Kirby's Adventure is a 1993 platform game created by HAL Laboratory and released by Nintendo for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). It is the second game in the Kirby series, following Kirby's Dream Land (1992) on the Game Boy. This game introduced the Copy Ability, which lets the main character, Kirby, copy powers from enemies he eats. The story follows Kirby as he travels through Dream Land to fix the broken Star Rod after King Dedede breaks it and gives the pieces to his helpers.
Masahiro Sakurai directed the game, a role he also held for Kirby's Dream Land. He designed the Copy Ability to make the game more challenging and fun to play again after the previous game was criticized for being too simple. The NES had better graphics than the Game Boy, and HAL Laboratory used this technology to create detailed visuals. Kirby's Adventure was the first Kirby game to show the character in color, as Sakurai had always intended for Kirby to be pink, surprising other team members.
Kirby's Adventure was praised for its smooth controls, variety of levels, and the Copy Ability. It was remade in 2002 for the Game Boy Advance with better graphics and multiplayer features, titled Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land. The original NES version was later released again through Nintendo's Virtual Console, the Wii compilation Kirby's Dream Collection, the NES Classic Edition, the Nintendo Classics service, and as a 3D version for the Nintendo 3DS. Over time, critics have ranked it as one of the best games for the NES.
Gameplay
Kirby's Adventure is a 2D side-scrolling platform game, similar to its earlier version, Kirby's Dream Land (1992). In the game's story, a harmful creature named Nightmare spoils the Fountain of Dreams, which gives peaceful sleep to people in Dream Land. King Dedede takes the Star Rod that powers the fountain and gives pieces of it to his friends to stop Nightmare. Kirby, the main character in the single-player game, mistakenly thinks Dedede took the rod for evil purposes and tries to collect the pieces. After Kirby defeats Dedede and returns the rod to the fountain, Nightmare escapes into space to spread nightmares. Kirby follows him and uses the rod's power to stop Nightmare.
Kirby keeps abilities from Kirby's Dream Land, such as walking left or right, crouching, and jumping. To attack, Kirby inhales enemies or objects and spits them out as star-shaped bullets. He can also fly by inflating himself. While flying, Kirby cannot attack or use other abilities, but he can exhale to stop flying and damage enemies or break blocks. New abilities include running quickly and performing a sliding kick. A key part of the game is Kirby's copy abilities. By inhaling and swallowing certain enemies, Kirby gains powers based on the enemy's special ability. These copy abilities help Kirby reach new areas and complete levels in different ways. Some copy abilities can only be used a limited number of times. Kirby can choose to stop using an ability at any time or lose it if hit by an enemy. He must quickly reacquire the ability or it will disappear.
The game has 41 levels spread across seven worlds. Each world includes a lobby with doors leading to four to six regular levels, a boss fight, and a Warp Star door that lets Kirby return to earlier worlds. Most worlds also have minigames where Kirby can earn extra lives, museums where Kirby can easily gain certain powers, and arenas where Kirby battles a miniboss to earn health and copy the boss's special ability. The game saves the player's progress after each level. The goal of each main level is to reach the end. If Kirby touches an enemy or a dangerous object, he loses part of his health meter. If all his health is lost or he falls off the bottom of the screen, the player loses a life. Losing all lives ends the game. Kirby can eat food items to refill his health or gain temporary protection from harm.
Development
Kirby's Adventure was created by HAL Laboratory in Kōfu as a game for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), following their 1992 Game Boy game Kirby's Dream Land. Masahiro Sakurai was the director and designer, with Takashi Saitou helping with design. Hiroaki Suga was the lead programmer, while Satoru Iwata, Shigeru Miyamoto, and Takao Shimizu were the producers. Iwata also helped with programming. Sakurai said development started in 1992 after he was asked to move Kirby's Dream Land to the NES. Since Kirby's Dream Land was made for new players and the NES had more experienced players, Sakurai decided to make a new game instead. Very little of Kirby's Adventure is based on Kirby's Dream Land: "Even though we could use the same artwork for Kirby, the NES allowed for much more detail and possibilities."
HAL Laboratory wanted to add more moves to Kirby's abilities. Kirby's Dream Land was made for beginners, but some experienced players found it too easy and wanted more challenges. For Kirby's Adventure, Sakurai wanted to keep the simple gameplay but improve it so skilled players would enjoy it. This led to the idea of Copy Abilities, which allowed players to try new moves and increase replay value. HAL Laboratory created over 40 Copy Abilities and chose their favorites for the final game. They also added minigames because they worried players might think Kirby's Adventure was too hard. These minigames were simpler than the main game. Kirby could also run faster and perform a slide attack to make the game faster.
Programmers used the NES hardware, which was ten years old by 1993, to create powerful features. Kirby's spit attack became stronger when he inhaled multiple enemies or objects, something they wanted to add to Kirby's Dream Land. Kirby's Adventure was the first game to show Kirby in color. Sakurai always wanted Kirby to be pink, but the Game Boy's black-and-white screen made him look white in Kirby's Dream Land. Other staff were surprised when they learned Kirby was pink. Kirby's image was also made larger after players said he was too small in his first game. Usually, backgrounds are made by someone skilled in game mapping, but for Kirby's Adventure, an artist drew pictures of the backgrounds, which were then used by the mapper to include in the game. Saitou said the backgrounds were meant to be "pretty enough to look at on their own." Kirby's Adventure also introduced Meta Knight, who appears as an unnamed boss in one level.
