Kirby Super Star Ultra (DS) Review

Something must be wrong with me. I usually don't ever have two brand-new reviews in two days' time. While I head to the infirmary, you take a look at my newest review for Kirby Super Star Ultra for the Nintendo DS.

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Kirby Super Star: Right Back At Ya'

In 1996, the adorable but deadly pink puff known as Kirby arrived from a warp star and rocketed onto the Super Nintendo. For many fans, Kirby Super Star, to this day, is the ultimate showing starring the cast and crew of the Kirby series, and twelve years later it's getting a second coming-out party with Kirby Super Star Ultra for the Nintendo DS. Boasting seven old and four new stand-alone miniature adventures, a new graphical overhaul, and some new features, is Kirby Super Star Ultra the definitive Kirby title, or does it just simply suck?

There's three separate save files to choose from each giving more than one member of the family or circle of friends a chance to begin their own data. Kirby Super Star was and still is very different from every other mainline Kirby title. Instead of being one grand adventure, Super Star is made up of several individual games with their own simple storyline and basic premise. To start off, there's just a bare selection of games to choose from the main "corkboard" menu, but eventually you'll have access to all eleven main games. Once you complete one game or combination of games, another one is then unlocked. Each of these games are rather short. Some of which will last a measly 10-15 minutes while another can last 2-3 hours your first run through. This translates much better to a handheld than the old console version as it promotes the "pick up and play" aspect that are the trademark of portables.

Spring Breeze is a remake of Kirby's debut in Kirby's Dream Land.

The games are all unique in the fact that they showcase different levels and subtle tweaks to the formula, but they all share the same core gameplay mechanics that Kirby fanatics and casual fans alike can enjoy. Kirby is an interesting character. Not only can he float in the air for an unlimited amount of time, but he can also suck up enemies, eat them faster than Kirstie Alley gobbling up a live turkey, and gain their ability which he can only hold one at a time. These powers are numerous and have different ranges and benefits from the pulsating Beam ability to the Stone ability where Kirby temporarily transforms into a giant stone brick which pounds the ground beneath him. Some powers have secondary uses, too. If there's a switch that needs hitting on the opposite of the wall, Kirby can use the Yo-Yo power to swing the toy through the wall, effectively making contact with the switch. A solitary feature found in Kirby Super Star and used in no other past or present Kirby title is the aid of helpers. When Kirby holds an ability, you can press the X button to give up the ability and have it transform into a helper (only one at a time). Kirby and the helper have their own life bars displayed in the lower screen, and they can share health items like Maxim Tomatoes and miscellaneous food. The only problem with this is that even if both partners have full health, they'll still do the one second animations to share food. This gets annoying as all it does is unnecessarily slow down the game. When a helper is summoned, either the CPU or a nearby friend using wireless play will step in to assist Kirby. However, your friend will have to look off your screen while controlling the helper from his own DS. Furthermore, the old mini-games such as Samurai Kirby and new touch-screen mini-games can also be played either against the computer or with a friend.

The colors in this game are bright and vibrant.
Really sharp, really nice.

The main course of the Kirby Super Star Ultra meal, of course, are the eleven games-- again, 7 return and 4 are brand spanking new. Veterans of these games may feel that there's nothing new, but they'd be surely mistaken. Not only have the graphics been improved to Squeak Squad standards, but additionally there's an impressive amount of 3D full-motion video sequences that pop up during the beginning, intermissions, and end of each game to flesh out some simple story. Parts of these tales interweave with other games giving the player a full experience overall. The first game available is Spring Breeze which is essentially a remake of the very first Kirby title, Kirby's Dream Land, which premiered on the original Game Boy. This was old-school when Kirby was portrayed as a gray ball of fluff instead of the uber-cute pink Kirby we all know and love... and want to fondle. What?! Moving on. Dyna Blade is a slightly larger game which took a half hour for me to full complete my first run. This differs from Spring Breeze at it has more expansive levels, an overworld map, and two secret levels to discover. If exploring levels with Kirby just isn't what you're currently in the mood for, you can step up and try your luck at the Gourmet Race. This is a series of three races against King Dedede-- who I find much cuter than Kirby (I'm man enough to say it!)-- as you take shortcuts, gather food, and attempt to outrace one another. The opponent with the most points at the end of the three rounds from collecting food and winning races wins.

