like when I was playing, not to restate everyone else's thoughts, but yeah, the maps are really bad. It's not clear, like, it's basically a map is like, it just shows you like a series of nodes

connected with, like, lines, and you're not sure, like, which door will actually send you to the node you want to go to. So it's a lot of trial and error. A lot of one-way doors will force you to play through several levels again just to get back to the point where you needed to go through another door. And, yeah, it's very, very frustrating. And I found myself just pausing constantly to look at the map. And that's not, like, Kirby games should be just very, not incredibly easy, but just like, you know, fast pace. You're pushing through everything.

You should not be pausing every five seconds to be like, okay, all right, I need to go down and then left. All right, okay, where will this door bring me? Oh, crap. Okay, now I have to go back to the level warp doors and then find my way back to level two. And then, yeah, it's just, it's way too complicated. It really is a case as well of if you take a wrong turn, you're punished so severely by going through a one-way door

that requires you to play through like a game's length of rooms to get back to where you were. It's just like, you know what it reminds me of is it reminds me of old spectrum games. where it's worse than dying because you have to just play through it again for no actual legitimate reason. If it was like linear stages where you die and you went, oh, okay, I guess I've got to do that again, it would be fine. But as it is, you just find yourself in that stupid forest level over and over again for hours, doing the same little short rooms. And they never change. You never get any resources that you can use to make it easier.

You're just playing normal Kirby levels that happen to be an absolute hit horrific nightmare of navigation. for no real good reason. So anyway, yeah, it's pretty good. I recommend. Genuinely, my advice is give it a go, and if you start getting annoyed and hate it, just stop immediately, don't persevere because you will not find it gets any better. But some people will like this, I think.

I mean, I was playing this on Wii U, and it has safe states, and I know a game is really testing my patience when I'm getting frustrated even with safe states. And that was my experience of this one. And it does feel a bit like they were taking off of the great, cave offensive from Kirby Superstar like that kind of approach like expanding upon it but I think if they were to remake this game today

or do a different version of it you could have a really fun even online four player Metroidvania experience and they could you know they could do this with the with the hindsight of all the other style of these games that have come out they could work on this with all of the other

games in mind that have come out in this style in the past 20 years but I feel like they didn't really know what they were doing here and they were working in a genre subtype that they weren't very familiar with. So that's why we have this game the way it is. And also, like we said

before, most people will not be able to play this in the ideal way. So it feels like this maybe could have been like a Game Boy Advanced to GameCube Link game. Like that could have been like the ideal version of this. But then there'd have to be like four of those instead of three. And Nintendo really

wanted to cut bait early on that thing. I'd be interested to see like what the 2022-2020 version of this would be because I think with a lot of the like you said Bob like just looking at games in this style learning from that it could be really interesting like I'd love to see it feel more like

Kirby instead of being kind of overwrought and complicated in a way that you don't expect a Kirby game to be but yeah not not an easy one to get into unfortunately. Yeah, things, that's changed so much.

Now on the Nintendo E-shop, there is a Metroidvania section. And I think, like, everyone lost their minds when this, when Forgotten World was announced. Like, okay, the first truly 3D World Kirby game.

I think people would lose their minds if you announce, like, all right, we're making a Kirby Metroidvania, and it's going to be really good this time. I think that would be a big move for Kirby. Andrew, sorry. I see,

and that's where I don't think you can really even call this of Metroidvania because it's just that butchered, you know, there isn't any point in the game where I felt like, you know, I knew I could come back here later. It's not like there was like a platform too high that I couldn't reach or a certain colored door that I couldn't go through that I needed something for. It was just let me, you know, come through this section of the map and, you know, half of it is barricaded back with this one-way bomb wall and I don't know how to get to the other side and there's no clues telling me how I just kind of wander until I get there

magically you know yeah it really is only a metravenia in the loose sense of the term it's like I think the one thing that does it is like okay there's a contiguous world and there are things to find in it and that's kind of as far as it goes like the loosest definition of that term but because there were so few at the time and that this is the time in which that term was like being invented it was applied to this one because it's like, all right, we got five of these and this can be one of them too. And I don't think we mentioned either

that this was one of the ones that was outsourced flagship. That's right, flagship and dimps. DIMPs did a lot of outsourcing. I'm more familiar with their work on the Sonic Advanced Games. Maybe, Stuart, I assume you've played those. Of course.

Of course. Yes, I've played them to death. I'm not a Sonic fan, but I don't like the Sonic Advance games. Why? They're good. You should like them, Bob. I don't know why I don't like them. Like the Sonic Advance games, please.

It's all I ask of you. I'll do what I can. If they're made available again, I'll give another shot. But, yeah, flagship... Sorry, with Dimps, it's difficult to know whether or not it's their fault because when their games go wrong, because they seem to do pretty solid work, but then, I don't know, I think Sega might be getting in the way

sticking it roaring, but that's not really the point of this podcast, so I'll just drop it completely. Yeah, Dimps did a lot of outsourcing. Flagship was working with Capcom, a lot. Flagship has done really good work. Flagship did the two really good Zelda Oracle of Ages and Seasons games. Those games are really good. I'm waiting on the remakes for those. I really hope that's happening. And Flagship develops the next Kirby game, which I really, really like. So I don't know like where this went wrong, but I feel like

their heart was in the right place for this ambitious style of game, but the execution wasn't where it needs to be really. And I really wanted to find that smash ability. I was I was like, I hate this game. I don't want to play any more of it. But I got to find that smash ability. I never did after like four or five hours of playing this game. I think you can only get it from Master Hand and Crazy Hand, who are in those both. Okay, well, that's never going to happen to me.

