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ThornBrain
Jan 25, 2011

Hi. I forgot your name. Whatever.
My... point is...
Hi. Your head's on fire.


The game
Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards is the adorable walking mouth's only N64 title and a sequel to Kirby's Dream Land 2 and 3, the last of what fans have dubbed director Shinichi Shimomura's "Dark Matter Trilogy". The game plays around with Kirby's usual formula: sucking up enemies for their powers is still present, but now you can combine two different elements to create new combo powers of varying degrees of body horror. The game is a sidescrolling platformer, but it's Kirby's first use of 2.5D graphics, and instead of discovering new paths via doors, every level is a straight linear path. It's a simple but deceptively challenging game that, combined with a boppin' soundtrack, made many a childhood in a cartridge.

The story is such:
Dark Matter, the darkness-eyeball-of-evil from Dream Land 2 and 3, invades the peaceful fairy planet of Ripple Star. Its queen sends little fairy Ribbon into space with their crystal to protect it from Dark Matter, but it succeeds in breaking the crystal, scattering the shards across the galaxy. Luckily, Ribbon lands on Pop Star, where Kirby is more than ready to help her and to jump into another adventure. He must recover the crystal shards with his friends Waddle Dee, Adeleine, and King Dedede to put a stop to Dark Matter once and for all.

The LP:
I will be collecting all of the crystal shards, as well as showing off both endings. I won't bother with the enemy cards, since they don't actually amount to anything. It's a short game, so this will only take 6 parts spread out over three weeks. Updates will be Tuesday and Friday.
Mugiwara Yoshi (Parts 1 and 2) and JigglyJacob join me as co-commentators. Neither of us played many Kirby games, but he found a way into each of our childhoods somehow.
The footage is recorded from a modded N64 that outputs an RGB signal through SCART, which bypasses the N64's built-in blurring and can be upscaled to HD. It may not look as good or run as smoothly as a ROM, but at least all of the graphics are still there.

----------------------------













Aristide posted:




Some simple smilie-sized gifs to celebrate the end with.

ThornBrain fucked around with this message at 20:26 on Jul 16, 2019

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CptWedgie
Jul 19, 2015
Kirby! Quite nostalgic indeed. I've played quite a few Kirby games, though I haven't beaten most of them. My favorites are Super Star and Triple Deluxe.

I feel like Ado is just short for Adeleine. I mean, they're similar enough in both appearance and abilities for them to be the same person. Anyway, I feel like that black ball thing she painted might've been Dark Matter from Dreamland 3.

Whispy's a lot harder in the modern 3D games, I feel. I mean, here it's easy to no-damage him if you take your time (and don't attack solely with flaming headbutts), but nowadays he actually tries to jump on you (and grows bigger when he hits half health to make it even harder to dodge).

Chimera-gui
Mar 20, 2014

CptWedgie posted:

I feel like Ado is just short for Adeleine. I mean, they're similar enough in both appearance and abilities for them to be the same person. Anyway, I feel like that black ball thing she painted might've been Dark Matter from Dreamland 3.

It's entirely likely but it has never been outright confirmed in American or Japanese media, the closest we got was the 20th Anniversary - Hoshi no Kirby: Pupupu Taizen book first released in 2012 which addresses the many similarities of the characters and suggests that Ado could be a nickname of Adeleine but ultimately states that it is simply unknown if they're the same person or not.

That said, the descriptions of Nintendo of Europe and Nintendo of Russia's Youtube videos featuring the trailer for Adeleine & Ribbon's appearance in Kirby Star Allies have stated that Adeleine appeared in Kirby's Dreamland 3 though since this detail is notably absent on both the respective Nintendo of America and Nintendo of Japan videos it could have possibly been an error.

Commander Keene
Dec 21, 2016

Faster than the others



Kirby 64 is one of the few N64 games I have any real nostalgia for. I didn't own an N64; I went Sony after the SNES. And even though my brothers did, together we owned like five games for it - Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, Smash Brothers, Kirby 64, and I think one fighting or racing game.

I love this game's power-combining mechanic, even if a lot of the resulting powers are kinda dumb. I favor the flame sword and one other Cutter combination power when I play, though some of the weirder combos like the fridge do see some play just because of how utterly bizarre and hilarious they are.

Personally, my favorite mechanic debuted in Super Star, though; the ability for each power to have multiple attacks based upon directional inputs. For that reason, I did really like Star Allies, because it seemed like the best of both Super Star and Crystal Shards.

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

Commander Keene posted:

Kirby 64 is one of the few N64 games I have any real nostalgia for. I didn't own an N64; I went Sony after the SNES. And even though my brothers did, together we owned like five games for it - Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, Smash Brothers, Kirby 64, and I think one fighting or racing game.

