Kirby's Adventure

aka: 3D Classics: Kirby's Adventure, Hoshi no Kirby: Yume no Izumi no Monogatari
Moby ID: 8146
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One day Kirby is surprised to discover that he cannot have any dreams during his customary after-lunch nap. Soon he discovers that King Dedede has stolen the Star Rod, which supplies the energy to the Fountain of Dreams and broken it into several pieces, entrusting each of his allies with one. Kirby has no other choice but to find these pieces and bring dreams back to the Dream Land.

Kirby's Adventure is an action side-scrolling platform game. As the pink puffball Kirby the player explores numerous colorful lands with a variety of enemies to defeat. To help out on his journey, Kirby has the ability to eat enemies and spit them out as projectiles. With certain enemies, Kirby can capture their abilities and e.g. gain a sword, shoot lasers, or even fly around the level. There are seven different stages, each broken up into multiple levels, and sometimes also containing a couple of bonus mini-games. The game cartridge features a battery backup allowing games to be saved without the need for passwords.

Spellings

  • 星のカービィ 夢の泉の物語 - Japanese spelling

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Credits (NES version)

31 People (25 developers, 6 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 87% (based on 33 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.1 out of 5 (based on 86 ratings with 5 reviews)

Original and cute adventure on the NES, but badly lack challenge and variety

The Good
Kirby's Adventure is a NES game released late in the life of the NES, and however it's still a notable game. although this game has now quite a few sequels for others game consoles, this is the only Kirby game I've ever played yet so I cannot say how the series turned out or anything, I'll review this game as a standalone game.

Being one of those late NES game, Kirby's Adventure really impress on the graphics department. You'll be constantly thinking (wow, the NES can do this ?). The whole game is really cute and nicely designed/flavored. It's really easy to fell in love for the game's universe with it's cute graphics. You control Kirby (not so surprising) a little pink ball with eyes and a mouth, and that can take almost any form he likes. He's really cute.

This game is a linear platformer, and you go from one level to the next one, occasionally having to defeat bosses on your way. Kirby has a really impressive load of moves possibles, and that's probably one of the most impressive thing with the game. Basically he can jump and slide (like Megaman), nothing too impressive so far. However, he can also inhale air to float in the air (effectively allowing him to fly), and he can swim as well. While he basically cannot attack and can only dodge, he still have the ability to inhale enemies and then either throw them back to other stuff, or effectively eat them, and then he gains the ability of the eaten enemy. Not all enemies have abilities (nor all of them are eatable, some will damage him instead), but those who does mostly have great abilities. After inhaling enemies, Kirby can have really great powers such as using weapons or magic that have various effects and ranges. Even if a couple of abilities are useless, most of them are cool (also there is one enemy that makes Kirby sleep instead, and then he's vulnerable, just like the sleep aliment in most RPGs, so beware !).

Most music in Kirby's Adventure, while not awesome, is definitely worth noting for being fast-paced and overall happy. For some reason it sounds really different from all other NES music around, I don't really know why. I just uses different "instruments" than most NES games. The boss music annoyed me tough, so did a couple of other music heard in the game.

Finally the gameplay is very varied and the controls are perfect and responsive, there is no reason to really dislike Kirby's Adventure, as the game is solid and works well. Also something I liked is the fact that even if the game is linear, all stages are re-visitable, and there is a considerable amount of secrets to be found around, in case you'll be bored.

The Bad
Kirby's Adventure doesn't come without its set of flaws. The bigger flaw is that the game is really short, easy, and unvaried, so that after beating it there isn't much reason for you to come back. Sure there is extra minigames (who aren't fun anyway) and a "bossfight" mode which allow you to fight all bosses in a row, which is cool, but you've already beat them anyway.

Because Kirby can do so many things, there is many way to bypass the difficulties of the game, and this definitely make the game too easy (more specifically Kirby's ability of flying simply make all holes completely harmless). although an excuse for this would be that the game basically targets children audience, some later bosses are still really tough. More specifically the final bosses (there is 3 of them) are all 3 REALLY hard, I mean all the difficulty that lacks through the whole game is compensated by how hard the final bosses are. While most NES games are hard all the way along but have a really easy final boss (Contra, Gradius, etc...), Kirby is really the other way around.

