On New Year's Day 2018, I opened up my 3DS to play Kirby's Dream Land. To my surprise, I found myself finished the game the next day, after only 1 1/4 hours of gameplay! I did not expect such a short game. I remember reading that Satoru Iwata went into designing and developing the game, he wanted a game that anyone could pick up and begin playing right away, with little to no gaming experience. Kirby's Dream Land lived up to that expectation. I needed no help from a walkthrough, as everything from controls to goals were obvious from merely playing the game. My only complaint was the shortness of the game, with a mere 5 levels. Even the limits of the original Game Boy provided no excuse for the shortness, for games like Pokémon would fill the same cartridge. I chalked it up to the simplicity of the game, and I moved on to the next game.
I immediately started with Kirby's Adventure for the NES on Wii U Virtual Console. While it was definitely bigger and longer than Kirby's Dream Land, it still landed on the short side. I finished in 4 1/2 hours of gameplay over a 6-day span. I appreciated the new gameplay of copying abilities, yet it was still simple enough to keep up with Satoru Iwata's mantra of simple enough for anyone to pick it up and play it.
Continuing the main series games in chronological order, it only made sense to next play the direct sequel to the original, Kirby's Dream Land 2. It definitely felt like direct sequel, as the game improves on the original Dream Land. At the same time, Kirby's Adventure was that sequel. True, Kirby's Dream Land 2 did add Kirby's friends, but besides that, it was almost like a handheld port of Kirby's Adventure. The knowledge of the game, alongside Iwata's mantra that anyone can pick it up, play it and have fun, made the game a breeze. I finished the game in 3 1/3 hours over a 7-day span.
Back to the consoles, it was time for Kirby Super Star for the Super Nintendo. The new feature to Super Star was creating a partner to aid in battle. Obviously, this was made for a player 2, but I even found a computer-controlled partner a big help. While the game felt like it like challenge outside the boss rush Arena mode, the 8 games in 1 game automatically extended gameplay, as it took me 6 1/2 hours over another 7-day span to just reach 81% completion.
As the Super Nintendo came to the end of its lifespan, it released another Kirby game, which came to be known as Kirby's Dream Land 3, making the Dream Land series a trilogy. I really felt like the game received a downgrade because the partner went from a copy ability to Gooey, who did seem to get in the way more than help. Although the game came late in the Super Nintendo's life, it didn't look like it, as the graphics looked inferior to Super Star. The unclear missions made I only reached 46% completion. Kirby's Dream Land 3, however, did follow Iwata's mantra of simple enough to pick up, play and enjoy, so I finished it in 6 3/4 hours, only 15 minutes more than Super Star.
Now let me pause here. Notice how that's 5 Kirby games finished in the month of January alone. At the beginning of the year, I had calculated that, in order to finish every Kirby game in one year, I had to average finishing a game every 10 days, or 3 Kirby games a month. By completing 5 Kirby games in the month of January alone, I was already 2 games ahead of the pace I set.
I was curious to see if I could keep the same for February. I came close. During the month of February, I finished 4 Kirby games, averaging a week per game. Kirby's Return to Dream Land on the Wii took the most gameplay hours at 8 1/3 hours. Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards took the least amount of gameplay time with 4 1/3 gameplay hours. The gameplay time spent on each game reflected the level of completion. Kirby 64 had the least amount of completion at 61% completion. Kirby's Return to Dream Land had the most completed at 85% of the main story. With no Switch at the time, I closed out the month of February by finished all the main series Kirby games on Nintendo consoles. Only 2 months had passed, and I was roughly a third the way through all Kirby games.
March slowed down the pace a bit. March became the month of Kirby main series games on the 3DS. I finished Kirby Triple Deluxe on March 8 with 10 1/2 hours of gameplay. I finished Kirby Planet Robobot on March 24 with 10 2/3 hours of gameplay. You'll notice I spent more time on these Kirby games. It wasn't because these games were harder. It was because these games were so much fun, you just wanted to do everything these games had to offer. I collected all the sun stones in Triple Deluxe and all the code cubes in Planet Robobot just so I could unlock the extra stages to play. I'm glad I could spend the entire month of March just focused on these games, for it allowed me to compare and contrast the two very similar games. When the month was done, I had finished over a third of the Kirby games in a quarter of the year. More importantly, I had finished all the main series games.
