Kirby Super Star is a 1996 SNES game, and part of the Kirby franchise. Unlike the other Kirby games, where everyone's favorite pink puffball has one long adventure, Super Star contained a number of shorter games — its tag line on the box was "8 games in one!" Those games — 6 main, 2 sub — are:
Main Games
Spring Breeze: King Dedede has stolen all the food in Dream Land, and it's up to Kirby to stop him. The introductory game, it's essentially an expanded version of the originalKirby's Dream Land.
DynaBlade: A mysterious creature named Dyna Blade is terrorizing Dream Land, and it's up to Kirby to stop it. Adds a world map, some additional powers, and a couple extras, but in the end is mostly an intro game like Spring Breeze.
Gourmet Race: Kirby and Dedede race to see who can eat the most food while still reaching the finish line first. It's pretty straight forward. Very notable for its music: the Gourmet Race theme "Run, Kirby, Run" is oneofthemost-remixedsongsonYouTube and one of two sources of the THIS VIDEO CONTAINS meme. And that's just a sample.
The Great Cave Offensive: Kirby has accidentally fallen down a hole and found himself in a huge cave, filled with treasure. Now he has to find a way out of the cave while grabbing as much loot as he can. More of a Metroidvania game than a linear platformer, Kirby's quest through the cave helps him find items like the Falcon Helmet, Mr. Saturn, and the Triforce, as well as the Kirby Phone and the Triple Star Rod (which, in the case of the latter two, are exclusive to the remake; see below for details).
Milky Way Wishes: The Sun and the Moon are fighting, throwing day and night into chaos, and it's up to Kirby to stop them. This game takes Kirby to other worlds to find the wish-granting Galactic Nova, and since the enemies on these worlds are different than the usual ones, Kirby can't absorb their powers; instead, he has to find the Deluxe Copy Essences around the levels, after which point he has those powers forever, and can shuffle through them. It turns out that Marx, who sent you to find Nova, was using you to get Galactic Nova's power in order to rule Popstar. Kirby has to rush back to stop him in a climacticfinalbattle.
The Arena: Okay, seven main games, as beating all six games unlocks The Arena, a straight-up Boss Rush. Kirby has his choice of abilities and a set number of Maxim Tomatoes, and must battle through every boss and miniboss of the game, from Whispy Woods to Meta Knight to the terror that is Waddle Dee, before a rematch with Marx.
Sub-Games
Samurai Kirby: Kirby faces off in a first-strike duel with five increasingly tough opponents. Like the Quick Draw game in Kirby's Adventure / Nightmare in Dream Land, it's a game of reaction time.
Abandon Ship: Discussed near the end of Revenge of Meta Knight. They decide to fight Kirby one last time before doing so.
American Meta Knight is Hardcore: The "Meta Knight's Counterattack" part of the game was changed in the Western release to "Revenge of Meta Knight" and Meta Knight's new dialogue makes him sound clearly villainous. They even made him threaten Kirby to death! Those changes have been maintained in Ultra, sans the "Prepare to die!" line.
Animated Actors: Implied by the unlockable blooper reel in Ultra. Complete with laugh tracks.
Ascended Extra: Bandanna Dee first appeared in Super Star as the first opponent in "Megaton Punch". In Ultra, he has dialog and appears as a boss (albeit not much of one) in "Revenge of the King" (plus he's the only spectator in the stands during the Masked Dedede fight), and the Waddle Dee opponent in "The Arena" was changed to him. Now he's a playable character in Kirby's Return to Dream Land.
CoolFaceship: The Halberd, with Meta Knight's mask, made its debut here.
Co-Op Multiplayer: A second player can play as the summoned helpers. In Super Star Ultra, it's required for each player to own the cartridge to do this with most of the games, though Spring Breeze can be played co-op through download play, with both players watching the first player's DS.
Damn You, Muscle Memory: Going from playing Super Star to its DS remake can be quite difficult control-wise. In the original, it used the classic SNES control scheme of B being jump and Y attack, with A being used to summon a helper. In Ultra, they went for control consistency with the GBA games and Squeak Squad, having B as attack and A as jump (with X being used to create a helper). It can also be tricky if you, say, play Ultra first and then played the original on something like Kirby's Dream Collection.
Difficult, But Awesome: The Suplex, Jet, and Ninja powers are very difficult to use effectively, especially against bosses, but do crazy damage. Suplex in particular, because bosses can't be grabbed — meaning you have to either grapple any debris the boss creates, or spam Pinpoint Kick. It's awkward and requires a lot of precise maneuvering, but most bosses go down from two or three wrestling moves. This means Bugzzy isn't such a bad choice for Helper to Hero...until you reach Computer Virus.
Dual Boss: Twin Woods. The prospect of two Whispy Woodses doesn't sound too threatening, but if you can't put them away fast you'll start to regret it soon.
