Kirby's Adventure (NES, 1993)
Graphics-9 Sound-8 Control-7.5 Challenge-6.5 Story-5
Level Design-7 Frustration-7 Fun-7 Originality-6
Overall Score-7.5
+
Great art direction and animation, great use of colour
Every ability is explained in the pause menu (moves are explained in an animated tutorial before the intro)
Pretty fast paced (running and dash move, flight)
Hidden levels
Ability system (swallow special enemies to gain their skill, somewhat better than Castlevania/Ninja Gaiden since you have more control over switching abilities yet not perfect - stars bounce away and disappear and you can only carry one ability at a time)
Decent mini-games
Some fun abilities (smart bomb, laser, super jump, sword)
Mini-bosses
Nice cutscenes
Timed invincibility power up
Teleport room (to previous worlds)
Arena fights (easy ability get!)
Save feature (four slots!, restart in the hub world with the last level you got to opened after using a continue - continues are unlimited)
Some good bosses (digger, cloud chase, final boss - multi-segmented)
Nice ending cutscene
Good length
+/-
Respawning enemies
Double-tap running instead of via a button (not much of a choice on NES, hard to pull off in tight areas and doing it while turning requires holding the button first to turn)
Rehashes most stuff from Kirby's Dream Land (GB)
Negative ability - sleep
No time limit
Re-uses some elements from Mario
1-ups everywhere (however they aren’t saved after resetting; you only get to keep four)
-
Stars disappear when bouncing off screen (newly spawned health items can also disappear if moved away from)
Can't quickly jump out of a dash move or special attack
Somewhat slow falling speed
Annoying and pointless bounce from falling too far (and it's not far at all) - can be countered by attacking with a special though
Can't move while using an abiity attack (even stops you in mid-air, the one exception is the sword attack which makes you somersault)
Most abilities are pretty similar
Early levels are pretty bland (long, flat grass areas with a low challenge level and 'filler' enemies) - would've been completely redundant if flight was faster and didn't cause slowdown from too many enemies being on screen
Some slowdown
Somewhat uneven difficulty (using the sword on the first boss, UFO special, filler parts later on)
Some clunky to use abilities (whirlwind, wheel, UFO attack sometimes doesn't register)
Turning while moving is too slow (making advanced maneuvering harder)
Annoyingly easy to accidentally start flying (activated by pressing up) or destroy a star containing a special attack
Some trial & error (some vertical parts, smart bomb enemies, boss patterns)
Some points of no return
Some annoying sfx (screen change, low on health)
Level Design-7 Frustration-7 Fun-7 Originality-6
Overall Score-7.5
+
Great art direction and animation, great use of colour
Every ability is explained in the pause menu (moves are explained in an animated tutorial before the intro)
Pretty fast paced (running and dash move, flight)
Hidden levels
Ability system (swallow special enemies to gain their skill, somewhat better than Castlevania/Ninja Gaiden since you have more control over switching abilities yet not perfect - stars bounce away and disappear and you can only carry one ability at a time)
Decent mini-games
Some fun abilities (smart bomb, laser, super jump, sword)
Mini-bosses
Nice cutscenes
Timed invincibility power up
Teleport room (to previous worlds)
Arena fights (easy ability get!)
Save feature (four slots!, restart in the hub world with the last level you got to opened after using a continue - continues are unlimited)
Some good bosses (digger, cloud chase, final boss - multi-segmented)
Nice ending cutscene
Good length
+/-
Respawning enemies
Double-tap running instead of via a button (not much of a choice on NES, hard to pull off in tight areas and doing it while turning requires holding the button first to turn)
Rehashes most stuff from Kirby's Dream Land (GB)
Negative ability - sleep
No time limit
Re-uses some elements from Mario
1-ups everywhere (however they aren’t saved after resetting; you only get to keep four)
-
Stars disappear when bouncing off screen (newly spawned health items can also disappear if moved away from)
Can't quickly jump out of a dash move or special attack
Somewhat slow falling speed
Annoying and pointless bounce from falling too far (and it's not far at all) - can be countered by attacking with a special though
Can't move while using an abiity attack (even stops you in mid-air, the one exception is the sword attack which makes you somersault)
Most abilities are pretty similar
Early levels are pretty bland (long, flat grass areas with a low challenge level and 'filler' enemies) - would've been completely redundant if flight was faster and didn't cause slowdown from too many enemies being on screen
Some slowdown
Somewhat uneven difficulty (using the sword on the first boss, UFO special, filler parts later on)
Some clunky to use abilities (whirlwind, wheel, UFO attack sometimes doesn't register)
Turning while moving is too slow (making advanced maneuvering harder)
Annoyingly easy to accidentally start flying (activated by pressing up) or destroy a star containing a special attack
Some trial & error (some vertical parts, smart bomb enemies, boss patterns)
Some points of no return
Some annoying sfx (screen change, low on health)