What Could Have Been / Kirby

Three ideas for what would've been a mainline Kirby title for the Nintendo GameCube, which never received one.

Given that the Kirby series is one of HAL and Nintendo's longest running franchises, it should come to no surprise that there were more than a few ideas that didn't make it through. While many of these ideas tend to be reused by HAL for other games in the series, some are doomed to float around aimlessly in Kirby's stomach, never to see the light of day.

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The Games:

• Kirby's Dream Land was first proposed as Popopo of the Spring Breeze, and later held the name Twinkle Popo during development, with the starring character named Popopo; he was initially meant as a placeholder dummy character until the team figured out a more advanced design, but they came to like the little guy so much that they decided to keep him in. Twinkle Popo had promotional materials released and was even ready for shipment until Satoru Iwata grew concerned that the initial orders were only 26,000 copies; he consulted with Shigeru Miyamoto, who suggested rebranding the game and letting Nintendo publish it, to which he agreed despite pressure at HAL Laboratory to refuse and stick with the existing orders. The name "Kirby" was chosen out of a list of name candidates^note which may or may not have been based on the surname of the lawyer who defended Nintendo in an important lawsuit from Universal. Miyamoto was also under the impression that Kirby was yellow (due to the game's monochrome sprites leaving room for interpretation), so he expressed surprise to Masahiro Sakurai when he saw the game's box art depicting Kirby as pink^note specifically the Japanese version, as International covers depicted Kirby as white; yellow Kirby was eventually used as the second player palette swap for Kirby in his multiplayer appearances, including the Super Smash Bros. series. In addition, concept artwork for the Twinkle Popo pitch reveals a different level lineup compared to the final game — Green Greens^note with a chained Whispy Woods, Silk Falls^note with a giant eel or serpent with boxing gloves, Elder Woods^note which eventually appeared as Old Growth Elder Yggy Woods, Air Fortress^note with unknown flying enemies that somewhat resemble Waddle Doo and what may be an early Wheelie, Float Islands^note with a submarine as well as Kaboola and a Blipper, Bubbly Clowds^note with boy and girl whale-shaped blimps, and Heat Palace^note possibly Mt. DeDeDe before becoming a Boss Rush; no sign of Castle Lololo just like in Spring Breeze
• For Kirby's Adventure, an interview in the Japanese player's guide revealed that there were over 40 Copy Abilities at one point of development, including a rocket (implemented as Missile in Amazing Mirror), an Animal ability for scratching and biting enemies (implemented in Squeak Squad), and block creation (which gets used in another HAL Laboratory game, BoxBoy!). Concept artwork◊ also shows that the Spark ability could have functioned more like Fire and Ice instead of Needle and Freeze (plus, the Sparky having eyestalks on its head) as well as a scrapped shrinking ability, the latter of which still has Dummied Out sprites and was later used in Kirby & The Amazing Mirror as the Mini ability.
• Kirby's Dream Land 2 was originally going to feature vehicle transformations^note which may have inspired the tranformations later seen in Kirby's Epic Yarn and Kirby and the Rainbow Curse — rocket, submarine, U.F.O., a digging Heavy Mole-like machine, tank, and scooter.
  • Also, when the Game Boy Color was initially announced, there were apparently plans to re-release this game in full color, the same way they did with The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening. If it ever really was in development, it was never finished.
  • As revealed in the franchise's 20th anniversary celebration book, one early concept art of Dark Matter◊ had it assume a humanlike face during its swordsman form.
• Kirby, with the addition of a pink, curly hair on his head, was originally supposed to star in a Spinoff Babies game, Kid Kirby, for the SNES; it was never finished, and all that remains of the game now are a few sprites and a few stage layouts released by a former developer for DMA Design (now Rockstar North) via his Flickr account.
