The cutesy fat pink blob Kirby has long been one of Nintendo’s reliable franchise characters. While not quite as popular as Mario, Link or Samus in the West, the Japanese love him. The most recent Kirby release, Kirby Super Star Ultra, is a remake of the game we knew as Kirby’s Fun Pak (or Kirby Super Star for our American readers, hence the name), a very late release on the Super Nintendo that hit shelves in 1996. Nintendo figures that not many people got to play the original game, so they’re going to give us another opportunity to do so.

Kirby’s Fun Pak was a collection of different games which incorporated various elements into the standard Kirby platforming structure. There were also a few mini-games that were extensions of mini-games from other Kirby efforts. Kirby Super Star Ultra features these games along with four new platforming games, three new mini-games, redrawn graphics and a few 3D animated sequences.


The regular platforming games are the best part of Kirby Super Star Ultra, taking the basic gameplay from Kirby’s Adventure on the NES, and expanding upon it (as opposed to simplifying it, as many post-Fun Pak Kirby games have) or offering up some sort of gameplay stipulation. Fun Pak also introduced the ally system, where Kirby can relinquish his currently equipped power, in turn summoning an ally (who can be controlled by a second player).

Spring Breeze, the first game available, is something of a remake of the original Kirby’s Dream Land, albeit with Kirby’s new abilities intact. Kirby must travel to the castle to confront King Dedede, who has stolen Dream Land’s food supply. Dyna Blade pits Kirby against the titular enemy, a bird who is destroying everybody’s crops. This game follows the same basic platforming formula, but throws in an overworld with a few hidden stages. Gourmet Race is a bit different in that you race against King Dedede to eat the most items on the way to the finish line. A versus option has been added here for the remake, which is nice. The Great Cave Offensive is a collect ‘em up, where Kirby needs to recover 60 treasures distributed liberally through the game’s levels.

The Revenge of Meta Knight pits you against Kirby’s other great foe in a quest to destroy the Halberd before Meta Knight can conquer Dream Land. The catch is that you’re severely limited by time, and die if the clock runs out. Milky Way Wishes has Kirby resolving a dispute between the sun and moon of Planet Popstar. You must travel to each planet and defeat a boss to summon a comet that will help solve the situation – though you lack the ability to copy abilities. The final original game was The Arena, which pits you against the games bosses in succession.

The new games in Kirby Super Star Ultra feel like a little big of a gyp, in that they re-use most of the concepts from the original Fun Pak, but they’re still great to play. Revenge of the King is a remake of Spring Breeze, where you must defeat Dedede again after he decides to take revenge on Kirby for his loss in the original game. Next is Meta Knightmare Ultra, which puts Meta Knight in Kirby’s place for the majority of the original Fun Pak games. The last two games are based around The Arena; Helper to Hero lets you play as any one of the ally characters in a boss gauntlet, while True Arena lets you fight against all of the new bosses.



Mini-games present a quick, fun diversion in Kirby Super Star Ultra. Samurai Kirby is a western style quick draw contest, Megaton Punch is a competition to create the hardest punch through a combination of strength, focus and timing, Snack Tracks has four Kirbies competing to eat the most food while on a conveyor, Kirby Card Swipe is a memory game, and Kirby on the Draw is a shooting gallery.

Like most Kirby games, the various portions of Super Star Ultra are quite easy. Fortunately, many of the games in Kirby Super Star Ultra also support two players. Nintendo has also taken the opportunity to extend the multiplayer capabilities of the game by allowing you to play both the main games and the mini-games using the DS’s local wireless capabilities. If you’ve got two copies of the game, you each have your own view of the action, but single cart multiplayer requires you to look over the shoulder of the person with the cartridge while you control your character with the D-Pad, which is a bit odd.

Kirby Super Star Ultra presents a golden opportunity for anyone who missed the original Kirby’s Fun Pak to discover one of the pink blob’s greatest outings. The extra content is a decent incentive for those who did make it the first time around, though it’s not quite as original as we’d have hoped. Still, given the abundance of bad games on the DS this summer, you can’t really go wrong with Kirby.