Replace that last one with Banjo-Kazooie and you have the games of my childhood.

CptWedgie
Jul 19, 2015

Commander Keene posted:

Kirby 64 is one of the few N64 games I have any real nostalgia for. I didn't own an N64; I went Sony after the SNES. And even though my brothers did, together we owned like five games for it - Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, Smash Brothers, Kirby 64, and I think one fighting or racing game.

I love this game's power-combining mechanic, even if a lot of the resulting powers are kinda dumb. I favor the flame sword and one other Cutter combination power when I play, though some of the weirder combos like the fridge do see some play just because of how utterly bizarre and hilarious they are.

Personally, my favorite mechanic debuted in Super Star, though; the ability for each power to have multiple attacks based upon directional inputs. For that reason, I did really like Star Allies, because it seemed like the best of both Super Star and Crystal Shards.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that Game #5 was Mario Kart 64.

And yeah, the "directional input" mechanic is a large part of why I like Super Star so much (that and the helpers); for one thing it reduced the number of similarly-themed abilities by combining them together, for another I just liked the variety of abilities available (Yoyo and Plasma are great, but I could never get the hang of Hammer or Bomb). I feel like I'd really like Star Allies if I got a chance to try it, but I don't have a Switch.

Commander Keene
Dec 21, 2016

Faster than the others



CptWedgie posted:

I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that Game #5 was Mario Kart 64.
I don't think so? I'm pretty sure it was some no-name game that nobody cared about. The kind of thing your parents picked up at a garage sale and you then played once or twice and completely forgot about. Then again, I'm not personally very fond of MK, so it's possible.

Chimera-gui
Mar 20, 2014
I had Pokémon Snap, Hey You Pikachu, the two Stadium games that were released in the US, Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, Super Smash Bros, and Wipeout 64 though I played Kirby 64 on the Wii.

Beartaco
Apr 10, 2007

by sebmojo
This let's play had me up at 3am brushing up on my permutations and combinations because I'm a huge dork and wanted to find out how many powers there are. For the record there are 28!

e: exclamation for excitement, not factorial

Icedude
Mar 30, 2004

I had to look up that ad you mentioned, and while he doesn't destroy a vet, he does straight up murder a dog

EponymousMrYar
Jan 4, 2015

The enemy of my enemy is my enemy.
Good ol Kirby. A relaxing romp through a crazy countryside with some neat touches here and there.

One of the unique things for this game is how the powers are handled: the game encourages combo powers by straight up nerfing the normal ones. How? By having Kirby use his body to do them. The big one is Cutter, mostly because in old games you could throw a bunch out at whim. Here you only get the 1 cutter and it makes sense why, since Kirby is using his own mass to make the actual blade.

It's neat.

Commander Keene posted:

I don't think so? I'm pretty sure it was some no-name game that nobody cared about. The kind of thing your parents picked up at a garage sale and you then played once or twice and completely forgot about. Then again, I'm not personally very fond of MK, so it's possible.

If you want the real Dark Horse of 64 games... I beat Quest 64 on hardware. Took a few rentals and a FaQ or two (actually back then it'd have been some Nintendo Power trawling.)

CptWedgie
Jul 19, 2015

EponymousMrYar posted:

If you want the real Dark Horse of 64 games... I beat Quest 64 on hardware. Took a few rentals and a FaQ or two (actually back then it'd have been some Nintendo Power trawling.)

I remember that one. Maybe I should go back and play it again sometime...

Sally
Jan 9, 2007


Don't post Small Dash!
ugh Quest 64 was brutal and i wouldnt want to revisit it...

Kirby 64 on the other ruled! i think i still have a cartridge somewhere...

ThornBrain
Jan 25, 2011

Hi. I forgot your name. Whatever.
My... point is...
Hi. Your head's on fire.

Dash Rendar posted:

ugh Quest 64 was brutal and i wouldnt want to revisit it...

I rented Quest 64 twice as a kid. The second time was because I thought I misunderstood the game when I hated it the first time. I didn't.

Blaze Dragon
Aug 28, 2013
LOWTAX'S SPINE FUND

Kirby 64 is such a good game. It was my first Kirby game so I have a lot of nostalgia for it but regardless it's very good, some of the combos are incredibly fun and graphically it was pretty insane for the time, I remember being super awed by Kirby going into Dedede's castle.

It's not the masterpiece Super Star is, but it's still a very good game. Though, of course, all mainline Kirby games are good.

Sally
Jan 9, 2007


Don't post Small Dash!

