Storyline: 7.9/10
Ripple Star is a planet separate from Pop Star that is populated by fairies, most notably one named Ribbon. One day, the ominous Dark Matter comes and invades Ripple Star. Ribbon hops on a powerful, flying crystal in the planet's castle and tries to escape, but 3 blobs of Dark Matter chase her, destroy the crystal into many pieces and sends her flying towards Pop Star, where Kirby finds her and agrees to help her find the crystals and save Ripple Star while traveling through many other planets. Well... It's a fairly decent storyline, but I can't tell you how many times I've seen a storyline involving some kind of powerful crystals, videogame or not. Fortunately, there are some plot twists like Kirby teaming up with a Waddle Dee and even King Dedede, as well as a surprise ending if the game is beaten 100%.
Gameplay: 8.9/10
Unlike in many Kirby games, the Copy
Abilities are reduced to 7 basic ones: Fire, Ice, Spark, Stone, Needle,
Cutter, and Bomb. The thing is that you can mix these abilities together
to create whole new ones. As an example, say you swallow a Bobo (Fire)
and get its ability. Then you can take the "Ability Star" out of your mouth
and throw it at a Poppy Bros. Jr. (Bomb) to fuse the two together. The
result is Kirby being able to burst into fireworks and damage enemies.
This gives the potential of a massive 49 Copy Abilities in the game. Anyone
who's played Kirby's Dream Land 3 will notice a resemblance between this
and the helper system. Some of my favorites would be Fire + Cutter, Thunder
+ Cutter, Fire + Bomb, Stone + Bomb, and Cutter + Needle. Of course, there
are a few rather unhelpful ones like Fire + Ice, Rock + Ice, and Spark
+ Ice. The thing that annoyed me throughout the game, however, is Kirby's
sluggishness. He appears to have been significantly slowed down compared
to many other Kirby games, even when dashing. The other thing is that some
of Kirby's ability mixes seem to sometimes be clones of each other; don't
get me wrong, most of them are quite original, but if you have a wide variety
throughout the game you'll notice some abilities will be essentially identical.
Needle and Needle + Needle doesn't come as much of a surprise due to the
fact that combining 2 of the same abilities usually just results in an
upgrade. But even abilities like Bomb + Ice and Bomb + Spark are pretty
much the same except for appearance. Although, most abilities aren't COMPLETELY
useless, as many of them are required to destroy color-coded walls, which
I will cover in the Replay Value section.
Graphics: 8/10
While Kirby 64 is strictly a sidescroller,
the graphics are in 3D. I had to give credit for it for not having 2D graphics,
which generally is rather sub-par for an N64 game. However, the graphics
are pretty average for its era. The enemies in the game mostly look pretty
nice, but I've found that, for whatever reason, the protagonists of the
game seem to be more polygonal. This especially applies to Kirby and King
Dedede. Fortunately, the environments are usually quite pretty, with fairly
detailed textures and effects suitable for the location. Those are probably
where the graphics shine. Now the other complaint I have about the graphics
are the special effects. Usually those look pretty good in games, but these
don't seem to have much effort put in to them. Fire, for example, strongly
lacks shading; thunder suffers the same problem as well. The game has kind
of a mixed graphical offering when you consider characters, environments,
and special effects, but I'd say it’s satisfying enough to earn an 8.
Music and Sound Effects: 8.5/10
Another one of the similarities to
Kirby's Dream Land 3 in this game is that there's a good number of remixes
from the game in it. 1-3 is a remix of Dark Tower, 3-2 is a remix of...
something I can't remember but I know it was in Dream Land 3 somewhere,
and I could've sworn I heard a bit of Sand Canyon in World 2, not to mention
some remixes from various other games as well, such as the well known Butter
Building from Kirby's Adventure. A lot of the game's tracks are originals,
though. The 1-1 and many other themes originated in this game, if I remember
right, and are good tracks as well. Probably the best tracks in the game
are the Boss Theme, 5-4, and the 100% Final Boss Theme. The problem I had
with the soundtrack is the main, basic problem that affects most music;
some are just boring. Most of the map themes are nothing special, and the
mini-boss theme just seems to loop too much. But the worst themes in the
game are ultimately no distraction.
Length: 5.9/10
Kirby 64 doesn’t avoid the Kirby series'
biggest flaw - it's too easy and short. There are six different "Stars"
(Planets) that you travel to, each with 3 or 4 levels along with a boss.