Oh, and yeah, a backwards from having that much gameplay features on the NES is that the game suffers from really heavy lags/slowdowns, often it's hard to bypass them. Another flaw is that the game features battery saves, which is rare for a NES platformer (saves were initially reserved for RPGs), but however, whenever the game saves your game is a complete mystery. It just does so automatically when you complete a stage without telling nor asking anything to you, and that sucks. They should have added a proper save feature that allow you to either save or not.

The Bottom Line
Kirby's Adventure is a NES game that really show what the NES can do graphics and gameplay wise. However, while the game is impressive and has a lot of features, despite the inspired levels and cute characters and enemies, the game is still too easy and you'll likely not found the adventure epic for some reason. However, it's still a good little cute game and while I'm far from being a hardcore fan of this game, I still think it's decent and should be tempted for people who want a break form violent games and want a nice little and unique NES platformer. I don't consider it as one of the best games around not is it a must-have or anything.

While people that like the NES and platformers should definitely give it a try being warded of its flaws, other people probably don't miss much by not playing this.

NES · by Bregalad (937) · 2008

In my opinion, this is another NES game that TOTALLY RULES!

The Good
I must say that everything I have found on this 10 year old cartridge was about as good as Yoshi (NES). I love everything from the levels to the music and gameplay and the way they did the enemies and bosses. And the bonus mini-games were really fun to play.

The Bad
THE GAME WAS WAAAAAAAY TOO FREAKING EASY!!! I swear I could start a brand new game and I could beat this game in less than an hour and a half with ease and RARELY lose a life.

The Bottom Line
You want to have some major fun while playing on the NES? This is DEFINITELY a game to include on your shopping list. Just give this game a try, you WON'T be sorry, trust me.

NES · by Dark Cloud (31) · 2003

Kirby's Adventure = NES classic

The Good
Graphics- For the NES, the graphics are wonderful. They are bright and colorful. HAL did a great job with the NES for almost every game they made for that system, and in Kirby's Adventure, it shows. Music- The music in this game is catchy as heck. It's upbeat, groovy, and worthy of a medal. It's almost as good as the moon theme from DuckTales. Gameplay- This is my favorite Kirby game ever. Kirby can do a lot more than suck his enemies and spit them out. With most enemies, he can digest them and steal their powers.My favorite power is the tornado. There are tons of levels, bosses, and mini games. One of my favorite platformers ever. Controls- The controls are very tight. Kirby moves exactly as he should. B sucks, and A jumps.

The Bad
Length- The game is not too short, but you can beat it in 3-4 hours. Final Boss- His name is Nightmare, and even though he is pretty cool, I would've liked King DDD as the final boss more than Nightmare. However, DDD does make some cameos in the game.

The Bottom Line
This game was released in 1993. The NES was nearly 10 years old in America. The SNES was out, and nobody cared about the NES that much anymore. Kirby's Adventure sold poorly, but it's still a classic.

NES · by Weston Sharpensteen (13) · 2012

[ View all 5 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Isn't the GBA version an enhanced remake? Grandy02 (673) Jun 6, 2010
Such a popular game, yet no threads? Simoneer (29) Jun 6, 2010

Trivia

Final Level

The final level of Kirby's Adventure, leading to the last boss, is directly based on Kirby's Dream Land for Game Boy. The level is entirely black and white, the four areas are based on the Game Boy game's four levels, and the music is exactly the same as Kirby's Dream Land level 1 theme.

Size

The game was the second largest game (in megabits) to appear on the NES, weighing in at a hefty 6 megabits (768KB). HAL Laboratory's Metal Slader Glory takes the cake as the largest game on the NES, with 8 megabits (one full megabyte) of data.

Awards

The game received the following awards: * NES Game of the Year in the 1993 GamePro Editors' Choice Awards (Vol. 6, Issue 2) * #150 out of 200 of the "Greatest Games of Their Time" by EGM Issue #200 (Feb. 2006)

Information also contributed by Big John WV and Tiago Jacques.

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Servo.

Wii U added by Michael Cassidy. Nintendo 3DS added by CrankyStorming. Nintendo Switch added by Kam1Kaz3NL77. Wii added by gamewarrior.

Additional contributors: Satoshi Kunsai, Apogee IV, Exodia85, gamewarrior, Bregalad, Cantillon, Harmony♡.

Game added January 11, 2003. Last modified February 18, 2024.