ThornBrain posted:

I rented Quest 64 twice as a kid. The second time was because I thought I misunderstood the game when I hated it the first time. I didn't.

ahhhaha i had a similar experience

The Shame Boy
Jan 27, 2014

Dead weight, just like this post.



My only experience from Quest 64 that i remember is that somehow after a battle i got turned around and ended up walking all the way back to the beginning castle. I don't know how i didn't notice it at the time but i guess kids in the 90's where impressed that you had a field to wander around in 3-D to begin with :v:


Oh also the first actual boss beating my rear end and never actually getting any farther than that.

SatansOnion
Dec 12, 2011

oh, so this is where the Quest 64 survivors’ support group meets nowadays. And here I’ve been checking the public library like a fool

I don’t know quite how a combat system so ostensibly about moving and positioning ended up so infuriatingly slow and tedious, but I got a hypothesis that at least partly implicates the obtuse and finicky magic system on which your character, a mage, is expected to rely

also I get lost with dismaying ease in the samey forests/caves/towns, especially after one of those disorienting and frustrating random battles

C-Euro
Mar 20, 2010

:science:
Soiled Meat
I liked Quest 64 as a kid but I was also very stubborn about specific things, Quest 64 being one of them. Even back then I think people told me it wasn't great but I really wanted it to be good, as this was around the time that I finally understood the Final Fantasy III/VI cart I had had for a while and wanted more stuff like it.

I also liked Kirby 64 as a kid but that's because it's a good game! Please also show off the sound test because it's very cute.

ThornBrain
Jan 25, 2011

Hi. I forgot your name. Whatever.
My... point is...
Hi. Your head's on fire.


Sand is rocks. And aliens I guess?

CptWedgie
Jul 19, 2015
One small detail I like about Double Rock: You actually move faster than with Single Rock (single goes about half normal walking speed, while double gets up to walking speed), presumably because you're taking bigger steps.

I think the "three picture buttons" puzzle doesn't actually care what order you press them in.

The Rock Star boss is annoying, because it takes forever. To be fair to its concept, though, a recurring boss in the series is literally a cloud.

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.
The bomb/electric power does have combat uses. Enemies near you when the lightbulb explodes, die. It's like the bomb/ice combo, but seems to have a smaller area of effect.

My favorite combos are probably bomb/cutter and electric/cutter for different reasons. Both are even needed for one shard each.


And good luck on Aqua Star, I remember hating one particular level of that world.

C-Euro
Mar 20, 2010

:science:
Soiled Meat
The music for the first Rock Star level whips rear end. So does the second level's music for that matter.

Chimera-gui
Mar 20, 2014
Nruffs are boar-like critters:


Something you haven't shown off is that if you inhale an enemy but don't swallow them, you can actually hold the enemy over your head. It's practically useless in most cases some enemies like Bronto Burt or Bumber (the umbrella enemies) do something when held over your head.

Also Adeline can't actually paint up Shards because the Crystal's power is greater than her own.

Chimera-gui fucked around with this message at 02:45 on Jun 29, 2019

Commander Keene
Dec 21, 2016

Faster than the others



Chimera-gui posted:

Nruffs are boar-like critters:


Something you haven't shown off is that if you inhale an enemy but don't swallow them, you can actually hold the enemy over your head. It's practically useless in most cases some enemies like Bronto Burt or Bumber (the umbrella enemies) do something when held over your head.

Also Adeline can't actually paint up Shards because the Crystal's power is greater than her own.
I keep thinking they look like hedgehogs and expecting them to give Kirby Needle power.

Blaze Dragon
Aug 28, 2013
LOWTAX'S SPINE FUND

I found it hilarious when one of you pointed out if you couldn't just stay stationary and dodge because SGDQ played Kirby 64 this year (SGDQ's still ongoing right now, go watch!) and they showed that you can easily cheese this boss by not moving. It can't hit you if you don't move until the last phase.

Also you pointed out that this level looks weird for Kirby and I feel that's one of the reasons I like 64 so much, it's got a very unique aesthetic for the series that makes it really stand out.

Commander Keene
Dec 21, 2016

Faster than the others



Kirby Wins By Doing Nothing.

SatansOnion
Dec 12, 2011

Commander Keene posted:

Kirby Wins By Doing Nothing.

*strategically doing nothing

that’s like normal nothing but Kirby’s put his angry eyebrows on

CptWedgie
Jul 19, 2015

Cythereal posted:

My favorite combos are probably bomb/cutter and electric/cutter for different reasons. Both are even needed for one shard each.

Fire/Cutter is probably my favorite, and it's objectively a good all-around combo. Wide-hitting melee ability with reasonable speed, comes with a projectile, and you can kill stuff by not looking at it- there're all kinds of benefits to it! Only issue is the shards you need specific combos for (especially since it doesn't seem to actually give access to any shards).