The game was released by Nintendo in Japan on March 23, 1993, in North America on May 1993, and in Europe on September 12, 1993. It came out late in the NES's life, ten years after the system was first sold in Japan. By 1993, most players had moved to 16-bit systems. However, the game topped the Famitsu sales chart in Japan in May 1993.
Rereleases
In October 2002, Nintendo released Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land, an improved version of Kirby's Adventure for the Game Boy Advance (GBA). The basic gameplay and levels remained mostly the same, but some changes were made, such as making hidden areas easier to find and making boss battles harder. All the graphics and sound effects were completely redesigned to use the GBA’s stronger technology. The game added new features, including three extra mini-games, a multiplayer mode for up to four players, and a special mode called "Meta Knightmare," where players control the character Meta Knight. Sales reports show that 970,000 copies were sold, earning $29 million. The game sold out within three weeks, as reported by 4Kids Entertainment.
A version of Kirby's Adventure was released as a downloadable game for the Nintendo 3DS eShop in the West on November 17, 2011, and in Japan on April 25, 2012. As part of the 3D Classics series, this version includes support for the 3DS’s 3D effects. Otherwise, the game is the same as the original.
Kirby's Adventure is also available through the Virtual Console service. It was released on the Wii Virtual Console worldwide in February 2007 and on the Wii U Virtual Console in April 2013. The Game Boy Advance version was later added to the Wii U Virtual Console in 2014. The original NES version is included in Kirby's Dream Collection (2012), a compilation celebrating the Kirby series’ 20th anniversary, and on the NES Classic Edition (2016) console. It was also added to the Nintendo Classics service on February 13, 2019.
Reception
Most parts of Kirby's Adventure were praised in reviews from the time the game was released. Critics said it was better than Kirby's Dream Land. Reviewers often mentioned the game's special power that lets Kirby copy enemies' abilities, the creative enemy designs, the large and varied levels, the responsive controls, and the colorful and cute graphics and animations. Nintendo Power said the game was harder than it looked. Joypad believed the game was meant for younger players and gave two scores: one for children under 12 and one for older players. The score for younger players was higher. They compared it to Tiny Toon Adventures (1991) by Konami, saying Tiny Toon Adventures had better graphics and sound, but Kirby's Adventure had better animation and was more original. Some reviewers said Kirby's character images were too small. GamePro named Kirby's Adventure the 1993 NES Game of the Year.
When the game was rereleased on the Wii Virtual Console, reviews were also positive. IGN called it one of the best NES games and one of the system's greatest achievements in visuals and sound. Eurogamer said it was one of the best Kirby games and agreed with IGN, writing that the game was charming and showed how much developers could do with the NES system. Racketboy noted the game's colorful visuals, saying they made 8-bit graphics look as beautiful as possible. Nintendo Life and GameSpot said the game showed the NES's technical limits. The game's creativity, cuteness, and variety of levels were again praised. GameSpot said the game still felt good over time but noted it was short and easy. Others also said it was too short and not challenging enough. For the 3D Classics rerelease, the added 3D effect was seen as less impressive compared to games like Excitebike and TwinBee, which used parallax and depth better.
The new graphics for the GBA remake were well received. GameSpot said the multiple layers of scrolling and transparency effects improved the visuals. However, they said the game still did not match other GBA games like Yoshi's Island and Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance. The new minigames and multiplayer modes were praised for adding replay value. Since the main gameplay and level design came from the original, it was generally praised but criticized again for being short and easy. GameSpy said the game was simple and best enjoyed as a short, casual experience rather than a deep game like Metroid Fusion or Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance. They said it was best for children watching the anime Kirby: Right Back at Ya! at the time. GameSpot agreed, saying the game was not as deep as Metroid Fusion or Yoshi's Island but was better for younger players or those who enjoy simple, fun games. Eurogamer said it was hard to recommend the game at full price because it was only a remake and not long enough.
Legacy
Game journalists often name Kirby's Adventure as one of the best games for the NES. In 2009, Official Nintendo Magazine ranked it as the 69th best game on a Nintendo console, and IGN placed it at 84th on a similar list of top "Nintendo games." In August 2006, Next Generation ranked Nightmare in Dream Land as the 17th best handheld video game of the 2000s.
The Copy Ability, introduced in Kirby's Adventure, became a common feature in Kirby's gameplay. This game also first included hidden items that players could find to unlock special rewards, a feature that later appeared in many other Kirby games. Meta Knight, a character from Kirby's Adventure, became a regular playable character in the Super Smash Bros. series, beginning with Super Smash Bros. Brawl in 2008.
The multiplayer mode in the remake of Nightmare in Dream Land reused the yellow color used for a second-player Kirby in Kirby's Dream Course (1994). This yellow color was originally chosen by Shigeru Miyamoto for Kirby before the original Kirby's Adventure was released. In later games, yellow became the standard color for second-player Kirbys in both the Kirby and Super Smash Bros. series.