• Kirby Super Star was tentatively titled Kirby of the Stars: Active until Shigesato Itoi was brought on to help decide the final name; he also designed the box art. More Copy Abilities were considered — Flower^note wears a ribbon and plants parasitic flowers on enemies, Card^note later an attack for Magic, Tonosama^note Feudal Lord; image based on the jumping "Goal" icon from Kirby's Adventure, Rush^note an early Fighter, Donate^note nurse Kirby forcibly taking blood donations from enemies with a giant needle, Satellite^note wears an antenna and communicates with a space satellite, Summon^note use a horn to call monsters, Wing^note specifically with angel wings, Mantle^note may have performed similarly to Dimensional Cape, and Granade^note an alternate Bomb except with grenades and an army helmet. Additionally, in an interview promoting the release of the Super NES Classic Edition, Masahiro Sakurai revealed that there was one more game planned called "Kagero Mansion" (Japanese: Kagero no Yakata, lit. Heat Haze Mansion). In it, Kirby was cursed with a mouth-sealing spell, so he had to explore a Haunted House in order to find a cure. Without being able to inhale, Kirby had to find other methods to obtain Copy Abilities, such as touching a candle to get Fire. The game was deemed low-priority, however, and had little to no work to show for it. He also revealed that the success of Donkey Kong Country led the developers to remove the game's existing sprite-work in favor of an art style based on computer graphics midway through development, which was partially responsible for the late SNES release.
• When the Nintendo 64 was in development and still called the Ultra 64, one title in development was Kirby Bowl 64 — Kirby Bowl being one way to romanize the Japanese name for Kirby's Dream Course. The snowboarding mode it featured apparently evolved into Kirby's Air Ride, which went through years of delays until it was quietly cancelled in 1998. It caught the public by surprise when a GameCube version, now named Kirby Air Ride, was announced in 2003. In addition, it was supposed to have a multi-themed star shaped track, but that got scrapped due to time constraints. It was also supposed to have a much bigger City Trial; the project was really ambitious even then.
• In Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards, Waddle Dee, Adeleine, and King Dedede were meant to be individually playable in the story mode; in the final game, only the latter remains playable, being ridden by Kirby in short sections.^note Waddle Dee's gameplay would have included picking up certain objects and enemies, which Kirby could do in the final game, but a fully playable version of Adeleine would eventually appear in Kirby Star Allies. There is also evidence suggesting that all of the animal friends from Kirby's Dream Land 3 were intended to reappear in significant capacity, as all three of their themes appear in-game^note the first theme only appears in the Sound Test, the second theme is used as the Theater theme, and the third theme is used for a stage in Pop Star, they have Dummied Out HUD artwork, and there is a piece of concept artwork depicting Adeleine painting Coo into existence to carry Kirby. Certain Concept Art also shows storyboard for cutscenes playing out slightly differently, such as possible dialog, and a musical minigame where the four main characters played together in a "K4" band as the player follow along with on-screen sheet music.
• Kirby Tilt 'n' Tumble was almost rebranded as a Pokémon game outside of Japan.
  • Also, Kirby Tilt 'n' Tumble 2 for the GameCube, using the Game Boy Advance and cable to control the same way as the original title. It later became "Roll-o-Rama" without Kirby in development before cancellation.
• The initial E3 2002 trailer of Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land showed little actual signs of being a remake of Kirby's Adventure - a mere five months before the game's release in Japan.^note It has been argued that the footage depicts test rooms; however, as the final game has a plethora of debug rooms that don't resemble them and the game was tentatively titled Hoshi no Kirby GBA on Japanese charts, it's debatable. Additionally, the English subtitle "Nightmare in Dream Land" was directly taken from the working subtitle of Kirby's Adventure seen in Nintendo Power Volume 47, Page 114.
• There was originally supposed to be a main platformer for the GameCube, but it never got released. Its original E3 2005 trailer depicts the addition of three Helpers in a version of the Kirby Super Star ability system with a piggyback feature^note later in Kirby's Return to Dream Land and Kirby Star Allies, a new hardhat instead of a twisted headband for Hammer Kirby^note which never happened, but as of Kirby's Return to Dream Land, ability caps that were Palette Swaps started being replaced with unique designs, Water Kirby from the anime^note it later appeared in the games with a different design, and a Wave-Motion Gun-equipped Dedede Robot^note which later debuted in Kirby Quest and got a revamp known