The Gourmet Race has two modes:
Grand Prix and Time Attack.

Two of my favorite games from Super Star Ultra are treasure hunts: The Great Cave Offensive and Milky Way Wishes. First, The Great Cave Offensive is more a misnomer than anything. There's four huge areas all interconnected by mine cart segments. Now the first area is definitely a cave setting, but the other three are definitely too "outside" to be considered caverns. Each area is completely non-linear and asks the player to attempt to find all sixty of the treasures hidden in the mode to fully complete it. At the exit of each area, there's a boss encounter. Now one can simply breeze through the "cave" in 15-20 minutes without collecting everything, but to get a larger completion percentage, all the booty must be found-- and this booty is far from ghetto. Likewise, Milky Way Wishes is more of a combination of Dyna Blade and The Great Cave Offensive. Like Dyna Blade, you're on a map where you can choose where to go, except this time you're in space choosing planets to venture to. Similar to The Great Cave, the side goal is to find all 19 lost Kirby powers hidden on each planet. For the most part, Kirby cannot suck up enemies to inherit their power. Instead, he has to find these powers to unlock them. These can be selected from the touch screen at any time. Restore the wishes of all the planets to receive the ability to make that Milky Way Wish.... or maybe not.... The rest of the games in the Super Star Ultra collection have Kirby infiltrating Meta Knight's ship, the Halberd, taking on 19 bosses with a little breather between each match in The Arena, and games that will allow you to play as some other special characters, too.

All-new FMV sequences add more to the non-existent
story of the original Super Star.

As previously mentioned, the graphics got a pretty big upgrade. They stay true to the look and feel of the original Super Star, and at the same time they're quite similar to the recent DS installments. Overall, the look of the game is colorful and generally pleasing to look at. Then again, I'm an absolute sucker for 2D sprites and art. The sound effects and music are nice and quaint as well. Kirby veterans will instantly recognize many themes from the series as well as completely new compositions which stand up well to the originals.

Kirby Super Star Ultra is a fantastic package that's full of value and fun. The collection of the original seven games combined with the four all-new adventures, old and new mini-games, upgraded graphics, light use of the touch screen, unlockable goodies, FMV, and a respectable 10-15 hours to fully complete the game are all well worth the asking price. Kirby fans and younger or less experienced gamers will enjoy this, but everyone else might feel that the majority of content in this package is too easy to come back to. Also, there's those obnoxious Kirby haters to contend with, too. How can people be so cruel? Then again, if you can't beat 'em, eat 'em.

[SuperPhillip Says]

Story: Multiple quick tales told through each individual game. Some link together while others are stand-alone entries.

Graphics: This game is quite pretty. I love the colorful worlds and impressive sprites.

Gameplay: Puff, suck, and blow. And let's talk about Kirby, too. The classic Kirby action with the unique mechanic of calling upon helpers.

Sound: Cute and quaint themes which may be too sickening and sweet for some.

Replay Value: 10-15 hours, but playing with a friend who also has a DS is a fantastic alternative to shelving the entire collection after completion.

Overall: 8.5/10

September NPD Numbers Are In!

The NPD is a great way to see the American sales of consoles as well as the top ten games each month. The only thing I dislike is that the numbers of smaller games over the months aren't revealed to the public, so a game like Lair is said to be a "bomba" when in fact it sold 500,000+ over the span of six months. There's a plethora of other examples, but I think my point has been made. Now enough babbling by me, let's take a look at the results!

