Truth be told I’ve never been as big a fan of the Superstar formula as I wanted to be—the anthology structure is certainly unique, but I’ve always felt it left the experience as a whole feeling a tad disjointed. Each minigame is fun on its own, but most just don’t get the space or time to feel as fleshed out as I’d like them to be. That being said, I still enjoyed Superstar, and the same can more or less be said for this remake.
Superstar Ultra is a pretty straightforward translation of the SNES original: it’s got all the games you remember, and they play more or less how you remember them. Spring Breeze and Dyna Blade offer truncated (if basic) classic Kirby adventures. The Great Cave Offensive is a bit more inspired: a more robust, exploratory journey that’s always been a personal favorite for my collection-obsessed lizard brain. Return of Meta Knight is probably the best-realized game of the original roster, a fast, high-octane action movie parody full of frenetic combat and charming dialogue. Gourmet Race and the microgames all provide brief, almost Warioware-esque reprieves. And then to cap it all off you get Milky Way Wishes, which I think is actually kind of a confusing mess but the Marx fight is really cool so yeah sure whatever!
Any changes Ultra makes to that core lineup are minimal, mostly in the form of small but welcome optimizations. A more zoomed out screen, a better English translation, some more informative UI elements (a huge help in TGCO actually). The presentation has also been updated, although that’s something I’m more mixed on. I quite like the GBA/DS Kirby aesthetic, but it is a real shame to see one of the more distinct and vibrant Kirby games reimagined in this “house style”. The sprites looks great in their own right, but I do find myself missing the off-model charm of the original, particularly in the backgrounds and these crunchy 3D-rendered cutscenes.
Probably the change I’m most fond of is the fact that hey, we’re on the DS now! I always struggled with Superstar’s 8-in-one structure but it really does make so much more sense on a handheld, especially one as geared towards short, on-the-go play sessions as the original DS. It’s a great game to play in between other tasks when you got like 15-30 minutes to kill, something that was a lot harder to do when the game was straddled to a home console you had to hook up to a CRT (or in my case, a Wii to a monitor).
As far as the new modes go, they’re nice, harmless additions but ones I’m not terribly impressed by. I have no interest in boss rushes so I didn’t bother with any of the three arenas and I felt myself going through the motions with Metaknightmare. Revenge of the King was a genuine treat though, a great synthesis of everything that worked in the main games, all capped off by an instantly iconic boss fight. Probably my favorite experience on the cartridge. The new touchscreen microgames are nice as well, it’s something they basically had to do considering the game and the hardware but they got a lot more going on than I expected.
All in all, Superstar Ultra is a pretty appealing package. Is it better than Superstar? I dunno, probably? Not by a lot but I suppose it’s a bit more finely-tuned where it counts. It’s still not my favorite in the series, but I can’t ever have a truly bad time playing Kirby. A real nice one
Superstar Ultra is a pretty straightforward translation of the SNES original: it’s got all the games you remember, and they play more or less how you remember them. Spring Breeze and Dyna Blade offer truncated (if basic) classic Kirby adventures. The Great Cave Offensive is a bit more inspired: a more robust, exploratory journey that’s always been a personal favorite for my collection-obsessed lizard brain. Return of Meta Knight is probably the best-realized game of the original roster, a fast, high-octane action movie parody full of frenetic combat and charming dialogue. Gourmet Race and the microgames all provide brief, almost Warioware-esque reprieves. And then to cap it all off you get Milky Way Wishes, which I think is actually kind of a confusing mess but the Marx fight is really cool so yeah sure whatever!
Any changes Ultra makes to that core lineup are minimal, mostly in the form of small but welcome optimizations. A more zoomed out screen, a better English translation, some more informative UI elements (a huge help in TGCO actually). The presentation has also been updated, although that’s something I’m more mixed on. I quite like the GBA/DS Kirby aesthetic, but it is a real shame to see one of the more distinct and vibrant Kirby games reimagined in this “house style”. The sprites looks great in their own right, but I do find myself missing the off-model charm of the original, particularly in the backgrounds and these crunchy 3D-rendered cutscenes.
Probably the change I’m most fond of is the fact that hey, we’re on the DS now! I always struggled with Superstar’s 8-in-one structure but it really does make so much more sense on a handheld, especially one as geared towards short, on-the-go play sessions as the original DS. It’s a great game to play in between other tasks when you got like 15-30 minutes to kill, something that was a lot harder to do when the game was straddled to a home console you had to hook up to a CRT (or in my case, a Wii to a monitor).
As far as the new modes go, they’re nice, harmless additions but ones I’m not terribly impressed by. I have no interest in boss rushes so I didn’t bother with any of the three arenas and I felt myself going through the motions with Metaknightmare. Revenge of the King was a genuine treat though, a great synthesis of everything that worked in the main games, all capped off by an instantly iconic boss fight. Probably my favorite experience on the cartridge. The new touchscreen microgames are nice as well, it’s something they basically had to do considering the game and the hardware but they got a lot more going on than I expected.
All in all, Superstar Ultra is a pretty appealing package. Is it better than Superstar? I dunno, probably? Not by a lot but I suppose it’s a bit more finely-tuned where it counts. It’s still not my favorite in the series, but I can’t ever have a truly bad time playing Kirby. A real nice one
2 Comments
^What Reyn said. Good review!
NOWITSREYNTIME17
15 days ago