Kirby's Adventure Nintendo NES Review

Developed by HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo for the NES. Kirby's Adventure was first released March 23, 1993 in Japan, and was later released in North America on May 1, 1993, and in Europe on December 1, 1993. Kirby's Adventure is the second installment in the franchise with Kirby's Dream Land for the original Gameboy being the first installment. Fun fact: Masahiro Sakurai, the creator of Kirby is also the creator of Super Smash Brothers and has even voiced King Dedede in Kirby 64 and Super Smash Brothers Brawl. Kirby's adventure for the NES is commonly praised as one of the best looking games if not the best looking game for the Nintendo Entertainment System, and believe it or not still holds up well today.

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You play as a pink ball named Kirby, or what I thought was a pink bubblegum as a child. There are a total of 7 worlds in Kirby's adventure and each one rewarded the player with a short animated intro clip that were usually funny. Kirby is able to swim, slide kick, jump, fly and suck in enemies and absorb their powers in order to give him an advantage with different types of enemies or areas. At the time, this was executed well and gave the platform genre more depth than any Mario game. Sure, Super Mario had a few power-ups, but Kirby had 10+ power-ups. The mini games in Kirby were also a thrill, they varied from arcade claw machines picking up small Kirby plush toys for extra lives to a mid-west styled Kirby firing off a pistol round (which was actually just a boxing glove spring) at his opponent before the opponent got their shot off - this required you to tap the "A" button as soon as your opponent drew their weapon.


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Kirby's animations were comical and even impressive for the time. Everything Kirby did had a unique animation, whether it was jumping, sliding, vacuuming enemies, flying, getting hit by different enemy attacks such as lightning or fire and more. The level design in Kirby were bright, colorful and never got repetitive or dull. My only complaint is how short the game is - you should have no problem completing it within 3 hours. The music was great and is still used today as classic Kirby themes, the sound effects were also good enough to compliment what the game had to offer.

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In conclusion, this is an absolute must own game for any NES collector. If you don't take my word on it, at least do yourself a favor and checkout some gameplay of it on YouTube. I'd even go as far to tell 3DS owners to purchase the 3D version on the Nintendo eShop. It won't disappoint if you're hungry for a classic game you haven't played already.