Kirby Super Star Ultra
A Kirby classic gets a makeover for the DS
Tags: Kirby Super Star Ultra Categories: DS Previews, Previews
Posted by Mike "Two Tone" McConnell on Aug 8th, 2008
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Considering the current wave of nostalgia titles, it isn’t surprise that there are a few remakes that haunted E3 this year. Nintendo had an oldie remade for the DS with Kirby Super Star Ultra. While I haven’t played Kirby games since when Kirby Super Star was new, it isn’t a surprise that my interest was piqued by this remake.
Like the original Super Star Ultra is a mix of a platform game, and a mini game collection. The platform game is a perfect update of the original. With brighter colors and a great lack of stylus controls (that’s right, meaning that your muscle memory from the SNES era will come in handy here.) Of course 2-D platformers are somewhat of a dated idea, and a direct port of the original game doesn’t present as much of a challenge as modern game.
You can be sure that Kirby will be sucking up enemies and swallowing them, as well as spitting them back at their allies. There will abilities to be copied, and everything that has been a staple of the series going back to Kirby’s Adventure on the NES.
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While some may wonder why they would pay for a remake when they were promised their old game on the cheap via Virtual Console, I think the redeeming quality is that Kirby always was a portable franchise. The game’s surreal settings and simple formats just seemed to fit better. That however may be a sign of my age, as I remember playing the original Kirby’s Dream Land on my Game Boy.
In addition to the various platform games (including the remake of the original Kirby’s Dream Land,) there are a ton of mini games here. On display were the two new mini-games, the first of which is a shooting gallery game. If you have played almost any of the mini game collections on the DS, you already know that you quickly tap the stylus over the touch screen. It does require some quick reflexes, and was at least entertaining. I can’t imagine that this will have much staying power beyond the first few plays.
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The other new mini game I checked out was a card matching game that didn’t make any sense. I know I lost, a lot. I also know that there is zero tutorial so without a manual I can’t really tell you anything other than there are cards and you must choose them in some fashion that puts you ahead of your opponents. I hope that the mini game eventually gets an in game tutorial, because it would be pretty silly to have to carry the manual with you just to play through something as simple as a card game.
Kirby Super Star Ultra is a remake, but it is the kind remake that I can get behind. This was a big game by SNES standards, and even know there is a lot of material here. There needs to be a little better tutorials for the mini games, but fans of Kirby will find a portable version of one of the finest SNES games.
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Tags: Kirby Super Star Ultra
Posted by Mike "Two Tone" McConnell on Aug 8th, 2008 and is filed under DS Previews, Previews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