as HR-D3. Its press release stated that the story involves Kirby getting "the stolen Warpstar back from King Dedede." Concept artwork shows more unused enemies including what looks like the final boss resembling Magolor and what appears to be the idea of multiple modes in the vein of the Kirby Super Star games. According to an interview, this was the first of three unsuccessful attempts at making a home console Kirby game before Kirby's Return to Dream Land, the fourth attempt that finally brought it out of Development Hell. The 3D structure of the second attempt resurfaced in Kirby 3D Rumble (and, by extension, Kirby's Blowout Blast; the use of abilities in that structure wouldn't be revisited until Kirby Battle Royale), and Kirby Star Allies shows the return of Helpers (and, to a lesser extent, the Cleaning ability) from the well-known first attempt. The third attempt was a cel-shaded 2D game with upgradeable abilities, with Kirby and the Forgotten Land revisiting the latter feature as Kirby's abilities could be upgraded in that game. Worth noting is that the game would have included a new knight^note once mislabeled as a design for Meta Knight specifically, but Word of God confirmed that it was always thought to be a separate character with red and black butterfly wings◊, as first seen in the art book bundled with Kirby's Dream Collection: Special Edition. This design has been reused as Morpho Knight.
• Kirby's Epic Yarn wasn't supposed to be a Kirby game; it was initially an original project called Fluff's Epic Yarn (Japanese: Keito no Fluff, or "Fluff of Yarn"), with Fluff as the main character. The development team at Good-Feel wasn't satisfied with how the game was turning out, so Nintendo suggested adding Kirby.
• Kirby's Return to Dream Land has a Dummied Out Super Ability known only as "Super Cutter" and a plant enemy known as Hearbell. Additionally, the 25th anniversary Kirby Art & Style Collection art book shows Magolor's design going through several revisions, including one that inspired Haltmann◊ from Kirby: Planet Robobot and one depicted as a girl◊. Additionally, an old Miiverse post states that the scene of Magolor seemingly being released from the Master Crown's control after beating his second form would only have played if the player had collected "all special items" (likely referring to Energy Spheres); however, it was eventually decided that it was too important to leave out, and the scene plays regardless of how many Energy Spheres have been collected.
• Kirby: Planet Robobot has concept art released online of several Susie designs, along with a concept for what looks like a Zero-inspired Mother Computer.
• Kirby Star Allies has several pieces of concept art released through official Twitter accounts, including various incarnations of the Three Mage-Sisters and ability caps for Artist and Festival.
• A program entitled Kirby Family was intended for the Game Boy Color and its final build was leaked on September 9 2020. It was essentially the Spiritual Successor to Mario Family, a Japan-only 'game' that linked to an embroidery machine where the user could reproduce a set of patterns on cloth. Poor sales of the machine outside of Japan led to the Kirby project being cancelled however. These articles provide more details.
• In the Masahiro Sakurai on Creating Games episode covering Kirby's Dream Land, Sakurai mentions that he originally wanted Kirby to eat enemies with his tongue akin to Yoshi (though according to him, Kirby originally had this ability before Yoshi) before he settled on him inhaling enemies instead. The idea of eating enemies with an extendable tongue would later carry over to Gooey in Kirby's Dream Land 3.

Kirby: Right Back at Ya!:

• The pilot for Kirby of the Stars (as seen here) has a lot of differences that were changed by the time the anime went into full production. Examples including Tiff having a far more simplistic design, King Dedede being more based on his appearance in Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards and having the role of a reluctant ally/rival more comparable to the games, Meta Knight being an antagonist with the ability to fly and the ability to display emotion as he visibly panics when Captain Stitch is about to slam into him after being spat out by Kirby, Kirby not wearing distinct hats when gaining powers, and the total absence of prominent characters like Escargoon and Tuff. Interestingly enough, Dark Matter appeared as a monster despite not appearing in the show proper.
• The people working on the show also wanted to put Nago in, but didn't have the time. Chef Kawasaki does have an old friend who's made to resemble Nago though.

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