But yes, I apologize if you enjoyed this one. I honestly want to know if anyone has played this game in its ideal form. Like, it's the year 2004, you're sitting with three friends and you're working through this big game together. That sounds like a blast. but as it stands, playing alone is just like so frustrating and tedious. I just want to say it's cool that the fighter ability has some Capcom influence to it because with the fighting ability you can throw little Hedokens

and do like a little whirlwind kick and I think that's a nice little touch. Oh, cool, I didn't know that. Kirby Kirby Kirby, Kirby, Kirby, that's the name you should know. Kirby Kirby Kirby, Kirby, he's the star of the show. There's more that you think he's got maximum pink. Kirby Kirby Kirby Curby Curby is the one. We come right

That's gotcha Give it all that you got Take a very best shot It's in the bad bad got to for sure Yeah How can I help you, King DDD I need a monster to claw But I dare to curb it

That's what we do best at NME You better get it We're the money back guarantee You're better get it We're the spirit hunters and we're a show that treats Hunter Hunter and Yu Hakasho's author as the center of the universe.

Some weeks we do linguistic analysis. The Chinese meaning of this character is to smelt or refine, but so the changed meaning in Japanese it means to temper. Other times, we get absolutely smashed. So we take one shot every time. Yuske uses the ray gun.

One hour later. This is the least coherent episode. I think your pirate is haunted. Check us out at the HyperX Podcast Network. In a world with too many comic book podcasts. and not enough deep dives into your favorite superheroes. One podcast stands as a shining beacon in a world of pain and darkness.

Yeah, yeah, darkness. Yeah, lots of darkness, bunch of dark stuff. Superhero stuff you should know. That's us. Andrew, why are you talking like that? I'm the movie voice guy now. I'm the new movie voice. guy and it's time

for you to listen to superhero stuff you should know so we have unused concept art, unmade scripts unmade superhero movies, all check us out at superhero stuff you should know. Ben, you should do a movie voice guy voice. I would, but

I think we're out of time. Superhero stuff you should know, part of the HyperX podcast network. Part of the HyperX podcast network. I Just said that. Capcom would eventually absorb flagship and Flagship actually makes the next game on our list here, Kirby Squeak Squad. And by the way, like I think so far all of these have been available in different digital platforms. Like I believe, so let's see, the last one was Amazing Mirror.

Yeah, that's on 3DS and Wii Virtual Console. And this next one is on Wii Virtual Console. So you can still play these today for now. But yes, flagship. Sorry, was it one of the ambassador games for the 3DS? Is this one of the ambassador games? I don't think you can buy it on the old. I don't think it was on the U-Shok.

I don't think there are any GBA games on the E-Shops. There must have been an ambassador game or something. Yeah, I think, yeah, I think the last one was an ambassador game. Yeah, you're right, there are no 3DS games on the E-shop for the 3DS. You can play, on the Wii, you can play GBA and DS games, but you could never do that on that GBA for some... Are you being very pedantic? Yes.

No, that's okay. Just if anyone wants to play these, most of them are still available in some way. Kirby Squeak Squad, developed by flagship, this is their last game before they are absorbed by Capcom in 2007. And I am disappointed in myself. When this game came out, I was like, I didn't like Amazing Mirror. I didn't really care about that, that 2002 remake. I think I'm done with Kirby for a while

so I didn't even play this one and after playing it now I'm like oh this game rules and it feels like other Kirby games made after this are kind of patterned after what this does right and I really like this one it's not a popular one I didn't used to like it very much

because I had this kind of oh this is just a Kirby game there's nothing that makes this kind of stand out in any way it's just kind of the basic Kirby levels that are really short for some reason. And then now years later, this is like what I want Kobe games to

be like. I'm just like picking up and I'm just like, hell yeah, straight left to right, let's go, finish the level. Give me some treasure chest. I've unlocked some weird stuff. Awesome. I'm mixing up the that was a cool

powers in his stomach. That's really cool. But it's also kind of underused. But now I take this game. I think that the complaints about it are kind of valid, which is just that it doesn't do anything new at all pretty much but it's still a fun game to play it's a nice kind of breezy kirby game which the last one wasn't so it's a bit like a breath of fresh air in that respect yeah and i i like the uh copyability and you know item management in the belly

like it's something like maybe at the time i would have considered like oh that's not utilizing the the touchscreen in a way that i would have liked but look like now looking back on it I mean, that adds an element that, you know, a little element of strategy to an otherwise very straightforward Kirby game gives you a little something to do on the side, which I like as an idea. I don't know if I, I think like you said, it's a bit underused, but having to combine things, getting like a one up out of that so you can fit another thing in the belly occasionally. I think that's a clever way to kind of add another dimension to it when the rest of the game is so simple. Yeah, there's occasion, in the late game, there's like the odd treasure chest that you'll need to use some kind of strategy for, but mostly it's pretty easy, and that's not a bad thing. Easy is fine. Like, I like it when a game is breezy, like a breezy, easy game is fine by me.

