Live Blogs DS to SNES: What's Changed?

FinalStarman2012-06-15 19:56:51

Sick of climbing, Kirby decides to do some spelunking instead. I mean, he had to have known that hole was there, he had the hat and everything. His fall included clever use of the scaling and rotating effects of Mode 7. The title screen graphic returns on the next screen, which pans down to give a view of the crystal cave at which Kirby is now staring with a couple bandages on his pinkness. With a press of the Y button, I confirm that "new game" in all lowercase letters is indeed what I want to select.

But before I force Kirby back onto his feet, I lie to the game yet again, telling it that I have never explored this cave. The tutorial is pretty much the same as in Ultra, but one difference in the localization really stands out: when the Poppy Bros. [sic] Jr. blows up a chunk of the wall Kirby overlooked and the treasure chest is revealed, the narration says, "Whoops!" instead of, "There was even one here!" or whatever exactly the DS version said.

There is a noticeable difference on the treasure screen, accessible with the X button: unlike on the DS version, there are no white lines dividing the treasure icons from one sector of the cave from another. Because of this, it can be difficult to tell where a missed treasure is if it is at the start of an area or the end of the previous one. When you find a treasure and open it, it says, "[X] obtained!" instead of the DS version's "You found the [X]!"

Most of the treasures themselves are unchanged, though there are some pretty obvious exceptions. There is no Power Paintbrush treasure in this game, since that one is from the 2005 DS Kirby game of the same name (Canvas Curse where I live). In this version, the four-colored Seasons Heart is, rather than one treasure, four different treasures, each one a solid color and named after a season. The Bucket is still the one from Mario and Wario, the Screw Attack is called the Screw Ball in this game, the Kong's Barrel does not have the DK insignia on it, and the Orichalcum is called Orihalcon. And now… well, I might as well list all the treasures by area. I'm not sure if the levels have names any longer than the shorthand names given on the progress screen on the DS version, so I'll just use those.

Sub-tree

Crystal

Old Tower

Garden

I have noticed some more differences that I hadn't in Dyna Blade. First of all, there's swimming. Unlike in Kirby Super Star Ultra, Kirby cannot stand and walk on at the bottom of a body of water. Instead he just continues making the swimming motion. This is nice because all walking did underwater was slow Kirby down. There is also a slight difference in control: in this version, if you press B while not moving horizontally, Kirby ascends without facing up, like in Kirby's Dream Land 3 and Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards. If you press up while not moving horizontally, Kirby will swim upwards, facing upwards. It doesn't make or break the game, but it's a nice little nuance.

Next there are the differences in copy abilities. Wing Kirby is not as useful as in Ultra. It's midair wing flapping does not hurt enemies or break blocks, and Wing Kirby cannot break blocks above just by flapping up to them from below. In the part where there are two switches on either side of a middle space, when I tried the Condor Dive, which generates shockwaves in either direction, only one switch could be hit at a time. The attack seems to lose effect after one hit. The wings can still cut ropes, however.

Stone Kirby plays mostly the same, but Turbo Stone slides noticeably less than on the DS. It's still effective as an attack, but it doesn't go as far. The Kirby statue is in a different pose and so is the muscular statue. In the DS version, the muscular statue would change poses depending on the grade of the ground; I have not tested to see whether or not this is true in this version too.

Paint Kirby, a hidden ability that appears in two boss fights across all the games (here it's in the fight against Chameleo Arm), works exactly like in Ultra: it's basically a slightly less powerful Crash Kirby that has an amusing color change effect on bosses. The only difference is that in this version Kirby doesn't do his badass brush swinging when he's done dishing the paint. That's a little disappointing.

The enemy that gives Jet Kirby is called Capsule J in this version, as opposed to Capsule J2 in the DS version. Capsule J looks pretty much like a robotic Waddle Doo. Oh, and Jet Kirby is much better on the SNES, mostly because the jet hovering doesn't take so long to accelerate. Using Jet Kirby, I wiped the floor with Fatty Whale. Speaking of Fatty Whale, he is much faster in this version, when he swims across the screen in particular.

Something else I noticed is that the transitions between areas in the cave have much more… spacious backgrounds than in the DS version. And by "spacious" I mean "outer space." I also noticed that some of these tunnels (and a room in the Old Tower) include a type of enemy not seen in Ultra: those round guys from Kirby's Adventure who climb walls and throw stars.

The save rooms, rather than restoring your health automatically when you step on the glowing ground, have a switch that makes a Maxim Tomato appear. Same effect, really, as the tomato is not lost forever once consumed. Oh, and the prompt for saving in this version is, "Save your record?", which doesn't really make sense.

The second boss, Computer Virus, isn't completely the same as in the DS version. What is called the Puppet in Ultra is called Dancing Doll in this game, and the Magician is called the Witch in this game and has less of a smiley face. The windows open on the screen in a cooler fashion: the outlines of the windows move diagonally across the middle of the screen to where the windows themselves end up appearing. (Yeah, I'm bad at describing visual effects.) They can all easily be killed with the upward Hammer swing, except for the Witch, who only almost dies from one of those. The stat gains are a little different than in the DS version. On this playthrough, it says: "You earned 287 experience points. / You earned 2 courage points! / You earned 4 tenderness points! / You earned 4 Happy Smile points! / You earned 2 Exam score points! / You earned 3 ambition points! / You earned 3 Love points!"

I arrive at the Old Tower and try for about half a minute to enter the first entrance. The thing is, I'm trying to enter from the middle. The entrance, though it doesn't look like it, is actually made up two doors right next to each other. I'm attempting to enter right between them. I felt really dumb when I figured out what the deal with that one was.

After Paint Kirbying Chameleo Arm to colorful death, I head over to Garden. The cloud area here is really irritating; there are walls where it looks like there shouldn't be and vice versa.

Now I fight Wham Bam Rock, whose face is decidedly less rocky than in Ultra. He doesn't get the Castle Lololo music treatment in this version (neither did Dyna Blade; I think I forgot to mention that). He's also faster than he is in the DS version, which makes for a lot less waiting for him to attack. As usual, I use Ice Kirby to fight him. Unfortunately, I can't freeze the pebbles he makes rain down in this version, whereas doing so made the boss die very quickly in the DS version. That does not prevent me from using Ice Suction to swallow the rocks and spit them back out for considerable damage.

Worth noting about Ice Kirby in this version is that, unlike in the DS version, there's no delay before his breath attack. This makes said attack much more practical. Something else I noticed is that Ice Kirby's skating isn't actually animated in this game; instead he just slides forward posed like a skating statue with no loss of momentum.

I reach the end of the cave and take the really long elevators back up to the start. The ending cutscene of Kirby flying around in the fresh air is just like it is in the DS version, just not a prerendered 3D cutscnene. The Congratulations screen is a still in this version, and it doesn't get any victory music.

The next installment won't be until September or late August at the earliest, because I will be away from my Wii until that time. Hey, at least this time I'm giving some warning before a huge delay.

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