Kirby's Adventure is gets the award for "Best Shortest Game"

User Rating: 8.5 | Hoshi no Kirby: Yume no Izumi no Monogatari NES
Kirby's Adventure was one of the last Nintendo games released on the NES. It marked the start of the revolutionary Kirby series. An 8" pink marshmallow on a 2d platform has an undeniable charm to it. The Star Rod allows peace in Dream Land where all the creatures can have happy, joyous dreams. However, there is a disturbance in Dream Land in where nightmares are occuring. So Kirby goes on an adventure to the location of the Star Rod, where it believes that King Dedede is behind this "evil" plot.

The game takes itself like the Mario Bros series. . You scroll up and down and mostly right as you continue through levels. There's even 8 worlds which contain sublevels to them. You can go back to these levels anytime that you've already completed.

However, it is not to say that this is a clone to the Mario Bros series. Kirby can float in the air for an infinite amount of time. He can jump. He can run. There's no time limit to any of the levels (actually there is a time limit to one of the bosses in the game, but that's it). Kirby can slide kick to take down the some enemies. It has 6 hit points, which can be recovered by eating foods you find laying on the ground (The maxim tomato heals Kirby completely.) 1-up lives can be found which function just like 1-up shrooms. If you lose all your lives, you can continue and you'll be left off at the last level which you were on, or you could end the game.

But what makes Kirby and the game so unique is the copy ability. Kirby can swallow some enemies whole. Among them some of those enemies has powers that Kirby can copy. Such powers include laser, beam, hammer, wheel, hi jump, and a few other abilities I didn't mention. Each have their own unique aspects but pretty much do all the same in terms of damage. You don't need a specific power at any time in order to progress through the game, but there are a few times where a hammer is needed to unlock shortcuts and other goodies.

In between the seperate levels, you can play minigames which are pretty cool. There's a crane game that can give you extra lives. There's a gun down game in which a foe will draw a gun out and Kirby has to shoot them in between the time he pulls it out and before he fires. You only get a split-second to do this so be quick!

Throughout the game there are mini bosses and every end of level boss in which you need to do in order to go to the next level. Luckily, every boss in the game has some projectile that Kirby can suck in and spit out back at the enemy. The boss battles are incredible and some of them are actually quite challenging, none of them having anything cheap or unfair to them.

The graphics are stunning, crisp, and clean. None of the character look stiff and each level provides some neat background to it. The sound effects have the right mood to them. The music is great. It has at least a couple dozen amaing sound tracks that would go on and be replayed in later Kirby games.

Here's where the problem lies: the replay value. Without any interruptions and going through it in no attempt of a speed run and with the end credits, I beat it my first try in 3 hours 11 minutes. This is one of the best games I've ever played. It was kind of easy with a few challenging boss fights overall. The replay value is what hurt the score the most.

If you demand an inexpensive, fun, addicting game and not concerned about replay value, Kirby's Adventure is the game to get. It's only $5 bucks.