A rough estimate to how many levels there are, not including bosses, is
22. It likely won't take an expert long to beat, it may even be beaten
the first day with a few hours of straight gameplay. The thing that disappointed
me is the lack of a need to solve puzzles. Sure there are strategies you
need to use to find all 100 Crystals, but that's replay. This game pretty
much just involves going through various levels, gaining the Copy Abilities
of enemies, and using them to destroy other enemies. Not to mention the
mini-bosses are fairly unchallenging most of the time.
Replay Value: 9.1/10
This is probably one of the best aspects
of the game. As mentioned in previous paragraphs, the main aspect of the
replay value is collecting all the Crystals that are scattered around the
levels. There are 3 of them in each regular level, 1 in each boss level.
1 of the level's crystals is usually received by beating the easy mini-bosses,
which I reduced the score a little for. Now most shards after that are
guarded by color-coded walls. You have to match the ability of the same
color to the color of the wall. For example, Fire is red, Spark is yellow,
Bomb is black, etc. Most walls will also have 2 different colors, so you
need to combine the corresponding abilities and use the result on it. You
will likely have to use nearly every combination in the game to be able
to bust all these walls. The other Crystals are just, well... hidden. There
may be puzzles you need to solve to get these Crystals. A common occurrence
is Adeline, a painter girl who joins you early in the game, painting clues
as to how to unveil a nearby Crystal. These are some of the puzzles in
the game that make you think a little more. The reward for collecting all
these Crystals? An alternate ending and a new world opened. This world
has 1 short level, and better yet, probably the most epic Kirby boss battle
to date. After that, a new, challenging game mode is unlocked that I probably
shouldn't reveal despite that it may be obvious to long-time Kirby fans.
The other sidequest in the game is collecting Enemy Info Cards. These can
be collected through the goal game at the end of the level; sorry for not
explaining it beforehand. Basically, Kirby arrives at a picnic with various
foods and one Info Card. You have to time his jumps to make him land on
the item you want, in this case, the Info Card. These cards don't really
do much; they simply state the enemy's name and show an animation of them.
There is a large number of these in the game, and will take a long time
to collect. It's a good and long sidequest, despite that there really isn't
much of a reward for completing it, although I'm not sure, I honestly have
yet to complete it myself. The thing that annoyed me about it is that you
can get duplicate cards. As you keep collecting cards, chances of getting
a new one become slimmer and slimmer until you may find yourself constantly
getting duplicates. This tends to make later parts of collecting rather
tedious.
Fun Factor!: 9/10
Another one of the best parts of the
game. Kirby 64 is short but sweet, and filled with many amusing environments,
enemies, and abilities. What really contributed to this score is the ability
mixing system; if it was reduced to those basic 7 abilities, I would've
been quite disappointed. Now that there are about double the amount of
most Kirby games, it's fun to try them all out and find the ones you like.
Some are quite humorous as well, you'll love Fire + Spark. And a point
I'll bring back up from my Kirby Squeak Squad Review, the fun of the game
depends a lot on which ability you're using. And if you have a friend over,
there's a selection of 3 unique mini-games that can support up to 4 players.
Now the main problem that affects the game is one that I previously reflected
on in the Gameplay section; Kirby is too slow. That's typically not a problem
in Kirby games either. Adding on to the problem, Kirby is even slower when
flying, and his flight time is limited unlike in past games where he could
fly endlessly.
Overall: 88/100
While there could have been a better
selection of a Kirby game to put on the Virtual Console, like Kirby SuperStar,
I'm definitely not saying Kirby 64 isn't one of Kirby's better titles.
If you're looking for a Kirby game I'd rather recommend that you download
Kirby's Adventure first, but if you've already done so or have quite a
few Wii Points to spare, go for Kirby 64. A gamer who's looking for a good
challenge won't end up satisfied by this game, so more casual gamers may
find this game more appealing. But I am a hardcore gamer myself and I still
like this title. This is perhaps one of Kirby's more underrated games.
| If you would like to send some feedback
to the author of this submission, please complete this form.
What's your name?
What's your Email address?
How do you rate this submission?
Does this submission belong in Little
Lemmy's Land?
Would you like to see more from this author? Comments and suggestions:
|
