Gamer Reviews

I’m probably not the first person to suggest that the classic games of yesteryear were so good mainly because they were simple concepts unfettered by needless fluff (and I almost certainly won’t be the last) but it bears repeating, particularly where Rainbow Island Evolution is concerned. The “if it ain’t broke, don’t try to fix it” adage has rarely been so apt here; everywhere Taito has tried to mess with what was a deceptively simple platformer has pulled the game farther and farther into ruin.

The net product, then ends up being far, far too bland and frankly monotonous despite sporting an abundance of color and an inexplicable “update” to Bub and Bob (sorry, Bubby and Bobby) that has them wearing sombreros while cranking a hurdy gurdy to create rainbows, all to fight off an evil record company whose soulless, generic music has turned plant and animal alike into hideous mutants. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say Taito were poking fun at their own game, but somehow I don’t quite think that’s what they had in mind.

Flying away…

The “evolution” of the classic game comes in the form of a handful of rather radical changes to how the rainbows are actually used. Tapping square lets you kick out a smallish arch that can then be scaled before releasing another. By creating stairs, you can climb to the top of the level and move onto the next, but there are a number of catches. For starters, the levels are actually three levels deep, with the other layers in the background accessible only by slowly moving elevators that can only be hopped onto when a light shifts briefly to green. You’re also limited to a handful of rainbows out at any time, be they for traversing all the floating platforms or hitting enemies (the power of the rainbows turns them back to normal, y’see), and though you can shatter a rainbow and any linked cousins by either holding down on the d-pad while jumping on one or hitting it twice, the makeshift platforms can be a little cumbersome — particularly in boss fights.

Those tussles with musically themed end-level baddies (and to a lesser extent, their appearances in the normal stages) revolves around dodging their incoming shots as they hop in and out of the different layers while returning your own shots with a “Resonator” a semi-sentient set of speakers that responds to your cranking of the hurdy gurdy (read: spinning the analog nub like crazy). The Resonator, like the characters, can level up (the latter is done by finding instruments in the levels), but only if you successfully charge up an attack and hit an enemy with the shot. If the Resonator is hit, it loses its powered-up status, and if used too often it can overheat.

As a result, the boss fights are reduced to a frustrating dance of powering up the Resonator while trying to dodge incoming shots, a feat that’s made more difficult by the fact that you usually have to “call” the Resonator over by spinning. A powered-up version will come when you call it faster, but again, bosses are so prone to hitting them that it becomes more of a tedious grind to out-crank a boss before it hits you. Later boss fights are at least made a little more interesting by progressively more varied Resonator attacks that can hit or stun enemies on either the same or other planes as you, but they have to be toggled between with the L and R buttons.

Rainbows included.

Once you learn that your set of rainbows is only limited by what’s on the screen at the time, it’s entirely possible (and even encouraged in the Time Trial and ad-hoc multiplayer races) to zip up through the levels as fast as possible, though you’ll miss the hidden special items in every level if you do that. You’ll also have the opportunity to square off against a mini-boss that, if defeated, can warp you higher up the level as something of a shortcut (though losing will knock you back down the level). Honestly, these felt like too much of a time sink, and I usually just hauled through the levels to get to the final boss fight. Not exactly a good sign when your motivation to finish a level is just to put it behind you.Closing Comments
Taito has fallen victim to one of the classic blunders: they messed with a good thing. The result is an overly cutesy attempt at improving things that ends up throwing in weird things that were never really needed. Leveling up characters? Powering-up/down special weapons? Not only do these things pull away from the tight platforming aspects of the original game, but they do nothing to actually add anything beyond an overwhelming feeling of tedium.

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Tags: Sony PSP by Mikey
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It’s hard to believe it’s been almost eight years since Kirby last appeared in a console platformer. He’s had plenty of handheld adventures during that time, sure, but his side-scrolling, hop-and-bop gameplay completely skipped the GameCube generation and also hasn’t yet appeared on Wii. That means that this game, Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards, first released on the Nintendo 64 in the summer of 2000, is still the little pink puffball’s most recent home system appearance. It’s a bit of an odd realization.

