This article is from a couple years ago but is still relevant as Kirby Star Allies came out on March 16 of this year for the Nintendo Switch.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the super cute pink puffball Kirby. I like many people have spent most of my life playing his games starting with Kirby’s Dreamland on the Game Boy. I instantly fell in love with Kirby he was so cute, the music in the game was really catchy and the game play at the time (remember I would have been 8 at the time) was easy yet challenging enough to keep me engaged. Ever since then I’ve owned all the other Kirby games. Even though a lot of the games are quite easy there is always something in them that makes me smile and puts you in a good mood, the game play was rarely frustrating and with a lead character as cute as Kirby you can’t go wrong. Plus the game appeals to a huge age range of game fans, not only can younger players enjoy it but older players can too. The nice thing about the Kirby franchise is there are a huge variety of games out there, if you like puzzles they have Kirby's Avalanche, sports type games they have Kirby's Dream Course, they have pinball with Kirby's Pinball Land and even racing with Kirby's Air Ride. Doesn't matter what you like there is a Kirby game for you!
Surprisingly enough I hadn’t played the NES version until a couple years ago, and I was surprised that Kirby could now steal abilities from the enemies that he would swallow, well I guess not steal “copy”. Instead of just spitting them out now, he would copy specialized powers from each different enemy like ice attack, fire attack and even crazy ones like the needle attack that makes Kirby a walking pin cushion. The game came out at the end of the NES consoles life, so like other games that came out around then it looks awesome. Not only did the environments look great but all the baddies were unique, the main level bosses were cool and there was a huge selection of different themed levels. They had even incorporated awesome mini games for the player to complete so Kirby would gain extra lives. It was little details like this that really made the game, so be sure to pick up this game for your NES if you don’t already have it!
Kirby wasn’t always the cute pink blobby ball that we know him as now. Apparently Kirby was originally named Popopo and his current “blob” design was created as a placeholder sprite as they were making the first Kirby game. After a little time had passed Kirby’s creator Masahiro Sakurai grew to love the blob and decided to use the placeholders design instead of the original idea they had for him. So why did Popopo become Kirby? Well no one really remembers apparently lol. Some people thought it was to honor Nintendo’s legal counsel who helped them through some copyright infringement problems they had with Donkey Kong or the other theory being because of Kirby vacuum cleaners. I like this theory more, it makes sense considering how Kirby inhales everything in sight, can expand like a vacuum cleaner bag and can shrink down again when he spits it back out.
Besides a name change he also underwent another makeover. Back on the Gameboy Kirby was shown as being White on the box art, this made sense at the time since the game was monochrome so he seemed white. But Sakurai wanted Kirby to be pink, but Shigeru Miyamoto (Mario creator) pictured him as being yellow. So because of this when the game was brought over to the west they just left Kirby white, whereas the Japanese box art has Kirby being a light red color.
So just in case you aren’t familiar with the Kirby games, I would be pretty shocked if someone wasn’t but you never know I’ll fill you in on the story. In Kirby’s Dream Land, King Dedede (apparently a self made ruler) decided to steal everyone’s food and to be even more mean he stole the Sparkling Stars that they need to get more food. Of course it’s up to Kirby the cheerful little puffball (a symbol of the light world) to get the food back along with the stars and teach King Dedede (dark world) a lesson. For a lot of the games the story is similar, like in Kirby Squeak Squad, mice steal Kirby’s desserts and this makes Kirby mad, he loves his snacks and won’t stand for this. This also explains his food related attack in Super Smash Brothers too. It’s pretty goofy, but the Kirby franchise isn’t exactly known for its deep story arc :p I would argue it’s more for the bright color scheme, cute graphics and catchy music.
Besides just video games Kirby has also had his own anime. It used to air on Fox on Saturdays, but you can find episodes on Youtube now if you wanna check it out. Kirby’s creator Sakurai was deeply involved so the way Kirby is portrayed in the way he envisioned Kirby’s character. He preferred Kirby would not speak, so Kirby has a very limited vocabulary basically consisting of the word puyo! The anime is a lot darker than any of the games Kirby starred in. I can think of one episode off the top of my head that was really sad and dealt with death, there is also violence, war and some blood. At times it’s a little cheesy but totally worth checking out just to see Kirby’s character. He’s so cute it’s hard not to watch. Plus it gives Kirby a fleshed out background so even just that part is worth watching as a supplement to the games.
So give it up to Kirby the super tough pink power puff and the awesome 20 year run he’s had so far, I can’t wait to see what the future has in store for him. If you haven’t checked out some of the games and you have a 3DS check out the 3D remake of Kirby’s Adventure and Kirby’s Dreamland in the Game Boy section. The really exciting news is that there has been a Kirby Collection for the Wii (which you can still play on the Wii U) that has some of the most popular games in the franchise on it and a soundtrack which is awesome if you can find it to pick up!
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