HW Sales
PlayStation 2 173.5K
PlayStation 3 232.4K
PSP 238.1K
Xbox 360 347.2K
Wii 687.0K
Nintendo DS 536.8K

Top 10 SW Sales
Publisher Release Date Rank # Units
360 STAR WARS: THE FORCE UNLEASHED LUCASARTS Sep-08 1 610K
WII WII FIT W/ BALANCE BOARD NINTENDO OF AMERICA May-08 2 518K
360 ROCK BAND 2 MTV GAMES/ELECTRONIC ARTS Sep-08 3 363K
WII MARIO KART W/ WHEEL NINTENDO OF AMERICA Apr-08 4 353K
PS3 STAR WARS: THE FORCE UNLEASHED LUCASARTS Sep-08 5 325K
360 MERCENARIES 2: WORLD IN FLAMES ELECTRONIC ARTS Aug-08 6 297K
WII WII PLAY W/ REMOTE NINTENDO OF AMERICA Feb-07 7 243K
360 MADDEN NFL 09 ELECTRONIC ARTS Aug-08 8 224K
WII STAR WARS: THE FORCE UNLEASHED LUCASARTS Sep-08 9 223K
PS2 MADDEN NFL 09 ELECTRONIC ARTS Aug-08 10 158K

Direct Link

Castlevania Judgment (Wii) - New Screens

These are taken from GoNintendo. I feel conflicted. I liked what I saw even though I would have preferred another action-adventure quest. Note: you can also choose to use the Classic or Gamecube controller if you're uninterested in the Wii remote and nunchuk duo.

Wii Music Demonstration - Hey, come back here, you!

Wait. Wait. Wait. Don't ignore this blog entry! Don't let those bitter tears of the hardly core gamer drown you with their angst! Wii Music is actually good! Don't believe me? Don't see how that is possible? Take a gander at this demonstration by J.C. Rodrigo to see what it's all about. Who is J.C. Rodrigo? Why, he's... I don't know! I do know that he should have been showing this off at E3 instead of Cammie Dunaway (no matter how nice of a person she is). Perhaps this video will give you those of you who aren't interested or just flatout detest it, some insight on why I'm personally interested. Regardless, I hope to review this game. It will probably be next month though.



"Hello there. I am the direct link. Give me and this video a chance by clicking on me. I won't get aroused by you clicking on me. Honest."

Don't believe it? See what these NeoGAF users had to say!

Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood (DS) Review

I'm still reeling off those impressive Black Knight shots. Let's continue with Sonic the Hedgehog with a look at Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood for the DS.

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A Sonic/Bioware Boon?

Sonic the Hedgehog, the blue blur, the blue streak, Miles "Tales" Prower, Knuckles the Echidna, the Green Hill Zone, Dr. Eggman, Sega, Sonic Team, Bioware-- Wait, what?! Surely I'm mistaken. Surely I jest. Surely Bioware was a slip up-- was an error on the list. Fortunately, it's actually not. When developer Bioware of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Mass Effect fame announced that their premier DS project would be an RPG starring Sonic the Hedgehog, the majority of the gaming world was set ablaze. Sure, there was a minority who thought and still believe Sonic is dead, but that's another can of worms. It wasn't so much the RPG part that interested people like myself. After all, RPGs and Bioware go well together like blue hedgehogs and chili dogs, two-tailed foxes and flying, and echidnas and rap music. Well... maybe not that last pair. No, the RPG part was only escalated by the fact that it would be one starring Sega's cerulean mascot, Sonic the Hedgehog. How would Sonic, a creature known for his fast speeds (as well as glitch-filled games, more truthfully), translate into a slow-paced game like an RPG? If anyone could do it, it certainly would be Bioware, right? The result of this collaboration is Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood for the Nintendo DS, and it's finally upon us. Is this RPG way past cool or way past fail?

The story begins with Sonic and friends just foiling yet another ill-fated scheme by the series' main villain, Dr. Eggman. It's time now for rest and relaxation, right? Here enters Sonic's best buddy, the twin-tailed Tails to inform him that their mutual and platonic friend, Knuckles the last of the echidna race has mysteriously and suspiciously disappeared. If that wasn't enough, some brand new force has pilfered all of the Chaos Emeralds-- loosely, the Dragon Balls of the Sonic universe, if you will. What follows is Sonic teaming up with Tails, gathering clues, solving puzzles, exploring areas, bashing bots and baddies alike, and gaining seven other party members from his psychotic admirer, Amy Rose, to a large feline who is too afraid of taking the test that determines whether he's actually mentally slow or not, Big the Cat. Okay, maybe I made up Big's background, but you know what I mean.

Some of the story is told through these Flash-like cutscenes.
Most is via text sequences.