And that’s perfectly appropriate, as Kirby 64 is a bit odd itself in the way it realized the rotund hero’s signature gameplay. Kirby’s standard mechanic has always been his vacuum-suction “inhale” attack, which sucks enemies into Kirby’s gaping maw and then lets him spit them back out as projectiles. That approach is unchanged in this adventure. The alternative to spitting out an inhaled foe, though, is to completely swallow them and thereby copy their special powers – and it’s this part of the formula that’s been altered in Kirby 64. Kirby can copy one ability at a time as normal, gaining the properties of Ice, Burn, Stone and more from the appropriate enemies. But in Kirby 64 he can also mix and match different powers together, creating combinations of two different abilities that result in more powerful and impressive attacks.

Kirby launches out a single round explosive if he’s copied the Bomb ability, for example. But if he then combines that Bomb power with another Bomb power, the attack transforms into a much more useful Missile assault that sends out a wave of heat-seeking rockets with every press of the B Button. Alternatively, Kirby could fuse together one Bomb and one Stone ability, and that combination creates Dynamite – an even more explosive attack that can do damage in a very wide radius.

Kirby’s colorful world is just as vibrant as you remember.

It’s not just Bombs that get combined together, of course. Each of Kirby’s seven basic abilities – Bomb, Burn, Ice, Stone, Spark, Cutter and Needle – can be combined together with any of the other seven and some combination will be created every time. Some of them are impressive and useful, like the powerful drill you’ll earn by joining Stone and Needle, or the Refrigerator that spawns health-replenishing food items, created by combing Ice and Spark. Others are not as versatile, like the nonsensical melting ice cube that results from trying to mix together Burn and Ice abilities.

What’s odd about this power-combining approach is that Kirby 64 is the only game in the series to use it, and it seems just a little too simplistic when compared with the franchise installments that preceded this one, like Kirby Super Star. There are lots of different combos to acquire, so variety isn’t a problem. The problem is versatility – each ability is a one-trick pony and very straightforward, whereas individual powers often granted Kirby multiple different attacks in Super Star. The direction that Kirby’s franchise took in every other edition, and into the Super Smash Bros. series, is totally different from the direction that Kirby 64 took. And that’s because this one’s for kids.

All Kirby games are for kids, of course, but Kirby 64 feels like it was designed to be as accessible to younger players as possible – from the simplified special powers to the overall pace of play. Kirby walks and attacks more slowly and enemies aren’t nearly as aggressive in Kirby 64. Many mid-stage mini-bosses simply stand in one spot and block your path, for example, waiting patiently for you to attack and defeat them at your leisure. It’s incredibly easy.

And incredibly easy to run through and complete to 100%, a feat achieved when Kirby tracks down all of the game’s hidden Crystal Shards (there are three apiece in each standard level). Once you’re at the end of the game you may have to backtrack and replay a handful of stages to grab the Shards you missed on your first runthrough, but that task won’t take very long – Kirby 64 ends up being about as long as one or two afternoon’s worth of game time, which led many Nintendo fans to simply rent this one rather than put down the full 60 bucks for a purchase eight years ago.Closing Comments
So what’s the final verdict on Kirby 64’s encore appearance on the Virtual Console? Good, but not great. The game is still a solid and enjoyable platforming experience for fans of the pink puffball and worth a look with its asking price of 1000 Wii Points – it’s just not as versatile or as representative of the Kirby franchise as a whole as other games are, like Kirby’s Adventure or Kirby Super Star. Kirby 64 on the VC is a 10 dollar investment that will earn you a couple of afternoons of simple, casual and unchallenging gameplay and then will likely not get revisited too often in your Wii’s Channel Array. But if you have younger gamers in your household who need an easy and accessible platformer to get into, definitely give it a look – they’ll have a blast hunting down all the missing Crystal Shards.

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Tags: Nintendo Wii by Mikey
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