After playing a few of the later games recently, it does feel like the secrets are patterned after how they work here, where it doesn't take too much. effort to get them. Sometimes it's just like, oh, next time I all take the right door instead of the left door. I compare that to the secrets in the past games. They make it a lot more intuitive here. And yeah, I think like at the time I was probably like, oh, yeah, another Kirby game, roll my eyes. But I skipped Star Allies and Triple Deluxe because, yeah, who cares? A Kirby game, I played these before. I played them recently, like, in the past few months, I'm like, oh, these are great. It's like another Kirby game. That's exactly what I want. And I even like the fun deviations, like

Forgotten Moral. It's like, okay, I can do one of these too, but I'm always into getting back to regular Kirby. Andrew, any thoughts on this one? It's not bad. It's definitely not as bad as Amazing Mirror. I hate the fact that all the abilities that are introduced are not very good.

And they even brought back high jump, which is just a question mark ability in general. But the fact of the thing, of course you do, Stuart. You love everything. It's terrible. but the bubble ability in particular grinds my gears because the bubble ability encapsulates enemies to save their ability for later and I feel like having an ability to just facilitate your gimmick on the touchscreen is very disheartening yeah that has that has pretty limited use the bubble ability because we didn't explain it very well but the way this game works there's limited touchscreen functionality in that the bottom screen is Kirby's stomach and um you you turn into other abilities like normal and other Kirby games but sometimes an ability will be in a bubble and you can swallow that ability and then you can just

touch the bubble to activate it you can also swallow things like health powerups but there are usually three treasures in every stage and um you need to carry those in your belly to the end of the level and because of that you only usually have two or three slots by the end of any given stage because you're you're escorting these treasures to the end i did like the introduction of the little mouse characters um you know they try and prevent you from getting the treasures and whatnot they're not really that difficult to deal with but it adds a lot of characters to the game i'm very fond of the um plot of this game such as it is because to me this kind of exemplifies what i like my kirby to be which is he's just this entity that doesn't really care about anything

except his desserts and when his snacks were some way interfered with it's like Kirby's sitting there and it's like I don't know although the Lord of Nightmares is tearing Dreamwater part and he's just like whatever and then someone

steals his shortcake and it's just like right I guess I've got to destroy the world now I gotta go out and everything on my way has got to die yeah there's kind of like the first level sets up kind of a dark moment in the series that made me laugh where it's like yeah Kirby the setup of the game is like

Oh, yeah, Kirby's hanging out. He's about to eat a shortcake. It disappears. And he's like, well, I'll go beat up King Day Day Day. He must have done it. And it turns out he didn't, but you still beat him up. That is like the framing device of the entire first set of world. It's like, well, Day Day Day is innocent.

And in fact, I mean, over time, he becomes more of like a friend and a helper. But boy, he really gets punked out in this game. And he's not even in the last game. So poor Day Day Day. He didn't even do anything this time. He was clearly innocent. Wow. But we talked about, I mean, the game is called Squinted

Squeak Squad. And they are the new set of villains because Day, Day, Day, I mean, he's incapacitated after you beat him up in the end of the first world. And so you escort these chests towards the end of the stage. Usually there's a bigger chest at the end of the stage. And once you get to that, that is when there is sort of like a boss fight, but not really that appears. Because once you get to that chest, that's when the Squeak Squad shows up. It's usually one bigger character and a bunch of little ones. Most of the time you can run from them. But sometimes they make you fight them. They're not too hard, but it adds just a little bit of fun stress to the end of every level where if they bump into you, they can steal your treasures, and then they run off

to the little hideouts, and then if you fight them in there, it's much more difficult than if you fight them out in the open levels. These, surprisingly, there's only like three or four of these boss characters, but it doesn't really get too repetitive. I liked fighting them, and I guess the pro tip is you just keep setting them on fire, and they're very easy to kill that way or incapacitate. But I was like oh this is a neat idea and I don't know why I'm not getting bored of it but I'm not it's nice I mean because they're quite again quite breezy it's nice that they just keep that presence in the story such as it is they're always around they're not just like an afterthought which is kind of cool and Andrew was mentioning some of the new abilities or returning abilities

I was playing through this recently I didn't like the Cupid or angel ability I just felt like it was a little too slow and pokey are there any other uh one you didn't care for, Andrew, in this list. I mean, there are new ones like Animal that I thought were pretty cool. It's also very adorable. And I guess we have neglected to say just how great all these sprites look, even in the games I don't like. Like, every sprite is beautiful in all of these games so far.

There's the bubble ability we mentioned before. There's the ghost ability. The metal ability is like a superpowered version of the stone ability where you're just basically a Terminator marching around and just destroying everything that touches you. Kind of cool. That's kind of cool. I have to say.

