30 years of Kirby: Assorted Kirby rankings

Let's rank some stuff that, if blown up into its own features, would make you right to say I'm overdoing it.

August 1, 2022 marks the 30th anniversary of the North American debut of Kirby. Throughout the month, I’ll be covering Kirby’s games, creating rankings, and thinking about the past and future of the series. Previous entries in this series can be found through this link.

“There are no bad ideas in brainstorming” is a true, in the sense that you don’t want to shut yourself off from the possibility that a decent idea evolves into a significantly better one with more thought. But once the brainstorming session is over, then yes, you can judge the quality of ideas, judge them straight to hell.

Ooooooooor, you can recognize which ones probably wouldn’t have worked as their own pieces, and lump them all together into an assortment of rankings where they’ll have some use. See? No bad ideas, just ones that can’t stand on their own.

Anyway, let’s rank a bunch of random Kirby things. These rankings are universal truth, unless they are just my opinion.

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Cutest Kirby forms

10. Nago rolling Kirby around: In Dream Land 3, you’re introduced to new animal friend, Nago the cat. Nago is extremely adorable himself, and rolls Kirby around like a ball to get around:

9. Freeze (Nightmare in Dream Land): Typically, Kirby’s ice power has him wearing a crown made of ice. Because of the way copy abilities worked in Kirby’s Adventure, however, there are actually two different ice abilities, and one of those has Kirby donning a blue parka with a fur hood. It is at its cutest in the excellent 2D art of the GBA’s Nightmare in Dream Land:

8. ESP (Planet Robobot): It is literally Ness from EarthBound. HAL worked on that game and included Ness in the original Smash Bros., so it’s all fair game, but ESP is just Ness. And it works.

7. Curling Stone (Kirby 64): When you combine stone and ice in Crystal Shards, you get the curling stone. That game isn’t always firing on all cylinders, but HAL had themselves something right there.

6. Mike (Super Star; Return to Dream Land): The original Mike is great, once you roll around to Kirby sporting a dyed mohawk and yelling into a stand mic. The look of Kirby when he has the power has changed over time, and in Return to Dream Land, you actually see the little guy put on a pair of headphones adorned with stars while he’s walking around equipped with this devastating trio of moves.

5. Swimming (various): Whether Kirby is donning a snorkel, plopped inside of an inner tube, or transforming into a submarine out of yarn, his swimming is always cute.

4. Carby (Forgotten Land): All of the Mouthful Mode forms of Kirby are wonderful, but the first you get was Carby for a reason: it is striking, it is ridiculous, and it’s also highly effective and fun to use. Plus, you can turn it into a cake, both in real life and in-game.

3. Animal (Squeak Squad): A copy ability so cute I bought the plush of it for Kate like, a decade ago, and it was a winner.

2. Cook (various): It should be horrifying, that Kirby calls every living thing around him into a giant pot and then cooks them, but no. That’s offset by his little hat and his giant smile.

1. Sleep (various): ahhhhhhhhhh

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Nintendo systems ranked by their Kirby games

12. Game Boy Color (Tilt ‘n’ Tumble)

11. Wii U (Rainbow Curse)

10. Nintendo 64 (Crystal Shards)

9. GameCube (Air Ride)

8. NES (Adventure)

7. Game Boy Advance (Nightmare in Dream Land, Amazing Mirror)

6. Game Boy (Dream Land, Dream Land 2, Pinball, Block Ball, Star Stacker)

5. Wii (Return to Dream Land, Epic Yarn)

4. DS (Canvas Curse, Squeak Squad, Super Star Ultra, Mass Attack)

3. SNES (Dream Course, Avalanche, Super Star, Dream Land 3, Super Star Stacker)

2. Switch (Star Allies, Super Kirby Clash, Kirby Fighters 2, Forgotten Land, Dream Buffet)

1. 3DS (Triple Deluxe, Fighter Deluxe, Drum Dash Deluxe, Planet Robobot, Team Kirby Clash Deluxe, Blowout Blast, Battle Royale, Extra Epic Yarn)

Just so there’s a little explanation here: the 3DS basically wins by volume (eight games!) and because of the excellent Epic Yarn ending up ported to the system. The Switch can easily grab the top spot with a single well-considered port or another high-quality original outing.

The SNES can much less easily do the same, but you never know.

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Kirby games ranked by visual style

Aiming for “very distinct artistic style” here and not “hey, 32-bit looks better than 16-bit,” so it’s a short list.

5. Canvas Curse: Given the word “Canvas” is in the North American title and it’s called “Power Paintbrush” in Europe, it’s no surprise this game has a very canvas-esque background aesthetic.

4. Adventure: This is less of a departure than the others in some ways, but as HAL has never attempted to directly replicate the style they coaxed out of the aging NES hardware, it has a flare all its own just the same.

3. Rainbow Curse: Clay! This game isn’t bad, but it looks so much better than it plays.

2. Epic Yarn: Good-Feel really crushed the whole yarn and art and crafts thing to the point that they ended up moving it all over to Yoshi and applying it to a series that needed more distinction than Kirby does.

1. Dream Land 3: The gameplay of Dream Land 3 is plenty enjoyable, but it’s the visuals and the sound that really make it stick out in the extension library of Kirby titles. The game looks like it was drawn with colored pencils, and this was possible due to HAL applying an advanced graphical technique, pseudo high-resolution, to the SNES at what was very nearly the end of its North American lifespan. Say what you will about the game otherwise, because people have, but it looks stunning to this day.

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Best Kirby menu music

1. EX Clear Main Menu (Return to Dream Land)

I can’t believe one of the single greatest songs HAL has composed in 30 years of Kirby was locked behind 100% completion of a game as large as Return to Dream Land, but here’s the thing: it’s a worthy prize.

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Best Kirby sub-game song

1. Gourmet Race

A song so good that HAL found less optional reasons for you to hear it in the future, and even included it in the 25th anniversary orchestra performance.

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Best Galacta Knight theme

That’s for you to decide.

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