Now the main series games were done, I figured the next games should be the remastered versions of the main series games. The month of April become the month of remastered Kirby games. I finished Kirby Nightmare in Dreamland on April 14 with 10 3/4 gameplay hours. I finished Kirby Super Star Ultra with on April 29 with 20 gameplay hours. Because I needed an excuse to play remastered versions of games I already played, I aimed to fully complete them. I accomplished that with Nightmare in Dream Land. For Nightmare in Dream Land, I 100% completed normal mode, 100% completed hard mode and finished Meta Knightmare. I attempted to do the same for Super Star Ultra, but after 20 hours of gameplay, I barely made it through The Arena, and I knew there was no way I could make it through The True Arena. Still, I got 89% completion, which is 8% more than the original Super Star.
May became the month of Kirby touch games. On May 8, I finished Kirby Canvas Curse after 6 1/3 gameplay hours. This game would be the least amount of completion at 14.2% completion. Frustrated with the touch controls, I did not want to backtrack for collectibles. On May 14, I finished Kirby and the Rainbow Curse on the Wii U in game 6 1/2 gameplay hours. With better touch controls, I completed 84% of the game. On May 26, I finished Kirby's Mass Attack on May 26 with 15 1/4 gameplay hours. When May ended, so did the touch games.
The month of June could be categorized as the month of Kirby games with unconventional Kirby gameplay. First, I played Kirby's Epic Yarn for the Wii. As much as this game got criticized for being easy to finish, it really is hard to fully complete by discovering hidden collectables and reaching a bead count. Still, I somehow reached 90% completion after 16 3/4 hours. The other game played this month was Kirby Tilt N Tumble. For this game, I had to order a cartridge from GameStop's retro games, and I had to pull out my old Game Boy Advance. I found the early motion controls a struggle, so much I finished with only 35% completion after playing the game for 7 5/6 hours. It is ironic that the Game Boy Color game used motion control more than the Wii game. Halfway through the year, I was well past the halfway mark of all the Kirby games.
I started off the month of July with the Kirby's Avalanche, a puzzle game for the Super Nintendo. I managed to clear all 12 stages on normal in 6 1/3 gameplay hours over 3 days. For the rest of July, I turned to the 3DS. The only full game was Kirby Battle Royale. The other two games, Kirby's Blowout Blast and Dedede's Drum Dash Deluxe, were deluxe versions of minigames attached to main series games. I could tell by the length of gameplay alone. I reached the end of Dedede's Drum Dash Deluxe in 1 1/3 hours. I reached the finish of Kirby's Blowout Blast in 3 2/3 gameplay hours, all done in a single day.
For August, I stayed on my 3DS, but this time, they were all Game Boy spin-off games, found on the 3DS Virtual Console. The 2 games finished in August were Kirby's Star Stacker and Kirby's Block Ball. The Game Boy spin-off games poured into September, as I finished Kirby's Pinball Land on September 9. September would wrap up with Kirby's Dream Course. I went from a Kirby pinball game to a Kirby golf game. I went from the 3DS Virtual Console to the Wii U Virtual Console. I was 2/3 through the year, and I had played 5/6 of the Kirby games.
To wrap up the last third of the year and the last sixth of the Kirby games, I figured I would first wrap up the Kirby minigames that got deluxe versions of the eShop. The first one, Kirby Fighters Deluxe, was no issue. I finished it on October 27 with 9 gameplay hours. Then came Team Kirby Clash Deluxe. This is the first (and hopefully only) free-to-start Kirby game. As a free-to-start game, I had to wait in real time to continue playing. On top of being a free-to-start game, Team Kirby Clash Deluxe is also an RPG. That means it involves a lot of grinding. Together, this game took a long time to finish. I finally finished it on December 7, after 24 3/4 gameplay hours over a month and a week of real time. I'm glad I got a head start earlier in the year, or else I would have fell behind my pace. With the conclusion of Team Kirby Clash Deluxe, I had finished all handheld Kirby games.
After finishing Team Kirby Clash Deluxe, I turned to Kirby Air Ride. I played all the modes on Kirby Air Ride over a week. I thought that the Year of the Kirby would end on Kirby Air Ride, but then mentor and best friend Louis came to rescue and got me a Nintendo Switch for Christmas, and with it, Kirby Star Allies! I had 5 days to beat the game to finish the Year of the Kirby on time, and I did it in 4 days!
And with the conclusion of 2018, thus concludes the Year of the Kirby. Yes, I played and finished all 30 Kirby games in a matter of 1 year. It took over 250 gameplay hours. Looking back over all the Kirby games (at least the main series), I do believe the series continues to get better, and it will only get better with future installments. I'm not sure I would call myself a Kirby fanboy, but I do hope I have taken myself a step close to be considering a true Nintendo fanboy.