It's on brand. They stole his desserts. He went full Terminator on us. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I think the inimitable ability is probably the standout one simply because it can dig. And there's not enough games that let you dig. Like Super Mario Brothers 2 style dig.

Let's do more digging in games. That's the only one they've brought back in. It's in the new game, isn't it? It is. Yeah, I think they call it drill in forgotten land. But yeah, it's the same sort of thing you can dig in certain. terrain. And it's fun there too. I was a big fan of the digging in this game. It is fun to do in any game. And the animal costume is neat. Also, again, it's like Kirby in like a furry outfit. And that's really, really adorable. Don't put that into people's minds, please. It's a, hey, there's nothing sexual about it. If you, don't put that on Kirby. He's pure and innocence. But yeah, like, I, there's not too much more to say about this one. I just think that I didn't give it the time of day because it's like, oh, it was outsourced too, which.

to me was like, oh, that's a warning sign. Hal didn't make this, I don't really care. And I forgot to mention in the last game, that's the last Sakurai involvement, really, with the series. Because, like we said before, Sakurai is way steep in Smash Brothers, the series he's attached to forever. Sometimes he's allowed to make something else like Kid Icarus,

but that's what he'll be doing forever. And as far as I know, no real involvement in the rest of these, although I'm sure, like, he comes to a meeting now and then and gives feedback, but I'm sure he's busy enough as it is. Well, I think around this time, too, he was working on Kirby's Air Ride. That's right. And by the way, we're going to be doing all of the side

Kirby games in a different podcast, and that is the one I have never played, and I'm always so curious about it. Oh, man, you're missing out. I just sold my copy on eBay. For lots and lots of money. I'm sure it is worth money. The game that everyone made fun of

on message boards constantly is probably now worth of a thousand dollars oh my god my copy was a horrible mess it had like they didn't have the original case or anything it was really messed up and i stick out on ebay and it just went immediately like after two seconds it was been sold it was crazy how people really want to be air ride i will try to find some way to play it So let's move on to the final game on our list and this was unavailable after its original release and this is a very expensive game now

and I must thank my wife who has her own copy she lent me so thank you to Nina for letting me this copy to play it's the only good condition don't worry But this is Kirby Superstar Ultra And this is another one I skipped originally Because it was the late aughts I was in grad school And I had no money

And I could easily emulate Kirby Superstar if I wanted to So that's exactly why I never played this And going back into it For the first time For the first time for this podcast I was like oh This is actually I wouldn't say a low effort remake

But they didn't do a ton though it's a very good game in a new format with some extras and I would say inoffensive. What does everybody else feel about this one? If I can briefly give some advice on this game being so expensive, which it is, if you buy a Japanese copy, it's very much cheaper and also you do not need to read any of the text

in this game, really. It's the same game, just that's my advice for collectors, I don't know, if you want to get a copy. They did not add like a visual novel component to this group. game. They did not, though. As for the actual game, I mean,

God, what can you say? It's one of the best Kirby games just with more stuff in it, you know, and the stuff they've added, while it's not, I would say, amazing. It's pretty formative for what the series was going to become in the next few games. Like, there's stuff here that has

appeared in basically every game after this. This is like the beginning of modern Kirby for me. Well, not modern, modern, because now he's 3D, but you know what I mean. Like, return to Dreamland, Robobot, Triple Deluxe, this is the beginning of that. There's a reason for that

story, and that's because of Finya Kumasaki. Was he the director from this point out of the Kirby games, Andrew? For all the best ones, yes. Well, he did a great job, because this game's awesome, and so are all the subsequent ones that they

directed. I mean, the new stuff is essentially mostly reduxes of stuff that was already in the game. It's not super brand new. It's like hard version of Spring Breeze, a hard version of the whole game kind of

thing. But it does include stuff like the enhanced true arena, which is a very modern-ish-kirby thing to do, which is basically hard, like, X versions of all the bosses, plus then a new boss or an enhanced version of a boss.

And I want to say this was the first game that had Galacta night in it. But I'm not 100% sure on that. Yeah, it is the introduction of Galactanite, and Shinya really seems to actually care about the lore beyond, you know, Kirby's dessert getting stolen, you know, by God type scenario. In the subsequent games, we'll probably touch on a bit about how the lore is sort of embedded into the games. And in this game in particular, you know, not to go out of order, but the Metanite Ultra, where it's Metanite story, it's kind of like a bridged run-through of, you know, the main game's a superstar. You fight Galactonate at the end because, you know, the clockwork Nova, you know, you can grant a wish.