Dub Name Change: Super Star Ultra is known in Japan as Ultra Super Deluxe, which has led to it being sometimes called "USDX".
Mark became Marx, for much the same reasons as Tina to Terra in Final Fantasy VI.
One of the enemies faced during the Computer Virus boss went by the name of Red Dragon in both versions of Super Star. When Ultra came out, the foe was rechristened with the Unfortunate Name of Grand Dragon in the Japanese version. Since this is the title of the leader of the Ku Klux Klan, this was changed to Great Dragon for English releases.
Eternal Engine: The Halberd in Meta Knight's Revenge and Mecheye/Mekkai in Milky Way Wishes.
Evil Plan: Marx lampshades this (by going over what he did after he wishes to rule Popstar) only in Ultra near the end of "Milky Way Wishes".
Excuse Plot: Except for Milky Way Wishes, the plots of most games never get really complex. In fact, most of their descriptions are little more than "There's a Big Bad causing trouble! Go stop it!" Then again, Kirby doesn't need much motivation anyway.
The Great Cave Offensive is the worst offender. "Kirby fell into a hole! Get treasure and escape from a giant whale, living RPG, paint-spitting mutant chameleon, and an ancient rock face with a hand!"
Fan Nickname: Bandanna Dee and Captain Waddle Dee, as well as Angel Meta Knight.
The True Arena: Marx Soul, who's a borderline True Final Boss.
From Nobody to Nightmare: Instead of the usual Dark Matter-esque Eldritch Abomination, Marx is just one of the tiny, cute, marshmallow-like denizens of Popstar who manages to gain ultimate power with a Batman Gambit involving Kirby and the wish-granting comet Galactic Nova.
Gameplay Roulette: Each sub-game (not counting minigames) works differently from one another. To be fair, they all revolve around the same mechanics.
Getting Crap Past the Radar: Mild, but Fatty Whale smokes a pipe, even in the international versions. Maybe it's OK because you don't see any tobacco fumes?
Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: A subversion. The final bosses of Milky Way Wishes first appear in its introduction sequence and are only seen again at the very end. However, in the original Super Nintendo version, the introduction sequence was both optional and not indicated to even exist, meaning many players probably felt this applied to Galactic Nova and Marx. This was corrected in Ultra, where the introduction is automatically played.
Giggling Villain: Marx. In Ultra, Marx Soul makes it even worse.
Goofy Print Underwear: The mini-boss Jukid has polka-dot underwear under his gi, as seen when you knock him down.
Gotta Catch Them All: Treasures in The Great Cave Offensive, Abilities in Milky Way Wishes.
Green Hill Zone: Green Greens in Spring Breeze, Peanut Plain in Dyna Blade, and Floria in Milky Way Wishes.
Heavy Metal: Galacta Knight's battle music is perhaps the only time you're ever going to hear this in a Kirby game. Carries over to his appearance in Return to Dream Land.
Hopeless Boss Fight: When facing against Heavy Lobster in "Revenge of Meta Knight" the first time as Kirby. Granted it's only meant to distract you (The Player) long enough to be blown away by the time the ship launches.
Invincibility Power-Up: The Invincible Candy item, which gives you temporary invincibility and an Ear Worm of a jingle when eaten.
Item Get: Everytime you open a chest in The Great Cave Offensive, you'll get a fanfare and then the information about the item you got.
Kiss of Life: Somewhat of a variant; Kirby/Meta Knight and their helpers can eat any health item and then "kiss" their partner, and then the partner will also get healed. Called "face-to-face food transfer" in the manual.
Let's Get Dangerous: The description for Revenge of the King says that King Dedede has gotten serious since he was beaten by Kirby many times in the past.
Light Is Not Good: Galacta Knight might count, if we actually knew whether he was good/evil. Even if he's not outright evil, the fact that his sheer power meant his very existence posed a threat to the galaxy qualifies him.
Also, the Sun and Moon fighting was part of Marx's plan, though this was only made clear in Ultra. It was only implied in the original..
Meaningless Lives: There's no punishment at all for running out of lives. The score doesn't even reset.
Miles Gloriosus: Captain Vul is the most dedicated of Meta Knight's men to killing Kirby, even sacrificing the ship's well being when he releases Heavy Lobster. However, he never goes after Kirby himself, and when the ship begins crashing, he's the first one to escape.
Monowheel Mayhem: The helper from the wheelie powerup is a monowheel.
Nerf: The playable Meta Knight in Ultra, compared to his appearance in Nightmare in Dreamland. He can't control his jump height and his higher speed became a temporary powerup.
New Game Plus: Meta Knightmare Ultra in KSSU, which allows you to play through the original SNES subgames as Meta Knight.
