If you've played Kirby, which most likely you have, you know who he is. Kirby is a little pink ball of fluff or floof or crap that sucks in monsters and steals their powers by swallowing them. He's appeared in such games as
Super Smash Bros., Super Smash Bros. Melee, Kirby Pinball, Kirby and the Amazing Mirror, Kirby's Dream Land etc.
Obviously he also made an appearance (as the main character of course, his name is in the title) in
Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards. The game starts off desperately trying to set up some sort of storyline, but it starts way too abruptly for my tastes. Once you select "New Game" from the title screen it starts off with a small cutscene where Kirby is sleeping in a field when suddenly the sky is raining stars (they are really crystal shards) and one of the shards falls in Kirby's field. Coincidentally so does the flying fairy character, named Ribbon, who is accompanied by another crystal shard. Ribbon is unconcious before Kirby wakes her up and decides to combine his small shard and her small shard to make
a slightly larger shard. Kirby then runs away with Ribbon to possibly make sweet sweet love to her or to decide to go on an adventure to collect more small shards to make the full crystal.
After that cutscene you're thrown into the first level of the game and as you work your way through it you suddenly realize there is some evil force that's a black ball with a large eye in the middle (According to Wikipedia, his name is Dark Matter.) who randomly possesses people who have found a crystal shard to make them evil and to make them attack Kirby. Hypothetically he could possess Kirby and win the game, but evil bad guys always do things the hard way as opposed to the logical way.
Kirby games are usually known to be traditional side-scroller games, much like many of the early Mario games. Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards retains the same side-scroller attributes as many of the other Kirby games, except now it's in kinda 3D. I use the word kinda 3D because while the graphics aren't 2D, you can't explore the world that it shows you. You follow the path it gives you but you can't go into the background or explore around. It's simply pressing right on the D-Pad. I know it's Nintendo 64, but at least the first game that came out for the console was a game where you could go almost anywhere (Mario 64).
Another concern I have with this game is how slow-paced it is. Without having the fire power (It lets you rush forward in a ball of fire) you move extremely slow and it gets annoying that it takes forever to get across one small area of a level. The floating is slow too. When Kirby holds his breath he is able to float by repeatedly pressing the A button until his breath runs out. Each press of A however is moving 2 mm in the air so you have to press A a lot of times which makes you lose your breath faster.
The controls are very simple especially since it's a side-scroller. Pressing left or right on the D-Pad makes you move left or right, A is the jump button and B is the action button (Suck in people). The controls are explained very simply in the beginning of the game, so I had no problem with the controls. They were easy to handle and a small child could easily play this game if they could stay focused long enough.
The graphics in this game are okay and that's taking into account the fact that it's a Nintendo 64 game. It's not too hard to make a 3D ball of fluff but the rest of the graphics are very blocky or just 2D. In one of the bosses you a painter named Adeleine (who also appeared in Kirby Adventures as a boss) who draws things that come to life and are 2D monsters.
The plot I'm still confused about. I don't know where the shards came from, I don't know what the significance of the crystal the shards will make is, I'm pretty sure that Dark Matter is some sort of alien being because in one level there's a space ship but I'm still entirely unsure as to what the game is about. There's no plot development, you simply go from level to level.
The music in this game pleased me. They still retain that kiddish quality that Kirby's sound and music always had. It was catchy, it was clear and it kept me moving through the game. If it weren't for the music I probably wouldn't have played the game as far as I did because I was totally unpleased with it's gameplay. It was too slow and it didn't bring anything new to the Kirby title. It was basically the same as every other Kirby game in kinda 3D.
Nintendo could've done a better job with this game but it may have been just a rush to bring a Kirby title to the new (back then) system. It seemed as if it was rushed and underdeveloped and it most likely was. The music saved the game from the deepest part of hell, but it's still going to Layer 1 of hell.
I give this game 2 out of 5 stars. It could have been so much better if it was planned out more.