And instead of to Marx, he grants it to Metonite to fight the strongest in the galaxy, and that is Galactonite. and Galactonite is one of four legendary heroes in the Kirby lore and this is where it first introduces this. It's so cool, I love it. But it's weird because the extra games and this aren't really technically canon, but this is where sort of canonicity starts with that sort of like through line. I love the best thing about Kobe lore is that you can completely ignore it and it doesn't matter. but if you care about it

there are things that happen that are just genuinely like oh my god like final episode of some Netflix thing where they pull the rug out from under you I don't know there's some crazy stuff even in what's the new game called The Unforgotten Land

there's stuff towards the end that just had me just going yes awesome this is so cool it does sneak up on you I was playing some of the later ones recently and getting to the final box you realize like oh they put all the story in here there's like suddenly dialogue and drama when before you were like eating candy and like going down water slides yeah they kind of pack it into the back half the same way they do with difficulty where it's like okay there's a there's a breezy game here and then you get into like if you're really into this there's a lot to explore after the the first part of this game is over and that includes like some crazy star universe like stuff that I don't fully understand

but I enjoy it's like if we ever do talk about them it's just like there's a scene in Robobot that's extremely exciting if you care about continuity that sort of thing it's a really nice it's like fan service I'd say

in a way it's just a really cool like nod I mean even this game Kirby Superstar Ultra has some stuff like that like the as noted here by Andrew the airship boss Kabula from Kirby's Dreamland shows up

in this one again for the first time in God would have been how many years? At least, nearly 20, not quite 20 I would say. I don't know if Kobe was 20 at this point. But there's just so much there to enjoy I think it's

just a great, I think it's just a great version of a great game. I really can't fault it. The graphics have been improved as well, so I think it looks nicer. Yeah, I was going to I was going to say I didn't play this one at the time, and obviously it's hard to get now, but to do my homework for the podcast, I watched gameplay on YouTube because that was the best I could do. And I was really struck by how much better the, like, world graphics are compared to even Squeak Squad. Like, there's a big jump from the first games we talked about on this handheld era to Superstar Ultra,

which I think looks more cohesive. I think the backgrounds match the really good sprite work a lot better than some of the previous ones. And I was just surprised at like the jump from Squeak Squad to Super Start Ultra in like two years in terms of the art style. So I was really struck by that. I don't mean this as a kind of, you know, lazy devs kind of criticism because that's stupid. But Nightmare and Dreamland and Amazing Mirror and Squeak Squad, they all use the same color. Kirby Sprite, I believe, and enemy sprites are all in common. I mean, that makes perfect sense.

I don't blame them. But then for this one, rather than do that in their remake, they've actually seemed to have redrawn the S&S version of sprites and shaded them and added more animation frames to them and stuff. And it's just a really, really gorgeous-looking game. Unless I'm mistaken, is this the last 2D Kirby game? Because we won't have another one for three years. Oh, wait, no, mass attack.

So I think that is the last one, yeah. I'm not sure if that counts as a side game. or not but yeah there is massatech yeah that's uh so we're coming up on the end of this era of like very very pretty sprites for like every for every series not just this one the like refreshed sprite sprite work i mean all of it just makes it feel like like the ultra version of of superstar like it i i just think it's it's it's really well done like souped up version that that looks beautiful and I do like you know you get a lot of added um you know difficult stuff which I always like in Kirby um so I kind of want to take your advice to her and get the the Japanese

version and try it out because yeah I can't promise that it's not now become absurdly expensive but when I found it it wasn't can I was it worth promoting they also made wambam rock not racist in this one is that or at least less racist which is you know that's good Which character? Which character? There's a boss called Wambam Rock in the original game. Okay. A sort of black face looking thing. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's like the black background with big red lips and big round, right, wild eyes.

And it really looks a bit kind of questionable Bob Clampett, kind of. Yeah, the imagery. I believe they've toned it down quite a lot, so it looks less racist, which is, you know, worth applause. That's always a plus. I mean, like, um, this game, it's a. shame this game is very hard to find and I mean this is just another argument for another podcast but like DS games

are really I mean if you want to download them they're plentiful there if you want to emulate them but there's no like really legal way to play a lot of these and things are only going to get more expensive as we go further ahead in time and this should be made available in some way

like I hope Nintendo finds some way to do that oh sorry go ahead I don't get why they just don't get why they I mean they released mass attack They released Squeak Squad and Canvas Curse, I think, on the Wii U, but they skipped this one. Yeah, maybe it's because Superstar was already on the E-Shop. I don't, I mean, it's not a good reason. But then you could get Nightmare and Dreamland and Kobe's adventure, so God knows what they were.

Yeah. Well, Nintendo, you screw it up. I will say the one. If you just put this on the Wii, maybe it would have succeeded. If only they should listen to us on this podcast, we have all the right advice for them. That's what I think. Yeah. Well, maybe now that you've mentioned it, it will get really. released that seems to be the retronaut's way yes yes we've had a lot of luck recently with with timing so

maybe that'll happen the best the best one was when we did the doctor who episode and the instant we finished it they announced the doctor who game that was really cool i think the new bevis and budhead trailer came out the day before our podcast came out so that was really good timing too awesome awesome i think it's important that you mentioned you know this game in comparison to the previous three that we talked about because that engine that was based on kirby's adventure It really looks dated in comparison to this one. And, you know, I don't think we mentioned at all, but, you know, the previous three games, being based on the adventure engine, there were no, you know, moves you could perform with the abilities that you got. There were no co-op, like helper-style co-op.