Explopyro
Mar 18, 2018

This is my favourite Kirby game (okay, it's also the first one I played) and I have a lot of nostalgia for it, I'm always pleased to see more people enjoying it. I'm not sure if it's the combining powers, or the fact flight is limited (I actually think this is the first main-series Kirby game to have him be able to run out of flight ability, that concept first appeared in Smash Bros) meaning some of the platforming is nontrivial, or something else, but no other Kirby game has worked nearly as well for me as this one did.

Incidentally, Thorn, you were overthinking how to fight this boss (which, IIRC, is named Pix). You don't actually need to match the colours to do damage, the DNA-looking things are all just generic enemies you can suck up that don't have powers, and any of them will damage any of the boss's orbs. This stage and boss were definitely among the more memorable ones for me too, though.

The only real flaw I think this game has is that some of the shards are hidden too cryptically. The concept is good (I love the idea of needing to experiment with powers to overcome different obstacles, so you can't just coast through the game on your favourite combo but need to try others), but there are a handful of puzzles later in this game that I have no idea how anyone figured out without a guide.

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

Explopyro posted:

The only real flaw I think this game has is that some of the shards are hidden too cryptically. The concept is good (I love the idea of needing to experiment with powers to overcome different obstacles, so you can't just coast through the game on your favourite combo but need to try others), but there are a handful of puzzles later in this game that I have no idea how anyone figured out without a guide.

gently caress the rock/cutter one in the next world. Last shard I got as a kid, and the only one I needed a guide for.

Explopyro
Mar 18, 2018

That's the one I had in mind when I was writing that!

Rigged Death Trap
Feb 13, 2012

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP

Double Spike was probably made by asking a kid about the sharpest pointy things.
Because theres a compass there and every kid knows thats the excalibur of sharp pointy things.

Chimera-gui
Mar 20, 2014

Explopyro posted:

Incidentally, Thorn, you were overthinking how to fight this boss (which, IIRC, is named Pix). You don't actually need to match the colours to do damage, the DNA-looking things are all just generic enemies you can suck up that don't have powers, and any of them will damage any of the boss's orbs. This stage and boss were definitely among the more memorable ones for me too, though.

I believe matching colors does the most damage without a power though.

Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.
Just wanted to mention the two drawn "bosses" Adeleine draws and sics on you are "Ice Dragon", which was a boss in Kirby 2, and Dark Matter itself a la Kirby 2 and 3.

Bellmaker
Oct 18, 2008

Chapter DOOF



ThornBrain posted:



Sand is rocks. And aliens I guess?

The creepy flying guys that freak out when you pass them are Scarfies. Usually they only freak out like that when you try to inhale them in other games.

The mummy orb things are in fact, Mumbies.

ThornBrain
Jan 25, 2011

Hi. I forgot your name. Whatever.
My... point is...
Hi. Your head's on fire.


We've found a water level/planet that doesn't suck! 'Cause most of it isn't underwater.

Yoshi had to sit this and Friday's part out due to excess water of his own.

Explopyro
Mar 18, 2018

:psyduck: you made that boss so much harder on yourself than you had to.

It's a weird quirk of the boss design in this game that they're all designed first and foremost to be fought with no powers (e.g. you'll notice all of the patterns have a point at which they generate something Kirby can suck up and use as a projectile), so that often ends up being easier than actually using powers. Some bosses just really aren't suited to being fought with certain abilities.

I don't think I've ever beaten Acro using Cutter, but that's also because I hated Cutter in this game and tried to use it as little as possible (the mobility loss bothered me, and as a kid the body-horror aspect of Cutter really grossed me out). He's a lot easier if you just use the fish and/or torpedoes as projectiles, you lose a lot less mobility just spitting them back at him than the method you used. Or, of course, plenty of other powers work fine, just don't use something with long animations or that affects your mobility.

Chimera-gui
Mar 20, 2014
To elaborate on the Animal Friends, Kirby's Dream Land 2 gave us Rick the hamster, Coo the owl and Kine the sunfish.

ChuChu the octopus (possibly a flapjack octopus), Nago the cat and Pitch the bird (who is referred to as a falcon despite looking more like a Japanese white-eye) were introduced in Dream Land 3.

The former trio return as Dream Friends in Kirby Star Allies while the latter trio make cameos as part of the Cleaning power's attacks.

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racerabbit
Sep 8, 2011

"HI, I WANT TO HUG PINS NUTS."
:frolf:
The little white enemies are based on sea angels, which would be terrifying if they weren't so small.

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