Nintendo Hard: The Arena (provided you play it without the hammer) and The True Arena in Super Star Ultra—the latter can get almost as hard as the original Kirby's Dream Land Hard Mode, even with the trusty hammer at your side! Helper to Hero from Ultra can also be infuriating to beat with all of the characters, especially the weaker ones. Completing Helper to Hero with all of them is so hard that it doesn't count towards 100% completion. You are rewarded for doing it with a truly massive crown and the original intros to the original games as seen on the SNES.
This made his design from the original Super Star resemble something like Blackface.
Only Idiots May Pass: The location of the secret planet ??? in Milky Way Wishes can be found only if you look up its location or fly around aimlessly for no particular reason and discover it by accident. Not so much in Ultra, as the planet is marked by a blinking star that stands out amongst the background.
Out-of-Character Moment: Meta Knight is surprisingly hostile in Revenge of Meta Knight, compared to his usual Worthy Opponent self. Apparently, this was partly due to the translation, and partly due to some ulterior motive like fixing all of Dreamland's problems through a benevolent dictatorship.
Power Copying: As always, Kirby can inhale some kinds of enemies to obtain their power (except in Milky Way Wishes unless you managed to find a secret star which contains the Copy ability). The powers are as follows:
Riding into the Sunset: Kirby after sinking the Halberd in Revenge of Meta Knight. After Revenge of the King, Dedede does his walk-of-shame into the sunset accompanied by his still-loyal Waddle Dee subjects. Kirby even flies twords the sunset as a giant kirby is floating with King DeDeDe's castle as the credits play.
Ultra redoes all of the visuals, which also has the benefit of replacing the pre-rendered CGI level visuals from the original, which, like Donkey Kong Country's, were fantastic for their time, but look very much outdated today. The new visuals rely much less on CGI, and will likely age much better.
Shout Out: Some of the items in The Great Cave Offensive are items from other Nintendo games.
Another one that appears in the Super Star Ultra updated remake of the game: in the new game mode "Revenge of the King," Kabula fires what seems to be Bullet Bills from the Super Mario Bros. series during the boss fight.
This is the first Kirby game in which the Sword ability gives him Link's cap. Likewise, The Yo-Yo ability seems to be based on Ness, right down to the ability's background resembling EarthBound's menu screen.
Shows Damage: A Type 1 example can be found when Kirby or his helper is low on health.
Spiritual Successor: This is the final Kirby game developed by Kirby creator Masahiro Sakurai. His next game was Super Smash Bros, which features a near-identical combat system.
Suspicious Videogame Generosity: You'll know you're about to hit a boss room when you reach a single room with nothing but Copy Essences and a Maxim Tomato.
This Cannot Be!: Captain Vul's reaction to the rest of the crew's reports that Kirby destroyed Main Cannon #2.
Title Drop: In the remake: "Marx has shown his true form! Fly in and protect Pop Star! Do it, Kirby, our Super Star!"
Trick Boss: How Helper to Hero ends. Wham Bam Rock's the trick, Wham Bam Jewel's the REAL Final Boss.
Took a Level in Badass: King Dedede in his "Masked Dedede" form. It even shows in the difficulty level of the fight.
Underground Level: Cocoa Cave in Dyna Blade, the Underground Forest in The Great Cave Offensive, and Cavios/Cavius in Milky Way Wishes.
Unexpected Shmup Level: The last normal stage of Milky Way Wishes is a side-scrolling shooter, as well as Kabula in Revenge of the King.
Updated Rerelease: Kirby Super Star Ultra Adds in 4 new games (With 4 new bosses) 3 new sub-games changes merges 2 of the beginners show tutorials in "Spring Breeze" changes some of the lines in the Beginners show tutorials from the original and changes some of the lines from the original.
Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: Marx is one of the creepiest villains to ever appear in the series. Most games aimed at adults would stop short of a final boss with an attack that involves a splitting himself in half and creating a black hole.
He's even worse in the updated remake when you have to face him as Marx Soul at the end of the True Arena. He's even more creepy than his boss form from the original, if the opening cutscene doesn't get you that bloodcurdling scream when he's defeated sure will.
Visual Pun: TAC is a feline enemy who steals Kirby's abilities and Helpers, making it a Cat burglar.
And Kirby can learn the ability Copy from it. Copy-cat, anyone?
Where It All Began: When the Great Cave Offensive is all said and done, the exit ends up being the hole Kirby fell into the cave in the first place.
Worthy Opponent: Meta Knight. When you reach him in Revenge of Meta Knight, he will leave a sword for Kirby to use before battling him and will wait up to 30 seconds for you to take it before doing battle. While the Halberd plummets to the ocean. On fire.
In Meta Knightmare Ultra, he even asks Galactic Nova to let him fight with a Worthy Opponent. Galactic Nova gives him Galacta Knight.
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