It's very much night and day, you know, between the two engines. I think it may be worth mentioning briefly. and if it's not feel free to cut it out um one of the reasons squeak squad got a short of sort of short short shrift is because canvas curse predated it and that had all new shaded redrawn everything and then it was a little bit like oh what we're back to this again about to this game by advanced looking thing again and of course nowadays we're happy to see it but back then I think there was a kind of a uh I guess an overreaction to the fact that they went from this very popular very good um refresh of the whole Kirby thing in Canvas Curse into just

here's Kobe's adventure again, I kind of I guess, but I mean, I don't know, I just thought it might be worth mentioning because there was that backlash. No, I think that's an important point to point out. And also, Hal designed this game, it's not an outsource game, I'm surprised it's not, but Hal did put this together. It wasn't like a zero effort, you know, production. But Hal was making Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

and I believe there was seven years between Smash Brothers melee and Brawl so Brawl was like a massive undertaking if you were around during the production of that you probably remember like the website that would have new information every day or every week all of the big things going on behind the scenes like it was their biggest game that they would work on

and then they'd work on even bigger ones with the four and ultimate so yeah Hal is very busy right now and I feel like they must have expanded to be able to work on huge Smash Brothers things and also big Kirby games at the same time without outsourcing. Although it feels like 20 different developers also work on Smash Brothers with How. Did we want to dive into each of the different modes?

Oh, sure, sure. I wasn't sure about this, Andrew. When I started playing this game, it felt like more things were locked down at first. Is that true? Or am I misremembering the original superstar? I want to say it was the same. I honestly, when I replayed it for this, I just went into my 100% save file and started doing the extra stuff. One thing about the, I want to talk about before we get into the gameplay, we talked about the graphics and how good they look. The one big downgrade is the 3D cutscenes are replacing the sprite art cutscenes. And I'm sure it was very fun to see at the time. But in 2022 and the cold light of 2022, they are very low-res and not great-looking CG cutscenes. And that's all I've got to say. That's the only big downgrade there. Just to fit with the style.

of the time. Yes, I was struck by that watching it on YouTube and part of me was like, I wonder how much better it looked on the DS screen because it looks real rough. And then I was now that you mentioned it, I'm like, I probably didn't look that good on the TS screen either. No, I was playing it on my 3DS screen and it looks pretty bad. Like a really bad video codec too. It's better than the Metroid Red ones where it took up both screens and it just had a weird cut in between. Yeah, at least it's

limited to just the one screen on the DS. Andrew, do you want to walk us through the gameplay modes and how they're different from the original Superstar? Well, in addition to all the ones on Superstar, there's Revenge of the King, which is a revamped version of Spring Breeze, which

nobody likes Spring Breeze on the original was too easy, too short. I mean, it's not extremely expanded upon here. Like Stewart mentioned, they added the Kabula, boss fight, which is actually now a side-scrolling shooter in the vein of fighting the heart

in Milky Way wishes. Whereas in the original game, it was just Kirby. He had eaten like a strong mint leaf or something and gave him the ability to shoot puff balls at Cabula. But it's very much like if you beat, you know, Super Mario Brothers won the first time. You go back to and all the gumbas are buzzy beetles and whatnot. so like, you know, it's spring breeze, but all the enemies are harder. The colors are more purply. Actually, it reminded me a lot of forgotten land where the second section of that game is very purply and otherworldly, alien-like.

But, you know, if Henry were here, he would be very over the moon about the changes to the King DDD boss fight where it's now an electrified steel cage match Oh, okay, wow Yeah, it got pretty intense So I guess it was like a boxing ring before Was it always wrestling ring?

I think it was always a wrestling ring He's always kind of slamming down on you or whatnot And this just kind of sealed at home Where you can't even fly too high You get hit by the electric cage And he's got like the steel mask and in his fancy metallic hammer. Mask DDD is cool.

It's such a strange design. It looks like a Japanese like samurai only mask, but without the helmet, just a mask part and it's just strange to me. They brought that back as well, didn't they? That was in one of the other games,

I'm sure of it. At least one of the others is based on mask DDD. I don't know. Maybe I'm imagining it. It's like anytime he's evil, he has a mask. Yeah.

Or his swallow. We'll have to tell Henry what he missed out on when he comes back at the end of this podcast. after the recording. It reuses some of the mini bosses from adventure in the previous games that we mentioned, like the Fire Lion, the Grand Wheely, the TikTok clock guy.

And they look, in my opinion, really out of place. Like they weren't designed for this, you know, 32-mig cart S&ES world. Yeah, the extra content is really cool. And this kind of outside of the lackluster full motion video stuff, It does seem to be the ideal way to play this game because of all the new content, the improved graphics. Like, it just is a really good package, but, yeah, unfortunately, only available in its original release. And one thing I forgot to mention last time, we were talking about how, like, when you start the original Kirby Superstar, you see the very Howl menu with, like, just great graphic design. Like, everything has its own little icon.

It's taking up, like, a different amount of space on the screen. And apparently, I learned after the last recording that that's the work of Michiko Sakurai, which is Masahiro Sakurai's wife. She was a graphic designer at Hal, and that's how they met and got married. So it's his wife. That's the reason why these menus look the way they do. It's her signature style. That's awesome. Yeah.

