Review #257: 3D Classics - Kirby's Adventure

 Kirby sucks. Really, he does! It's like his most proficient skill!

 What do you need to know about Kirby's Adventure? This is an enhanced port of the NES classic, a 2-D platforming game in which you play as Kirby, inhaling enemies and stealing their powers, or spitting them out as projectiles.

 The game is divided in 7 different worlds, with about 6 stages each, and a couple of mini-games as well. Kirby's Adventure is a very simple affair, sans the final boss, you can just brute force your way through bosses by using the different powers, or just use their projectiles against them. There's only a very few puzzles, that usually lead to extras in the way of mini-games on the over-world, in order to earn more lives or easy access to different powers. Surprisingly for NES standards, Kirby is a very easy game, with simple puzzles.

 Since this is an enhanced port, there are some bells and whistles that make it stand out from the NES original. Most importantly, the 3D effect. Not gonna lie, it looks really good. It's not a necessity, but it's one of the few games in which I enjoyed using 3-D. The graphics look incredibly crispy as well, with no sprite flickering or slowdown, unlike the NES original. This comes at a cost... the Screen is rather small, since they opted to maintain the game's original ratio. There was little to be done without resorting to redoing the entire game, or stretching everything which would've looked rather ugly, so you really can't blame them for it. Still, it bears mentioning that everything looks tiny.

 That said, this 'enhanced port' is a rather hard sell, for me anyways. You see, it's not that Kirby's Adventure has aged particularly bad, not at all, it's still a fun little adventure, but.... There's the GBA remake of this game, which blows this one out of the water. It looks better, it has more and better mini-games, it has extra modes like a playable Meta-Knight, it looks gorgeous, it has more powers and expanded movesets. Basically, it's the NES classic times eleven, and as crisp and this port looks, as nice as the 3D effect is... it can't hold a candle to the GBA remake.

 It's true, Kirby's Adventure should be judged by its own merits, but I can't just deny the remake's existence. The enhanced performance and 3D effect look really nice, but does it beat playing the NES original on a TV screen? I'm not sure. Is there a point to going back to this game being able to play the GBA remake? I don't think so. While not a bad game or port, there are better ways to play this game.
 5.0 out of 10