What is of the rather formulaic and cliche story is quite good. It's very well-written properly portraying the personalities of every past character involved with the bonus of not having to listen to any of them talk-- you just read text instead. Someone up in Bioware likes us~! If you're fresh to the Sonic universe, have no worries at all. You can jump right into the adventure without needing to know the characters' history, and if you do want to check out some history, there's a very detailed glossary of characters and events from past Sonic games under options.

It's certainly not surprising that the story aspect of Sonic Chronicles is rather sharp. After all, this IS a Bioware effort. Unfortunately, the gameplay falls just a tad short. Sonic's RPG feels more like a paint-by-numbers approach to RPG design than anything truly special. Most areas in the game are one huge area with scattered one-room areas to venture into. These are quite fun to explore, and there's a good amount of collectibles to search for. Completionists will want to search every corner and every inch a given map to collect every ring (the currency of Chronicles) as well as Chao eggs that randomly hatch into equip-able partners. More on those later. Missions are also available and come from certain NPCs. They're completely optional, awarding the player with helpful items and extra experience (XP). They range from terminating a problematic enemy to fetching something--an item or even a missing person- for an NPC. What makes exploration interesting and sets Sonic Chronicles apart from other RPGs even more is that only certain party members can get past certain obstacles. For instance, only characters similar to Sonic can use the multiple loops and fast-paced ramps that are strewn throughout the landscape, and only characters like Tails can hover across certain gaps. Each obstacle has a required level, from 1-3, in order to pass it. You'll know if you can interact with an obstacle because it will show a circular prompt-- if it's blue it means you can access it. If it's gray, that either means your character does not have the ability or your character's said ability isn't level enough. I made it sound like a home pregnancy test the way I said that, but at least it makes sense. Abilities can get annoying, however, as certain abilities or level 3 abilities can only be learned by one character such as Big the Cat who can use invulnerability to pass through toxic emissions. Again, he's not mentally competent enough to realize he should be in pain and/or dying. To further sweeten the exploration pot, there are no random encounters. Enemies navigate the expansive maps and coming in contact with them begins a battle.

The top screen shows the parts of the map you've already explored.

But perhaps you'll want to avoid conflict after awhile... Battles are your traditional turn-based affairs where your up-to-four-member party take part in destroying the youth of our world... I mean, fighting robots and angered animals who probably were mad because they needed to get laid. Unlike its counterparts, Sonic Chronicles enables party members as well as enemies to act anywhere from 1-3 times per round. This is accounted for by a set-in-stone stat for each character. A character like Sonic acts thrice while Big the Cat only acts once per round-- probably because he can't count to two. Special attacks and abilities in Sonic Chronicles are known as POW moves. These are much stronger attacks, and each one triggers are quick and not-so-quick Elite Beat Agents-style mini-game to determine whether the attack will hit the opposition and how powerful the move will be. These range from individual and combined instances of tapping circles as they appear on the screen to tracing a moving orb with your stylus. These POW moves cost your character's PP... er..... Power Points... which can be restored via an item, an ability, or simply by defending. To defend against enemy POW moves, the same mini-games are played. You can probably imagine how tedious this gets especially when you're facing weak enemies with high HP, and you fudge one of the mini-games which totally wastes your time. Furthermore, some enemies can auto-revive themselves at the end of a round, some have extremely high defense making attacks and some POW moves useless, some have high evasion meaning your attacks are most likely to miss... like, five times in a freaking row, and some can use a round-long evading stance which makes all of your moves miss. All of these elements really do nothing more than drag on battles and make them tedious. To further the burden, if you're at a higher level than the enemy, your experience rewarded will be next to nothing. "Oh, boy. 10 XP. Only 2,000 more battles like that to go at this rate!" It makes it that if you're over-leveled the majority of your fun will be trying to avoid enemies on the overworld. If you caught in a losing or unwanted situation, you can flee which starts another mini-game where you try to outrun the enemy by leaping over crates that will slow you down and launching off of speed boosts to shake your foes. This gets a little frustrating with four party members to try to grab with the stylus...

Everything is stylus-controlled. Tap a command, tap an enemy,
tap the correct parts of the screen during the POW moves.