Noted wife guy, Masahiro Sakurai. Exactly. Well, you can see it not only in the Kirby games, but also, you know, and Smash Brothers, but also in the kids. Dickerous Uprising games, a very similar menus. Oh, yeah. That's the first thing I noticed when I started that game for the podcast last year, the year before. Just like, oh, this is a smash brother's ass menu. And then when I went back to Kirby Superstar, I'm like, oh, no, it started here. This is where it all began. Any other final thoughts on this one? If you have anything else to say, Andrew, I think we covered everything, but it's such a good

package, and I'm sad I missed it, but I didn't have a lot of money at the time. But the box art is really nice, too. It's very, it really pops off the shelf. If you can look up the box art in front of you right now, check it out. It's, it's very beautiful. I think it's disappointing that the Meta Nightmare Ultra is kind of on the easier side, especially compared to Nightmare and Dreamland. They added these abilities you can do that, you know, basically the more you attack, the more you gain points, and you can spend these points on different abilities. And it just makes the whole nightmare ultra scenario just pathetically easy

I guess you could I mean as this sounds snarking it's really not meant to but I guess the option is there to not use them for people who want to make their own kind of challenge in that respect but I mean they're there so you're going to use them

I mean I guess the real challenge in this game is the true arena using certain powers there but that's not all the levels that's just bosses so maybe it's not what people kind of after you know i mean i love i love the true arena for me increasingly that's that's the game i have so much fun in those getting those like in soul multi x in uh cobi star allies for example which i still haven't beaten i've beaten all the others but never that because they keep bringing this back in like triple deluxe rubber bot there's a version of the true arena they get

increasingly absurd with new and more difficult super bosses to fight um it's a fantastic addition it adds so much replay value if you get into it but my pro tip for everyone on the first time playing it uh use the stone power because you're completely invincible when you're in stone just cheat okay it's hard it's a find a cheat just you know use stone it's funny you bring up the arena because even the helper to hero mode where it's just arena but you're doing it as different helpers this sort of focus on the arena i i i want to to enjoy it more than I do, but it just feels like so much of a grind, especially like in the most recent forgotten land. Like that's pretty much where I kind of fell off was just like

throwing myself at the arena, you know, repeatedly. And it's definitely the hardest part of any Kirby game, I would say, is the arena. Yeah. Definitely. I never, I never touched the arena because there's only so much I can take and I don't want to be mad at Kirby, which is why I stopped playing amazing mirror. They usually make it so that the true arena is more or less just a bragging rights thing. You don't normally unlock a tangible new thing from beating it. So it is really just kind of, if you really want to push yourself, then you can do this. I think Star Allies might have had a tiny cosmetic change when you do beat it.

But other than that, I don't know, I might be wrong. I think you can get 100% without beating it in most of the games. But I might be wrong about that. And it's interesting that after this, Kirby takes about four. four years off from being in new games or five years if you don't consider Epic Yarn to be a traditional Kirby game. So like the last new Kirby game is 2006. And then the next new Kirby game is Epic Yarn in 2010. And then we have mass attack and return to Dreamland in 2011. So after this game comes out, Kirby is really on the back burner for a surprising amount of time. And until he's

sort of has a real resurgence in the 2010s, and I'm looking forward to talking about that on the next podcast. That's becoming my favorite error of Kirby, even though I like the older games. The 2010s are very, very kind to Kirby. And the 2020s are looking very good for Kirby as well. I mean, we're getting into the period now, in my humble opinion,

where from now on, except for that rubbish one on the Wii U, there's no bad Kobe games anymore. They just stop making bad Kirby games. They're like, right, okay, new plans. man, let's only make good games now. And the dev team were like, yeah, sure. See, Louis agrees, whistling along there. Yes, he's very happy about good Kirby games.

Again, I'm sorry, Louis is like six feet away from me. I've been muting a lot. Louis is the best, don't even. Yeah, actually, I like the Wii U game, but I wish you didn't have to look at the Wii U game pad the entire time. There's no way to get around that. It's like, oh, the graphics are so nice. I was being uncharitable when I said it was rubbish.

It's probably fine. Yeah. If there was a way for me to play it and look at the TV, surprised it never came to the switch you know it seemed like a real candidate for a switch port that would be really fun to play on the switch i think oh definitely yeah i mean most people forget you can actually touch the switch screen and it will do things yeah it's true it's true try it today but for my reflections on on this era are like it's not there are some really good games to come out of the 2000s but it's it's not a great era for kirby i don't like uh amazing mirror i don't like crystal shards

I don't think there are any big missteps after this period. I think they really figured out what kind of Kirby games to make, and they're all, like, very, very good after this point. So this is kind of like a real roller coaster for Kirby, and I'm glad he survived. And it's seemingly like this might have been his most popular era because he had like an anime on TV and all these games. But I feel like I'm happy to be living in this modern era of Kirby.

Any thoughts on these games of the 2000s, anyone? I think he sounded up great. And, you know, the fact that we capped it off with Superstar Ultra, which is the beginning of, you know, Shinya Kumasaki, he really took the series and ran with it. And really, he's the one that we all have to thank for Kirby being as good as it is today. Yeah, I think you both summed it up very well. I do like that we have kind of this positive end to this story because we started out a little rocky with this era. And, you know, it was still in the air where there were a lot of games coming out. Like, I went to GameStop and bought some real garbage DS games without realizing, you know.

