Kirby's Adventure was another game I remember getting on Christmas '93. I also got Final Fantasy and a couple non-NES games that I can't remember off the top of my head, so I kinda hit the mother lode that year. I'm sure my brother did get some good presents, but I do remember that he got Rocky & Bullwinkle for the NES. I guess you can't win them all.
I guess the difference between Kirby and the other games I got that year was that it was brand new and the other ones were reissues put out to cash in on the end of the system's life. Kirby was just about the last high profile game I can remember coming out for the NES. It was one of the last shining moments in childhood where talk on the playground went back to my favorite dying system, and I didn't feel like the world was passing me by. I don't remember Zoda's Revenge or Mega Man 6 generating nearly as much buzz around school the next year. In a lot of ways this was the system's last hurrah.
I remembered being excited about Kirby after seeing commercials for the Game Boy game that came out a year or two earlier. I know that the Game Boy sold about a zillion units, but back then I didn't know anybody who had one and therefore had no way to play Kirby. I know that there were a lot of kids with the same situation waiting for the big console version to come out so they could actually play it. I always felt like this was one of the main reasons they decided to go with NES instead of SNES. People actually craved the 8-bit graphics from that Game Boy game they never got to play, and the developers felt like it would be an easy transition.
Although when playing it today you can tell that they really wanted it to be a Super Nintendo game. It's got all the hallmarks of those great early 16 bit platform games. It's got a big, interactive world map with plenty of branching paths and bonus levels. The graphics are pushed about as far as they can go as well. You're not going to find too many games on the NES that look better than this one. It also keeps track of your completion percentage which I thought was a really nice touch when I was a kid. I'm sure there are games that did it before Kirby, but it's certainly the first one I can remember.
The downside to all this is that the control also seems like it was meant for the SNES. It's a little to complicated for the two button controller. Pushing up on the controller to float is easy enough, but it drives me crazy that Kirby will start floating too often when jumping. This really slows down the game. The B button is used both for sucking up bad guys and using the weapons you get from them. This makes it a little weird when you're trying to get other weapons or using other attacks involving objects on the screen. Sometimes it's much more effective to suck up one enemy and shoot it at another enemy and it would be nice to be able to save my weapon while doing this. However, the only way to do this is to push select and get rid of your weapon so you can suck things up again. I guess they had too many functions to fit into 2 buttons so they had to improvise a little.
So how does this game play in 2010? Actually I think it holds up pretty well. The gameplay is still pretty unique and fun. I was surprised how many different weapons there were. It seems like they were throwing new ones in there right up till the end. The main quest is still really easy, but they make up for it by having so many hidden levels and rooms. Even though you'll breeze right through it in a couple days there will still be plenty to do after the final boss has been beaten. It probably has the most depth of any NES platform game that you don't have to finish in one sitting. It's certainly worth picking up.
So as I said, this game will always have a special place in my heart. When I was a kid I really hated to see things changing. I knew I had it good and someday my life would be mostly about working and trying to get by. Even though I loved my Super Nintendo the transition was really difficult for me. There was no toy that I loved more than my NES, and by 1993 it was really fading away. Kids would make fun of you for even having one. This game helped me hold on to my childhood a little bit longer, and even though it's not my favorite NES game I'll always appreciate it for that.
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