There's a moment at the end of world 2 where a cutscene plays, with the whole crew in a desert as Kirby lags behind, desperate for food as they then imagine their friends as said items. Of course, Adeleine makes food for everyone with her paintings and they have a nice picnic right there.

It's that kind of heartwarming, powerful energy that runs through the whole experience. This friendly, childlike pleasantry as you go across the galaxy with fun poplike music playing through the speakers, as your friends join you in a great amount of the levels to assist you. Whether that be sledding with waddle dee to king dedede himself helping you across lava chasms there's always a strong aura that feels like one very warm hug. If anything the only small issue is just that sometimes the game reminds you that it's a little old and shakes your attention by forcing you to grab a powerup twice from a completely different area for the true ending. But even still, the whole playthrough is rather forgiving, in that you can actually get a powerup mid-level, quit out of the level, and still have that powerup on you, including all the crystals you got in the level so far!!

Crystal Shards is very much a nostalgic, but also genuine fav of the kirby games for me. I'll always think about that final level where The Squad helps you out one final time before Ribbon carries you as you rail shoot an utterly corrupted angelic entity that bleeds while the game pleads with you to Tough It Out!!!

Great game, but not without its flaws. In terms of control, Kirby moves well enough even if he's still not as quick as he was in early games though thankfully not as outrageously slow as he was in the previous game. I do hate the way he "facefalls"(when Kirby drops from a greater height and falls flat on his face) in this game though, it feels much less controllable than in previous games. There's also a few odd times where if you try to inhale enemies off of platforms while dropping Kirby will be unable to move until the enemies actually reach his mouth, this could take a while if they get hung up on architecture and leave yourself open to either attacks or even dropping into a pit and dying. I forget if this can happen in other games, but I don't remember it being a very occasional problem like in this game which I'm assuming is because in the 2D games the enemies flew through the physical area of the stage to get to your mouth and thus never got hung up on anything.

Getting 100% in this game fortunately isn't too obnoxious unlike a certain previous entry in the series(Dream Land 3) with only a few choice standout bastards to get, however if you count getting enemy cards as getting "100%" then unfortunately it's now just as obnoxious due to the complete rng of potentially getting "doubles" of said enemy cards(When Kirby picks one up at the bonus picnic stage at the end of a level and gets disappointed at it). This is a strike against it regardless, because it's just dumb even if it isn't required to complete the save file. The true final boss fight against 02 is also a huge joke, especially in comparison to the "fake final boss" Miracle Matter who's actually one of the harder bosses in the series.

The game is still amazing in terms of presentation with awesome graphics for the system and one of the best soundtracks in Kirby history, the power combo system is also fun with its creative combinations with standouts being exploding ninja stars and a Darth Maul lightsaber. Though I'd like to mention that this game's version of Cutter is horrifically terrible.

I had fun, still one of the better games in the series and I actually think my opinion of it has been reinforced thanks to replaying it.

One of the best Kirbies! The power-combo system is pretty fun and leads some really creative powers, and the level design is really varied and snappy. Has a little bit of a higher challenge level than most kirby games in the later stages and bosses. It is just completely gorgeous too, one of the most gracefully aged N64 games for sure due to its smart use of bright, bold shapes. Looks like a living illustration sometimes. And the music fuckin RIPS, like there are some real bangers in there. Good as heck game.

Shinichi Shimomura is a man who directed 3 Kirby games (technically 4 but Nightmare in Dreamland is a remake so I digress), Dreamland 2, Dreamlan 3, and this one here. He introduced concepts such as Animal Helpers, Broom Kirby, Gooey, Adeleine, and of course Dark Matter/Zero. This is what led to his 3 games being referred to in the fanbase as the Dark Matter Trilogy. This final game in the Dark Matter Trilogy is one I highly recommend. Combining copy abilities is such an interesting and fun mechanic I'm legitimately shocked they haven't tried to do it to this capacity again. It adds so much to combat and puzzle solving, and it's just interesting to see what kind of weird concoctions you can make. The music is great, but it's a Kirby game of course the music is going to slap. For Kirby's first leap into 3D the game has aged insanely gracefully visually. I believe Shimomura is also to accredit to the beginning of intense lore within Kirby games, without spoiling too much. The story is simplistic but still interesting and engaging. The only flaw I have with the game is collecting all the Crystal Shards is more trouble than it's worth (The game is called Kirby 64 and yet they have 74 shards???). Other than that, I think this game definitely deserves more praise and attention as one of the most creative and interesting Kirby games, and we have Shimomura to thank. Oddly enough, Shimomura disappeared without a trace in 2002. No pictures of the man exist online, and no official obituary was released leading to believe that he couldn't have died. HAL and Nintendo stopped using all of Shimomura's creations in Kirby games after his disappearance, most likely out of respect for him. Gone were the Animal Helpers, Gooey, Adeleine, and of course Dark Matter/Zero. This of course was changed in 2018 when Kirby Star Allies was released, featuring some of these characters. So who knows? Maybe they'll revisit these concepts in a future game sometime.

The 3rd and final entry in the Dark Matter Trilogy, an absolute fucking GOAT of a video game, one of my favorite titles on the N64. Taking a 2.5D gameplay style to tentatively jump to 3D like the rest of the franchises on N64, but while still keeping the roots of Kirby intact, the game takes an experimental spin on the copy ability system, in which you can fuse multiple copy abilities together to create brand new copy abilities. Combining bomb and fire, rock and ice, and so on and so forth, will result in a crazy amount of incredibly unique and incredibly fun copy abilities to play around with, resulting in a large amount of opportunities for different, fun playstyles. Searching for the crystals for 100% completion is often fun as well, as it'll require experimentation in copy abilities throughout the stage to find the right ability fusion for a collectable. Combine all that with a great OST, and a surprisingly decent atmosphere at times for an N64 game, and you've got a console classic that headed the system off fantastically.

Wonderful game, and the game that'd shape my childhood.

It's a wonderful simple story about going on a galaxy-wide adventure to get these crystal shards back. Combine powers to create new ones (the logical final evolution of the animal friends mechanic) that allow Kirby to become all sorts of things. The shards aren't freebies either, you have to solve puzzles to get them.

The worlds are very atmospheric, the music simply unforgettable. The adventure really does feel like a gang going on an adventure, enhanced by the cutscenes after each world. I simply adore it.

Sure, it's not perfect, midbosses are just bigger enemies, Kirby moves just a bit too slowly, some shards need a power combo not in that level, and shoutouts to the really obscure rock cutter required shard that good luck figuring out out to get if you've never played Dream Land 2 or 3...but it doesn't matter, it's perfect and defining for me myself.

Bosses are also incredible and really utilized the 3D space in a way that wouldn't be fully done again until Robobot. I think 2.5D works best for Kirby, and I wish more Kirby games were relaxed like this one.

I love Kirby 64, and always will.

Oh and the minigames are fun.

But yeah I love K64.