And so there were a lot of hit or miss things. And then finally you get to Super Star Ultra, which is signaling kind of the upswing of Kirby. And there's a lot of Kirby games to come that I really enjoy. So, yeah, he had. his messy era and now he's doing great proud of him for coming through

I mean yeah the 2000s were bad for a lot of reasons and Kirby was having a bad time too so it's not all his faults he was struggling as well I mean I think that yeah I think while this era is kind of spotty for Kobe

I thought it was a little bit spotty for I mean the GBA itself I thought was a bit kind of like I mean there's a lot of games I love on it but that thing's lifespan compared to most Nintendo systems was, like, minimal. It felt like a stopgap to get to the DS. And then when they got to the DS, they were like, right. I mean, there are Kirby games that came out during this period that we haven't talked about.

And then, because they're side games, so to speak. But, like, Canvas Curse is one of the highest rated Kirby games. People love that game. I loved that game. I thought it was great. Mass attacks really good. I'm not sure if we're talking about that next time or not. But they were trying all sorts of things and seeing, stuck and

unfortunately that did include a remake that kind of missed the point a Metroidvania that kind of missed the point and at least they were trying new things I guess with the Metroidvania but no this was this period had to exist so that we could get to Good Kirby again like properly good Kirby consistently good Kirby

like the ones on the Wii I thought were fantastic games like 9 out of 10 10 out of 10 tier amazing games that built on what Kirby Superstar Ultra started. So you need this game to get to the really good stuff. And that's not saying this is bad. But the series went to New Heights

on the 3DS, on the Wii, on the Switch. It just went to the moon, as far as I'm concerned. And there is no other Nintendo series that did that except arguably Zelda with Breath of the Wild, but it's funny

that you mentioned it, Stuart, because I feel like as far as the platformers go, these are some of the more experimental ones. Usually they experiment with, you know, pinball or some other, you know, side type game, but this is like the mainline platformers and they do a lot

of experimentation here and they outsource it too, which is even more weird. Re-release Kobe Superstar Ultra please, Nintendo. Let's go. Yes, put out some kind of virtual console for DS or like... I know the GBA one is coming and you just know they're going to stick Nightmare and Dreamland on it.

oh boy or or just amazing mirror and it'll make us all sad but that's the end of our podcast folks I'm looking forward to talk about more Kirby games and thanks again to Andrew for sponsoring this episode giving us the opportunity to take a slow march through all of these great and not so great games but it's all looking up from here and let me tell everyone out there about retronauts retronauts is completely fan supported we're part of the hyperX podcast network if you want to support our show and get these episodes one week ahead of time and ad free please go to patreon.com slash retronauts sign up at the three dollar level you get that, but if you sign up at the $5 level, you get access to two full-length bonus episodes every month. We've been doing this for, I think, two and a half years now. So you've missed two full-length episodes a month from the early 2020s if you have never been a patron on the five-dollar level. And again, that is patreon.com slash retronauts. And at that level, you also get a weekly column and podcast by contributor to Diamond Fight. A lot of great stuff is happening on that level. That's all the plugs. Of course, you can find us on Twitter at Retronauts.

Let's go around the room here. Andrew, you're the patron who sponsored this episode. Is there anything you want to plug online presence, anything you're a fan of, anything you're working on? No, I don't do much of anything. I did bother to log into Twitter, though, so if someone wants to message me at Granite Gamer, but I don't tweet. I don't really go on Twitter much at all because it's just too fast-paced for me. Not my thing.

It's for the best, but everyone can reach out to Andrew and say thank you for the great topic. Callie, how about you? Well, I'm kind of in a behind-the-scenes role now, so I don't have anything specific content-wise to plug. But if I did, you could find it on Twitter at Inki-D-O-J-I-K-O-J-I-K-O. I haven't got to do that in a while on a podcast, so it's nice to be back. Welcome back. Anne Stewart, how about you? You can listen to me on Retronauts when I host my disastrous carnage episodes.

And you can find me on Twitter at Stupa Carbara, as you can see. It's a very clever username there. I've changed Tupacabra. It's Tupacabra. Because my name is Stu. Just explaining that one in case anyone didn't get it. Mine is just the mystery science theater reference.

You can find me on Twitter as Bob Servo. And of course, I have other podcasts I do on the Talking Substance Podcast Network. It's patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. There's Talking Simpsons and what a cartoon. You probably know what those are. They're the podcasts I do about the Simpsons and different cartoons or different series.

You can find that wherever you find podcasts or go to patreon.com slash talking Simpsons. We've got all kinds of great stuff at the $5 level there. We've got a monthly mini series like Talking to the Hill and Talking Futurama only for $5 patrons, only at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. That's it for us this week. We'll be right back at you next week for another episode of Retronauts, and we'll see you then. I'm not

I'm going to I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm

I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm We're going to be able to be. Thank you.

Thank you.