It wouldn't be an RPG without items or levels, right? They're a mainstay of RPGs, and Sonic Chronicles is no different in this regard either. Items are earned after most, if not all, battles, in treasure chests, from the various shops sprinkled throughout the game, rewarded by NPCs for completed missions, and so on. Weapons and armor are available taking the form of gloves (what are we- Mario here?), footwear (Air Jordans won't work here)), accessories (status-protecting or Power Point-boosting rings and the like), and Chao. The weapons and armor are nice, extra insurance, but your stats are already padded enough just from leveling up. Likewise, accessories and Chao are helpful indeed. These Chao randomly hatch from eggs acquired in the field. The contents of each egg is random, so you could theoretically play through the duration of the game with all eggs uncovered and still not have all forty Chao. One Chao can be equipped to a character at a time. These helpful cuties mainly give the party member bonuses such as boosted attack, defense, HP, PP ( I hear you can use Enzyte for that, too), and luck. Some bonuses are just for the party member while others benefit everybody. Speaking of bonuses, after each level a party member gains, you have the option to boost by one point one stat of that character: either speed, attack, defense, or luck. There's also no need to worry about putting every character into battle as everyone gains experience regardless of whether or not they're in the party. To top it all off, once you complete Chronicles, you can opt to-- heck, they force you to-- start a new game where all of your experience, items, rings, and Chao carry over. Of course, there's really no major incentive to even play through the game again, but different strokes for different hedgehogs.

There are some remarkable locales
and graphics for your eyes to orgasm over.

On the aesthetic side of Chronicles, there's a wealth of beautiful content to gawk at. The maps, while isometrically 3-D, are colorful and sensational to look at as are the 3-D models in and out of battle. The only problem with the maps and the sprites on them as that they're clip through one another at numerous spots. You'll see your character clipping over a column or something while he logically should be behind it. Battles are hindered by Bioware deciding (or forgetting) to provide explanations for the various items and POW moves in the game. If you want to know what an item or move does, you better research it before the battle, buddy. This resulted in using POW moves that I had no idea what they did, and they were, as you can guess, useless at that specific moment in battle. Then we have the sound... I would have rather had actual voice work in battle rather than the generic sound of a male-like person grunting compared to a female-like person grunting. And then there's the music. Oh, dear God or whoever you, the reader, believe in. Is it ever horrible. No, it's not just horrible. It's embarrassing. The battle music sounds like it was designed for the DS' hardware-- albeit generic. The map music, however, sounds like it was designed for an Apple computer from 1992. It amazes me how the map music is just remixes from past Sonic games, yet the versions are completely grating and worse by far. It's not like they had to compose new music for the maps. No, they already HAD the great melodies and the original great arrangements. It's just unbelievable, and the parties involved should be ashamed of themselves. I can't even crap on Big the Cat or blame him for this because he would have had a crappy remix of "Lazy Days" from Sonic Adventure!

While not up to Bioware standards, Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood is an interesting as well as entertaining foundation for a promising future of Sonic RPGs. The groundwork is here. Now let's see Bioware or whoever build upon for an even greater experience. What we have currently is certainly a competent effort, but the gradual tediousness of the battles and grotesque sound stop this game from being truly great and just "mm... not too bad". Fans of the blue blur will fall in love with Sonic Chronicles, the average gamer will get a kick out of the game for a little while, and RPG fans might just want to give this game a rental if even that. It's great for a first playthrough, but after those 10-20 hours you'll yearn for something bigger, better, and maybe less bluer.

[SuperPhillip Says]

Story: Knuckles is AWOL from his duties guarding the Master Emerald, and some renegade force has stolen the Chaos Emeralds. It's up to Sonic and company to right the wrongs yet again.

Graphics: Bioware is known for being masters of tech, and Chronicles is no exception. The only thing that looks off are the eyes of the various 3D models.

Gameplay: Everything is controlled with the stylus. Map running is relatively painless, but battles rely too much on EBA-inspired mini-games and annoying enemies which drag on battle.

Sound: Pretty poor. The sound effects are generic, and the music is absolutely dreadful.

Replay Value: Sonic Chronicles will last anywhere from 10-20 hours the first runthrough. It's up to the player whether or not the game was fun enough to go through a second time with no incentive to do so.

Overall: 7.0/10