Promising potential, all left in shards
Adeleine: "Whoa, I was just in Emerald City..."
Despite not being one of Nintendo's heavy hitters alongside the likes of Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda, and Pokémon, Kirby has been one of their franchises that is great in its own right; a pink spherical hero with the ability to inhale enemies, some of which grant him powers that automatically turn him into a bruiser, a bad sign for his enemies likely to be pulverized to the very depths of...well, I'm sorry, I'd rather not say. That was one of the defining traits of Kirby, making the entire franchise a cult enough to spawn a noticeable fan base. However, like every big video game franchise out there, the entirety of the Kirby franchise's library isn't all "Straight A's" as while the majority of its entries in the series have been charming in the end, only a few of them say otherwise.
The pink puffball's one and only Nintendo 64 entry Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards happens to be one of those few exceptions. Its charming and plush atmosphere and presentation has a lot of appeal in its own basket that still shines to this day, but behind all of that is a somewhat disappointing product that rarely scratches the surface on the series' landmarks due to the shattered potential it had on the table. There's still a bit of fun to be had here and being a series' first in the 3D visuals department is staggering, but (once again) while a great majority of the pink puffball's mainline entries at least left me with warm feelings within, this is one of the very few entries that left me expecting better.
Scarfy: "I don't need-le this, Kirby!"
Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards starts with Ripple Star, a planet far away from the pink hero's home planet Pop Star, being invaded by the villainous Dark Matter on a conquest to take the crystal for its own evil purpose. One of the planet's fairy denizens Ribbon is tasked to carrying the crystal far far away from Dark Matter in space until being attacked by them, causing the crystal to be shattered to shards across six planets and the fairy to go crashing down onto Pop Star. Nearby, Kirby noticed the injured Ribbon and knowing the whole incident with her and the crystal, the pink hero had eagerly agreed to help her find the crystal shards and assemble them all together, all while finding his friends and taking out the many baddies in his way.
The graphics in-game are somewhat jagged and odd these days, but they were undeniably some of the most charming at the time when the Nintendo 64 was about to close out its show for the Nintendo Game Cube the following year, and even the pink puffball himself still looks the pink puffball we all know. However, far and away one of the very few best things that makes Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards shine is its soundtrack as it bops heavenly here and there, with a greater variety that ranges from peppy to sentimental, and from the tropically relaxing beach theme in the third world to the mysteriously scary factory theme in the fifth world; even the very first level on Pop Star manages to kick start the mood somewhat pleasantly when starting the game.
King Dedede: "...I hope nobody heard that squeak from the trunk."
Moving onto the gameplay, those who have played any of the mainline games in the series will know the ins and outs of Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards straight out of the oven: Kirby can jump, float, inhale, slide, walk, run, swim...almost everything you expect the pink hero to do is all in this game (and I mean "almost" for a reason). One of the key differences here is that his float ability now has a time limit, preventing you from staying in the air indefinitely. It's not really much of a problem as the game's level design isn't built around the indefinite float ability, but after having played many of the previous games that doesn't limit you to this feature Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards came off as a tease in that you don't have the ability to do so. The real qualm, though, is that Kirby's controls are a little clunky and slow as sometimes when attacking enemies, Kirby either lands the hit or take it, with the latter sometimes resulting in him losing his copy ability; even constantly running through levels can often feel sluggish for a Kirby game and as a result, the overwhelming monotony can set itself in fairly quickly throughout the main campaign.
The feature presentation of Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards, however, is the ability to mix copy abilities to create the more devastating Power Combos, resulting in over 40 abilities for Kirby to use throughout the game. Right off the bat, it's a great idea to truly mix up your combat strategies than in your average Kirby playthrough and the whole novelty of it seems enticing on paper, but in execution...it's rather poor in the end. The majority of the Power Combos are heavily unbalanced and broken; some of them are overpowered to the point of absurdity (and going as far as to render this game too easy for the series' own good) while others are useless novelty quirks that rarely do anything, with some of them even putting the pink puff ball himself in danger. Some of the mixtures such as Bomb + Fire, Thunder + Thunder, Bomb + Needle, and Stone + Stone allow you to rid a load of surrounding enemies within a great deal of range while others such as Bomb + Thunder, Fire + Ice, and Stone + Cutter barely help much against the baddies and are only there to solve puzzles. In fact, I kid you not: You can get the Bomb + Cutter ability (arguably the most powerful Power Combo in the game) in the first level and you can laugh at just about anything by simply pressing the B button to rid them on sight, all the way down to the last world in the game. Sure, you can't use it to unveil most of the game's hidden Crystal Shards to get the true ending (among other things), but even from a Kirby standpoint Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards' Power Combos system wastes a lot of its own potential from its lack of balancing and polish.
Making things worse for the Power Combos system, however, is that the game locks some of the optional Crystal Shard collectibles behind walls that require Kirby to have the right Power Combo in order to bring down those walls and while it may sound enticing in nature to encourage replay value, some of those Crystal Shards will often require the player to backtrack a great deal of the way just to be able to get them, especially given that some of those levels don't have the right Copy Abilities to shave off the tedium without forcing the player to go to another level to get them; even more annoying is when dying at any point in the level that you'll lose the Copy Abilities held, thus making the daunting task of 100%ing the game more annoyingly frustrating beyond the usual fun factor of doing so in your usual Kirby game. The other (mainline) Kirby entries weren't free from this problem either, but they were nowhere near as much of a pain to undertake as Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards' and even having to bring the outside Hammer ability to the end of World 5-6 in Kirby's Adventure on NES to press the Pink Switch yielded some form of satisfaction in spite of its pacing and enemy problems.
Adeleine: "It's a gift card, Kirby. The problem is...I forgot which restaurant it's for..."
Unfortunately, this same level of problem also goes for the mini bosses because a great deal of them either stand there to make more enemies spawn or make little movements that rarely make them a genuine threat, not to mention that that most of the mini bosses are simply "bigger" versions of normal enemies in the game without presenting much originality or distinction. Big Bouncy, for instance, is just a bigger Bouncy enemy that just bounces there in place while lazily spawning other small Bouncies for Kirby to either kill or spit back at the Big Bouncy, doing nothing else. Big Sawyer simply pops up above ground from any spot, while (once again) doing little else in variety. During those times, most of these mini bosses can be easily killed by practically standing in one (safe) spot while spamming the best Power Combo with zero effort. Kirby's Dream Land on Game Boy tasked you to do a lot more against that game's mini bosses and it's a shame that it's not the same case with Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards in spite of being released on stronger hardware.
Level design is also something that Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards succumbs in as while they're not entirely bad, they're simply nothing special as a great deal of them are simply flat lands with barebones-tier traps and platforming that rarely make up for the limited flight time tacked onto Kirby, plus the wonky camera and rare instances of pillars tackily-placed into the background to crush the pink puffball doesn't do any favors either as far as intriguing level design goes. The level design in the other mainline games weren't "perfect" either, but they at least kept me engaged throughout with its neat twists here and there, whether it be lighting a fuse to a cannon to be blasted off to another area or pounding a peg to reveal a new passage (both of which are nowhere to be found in this game). Heck, even Kirby's Dream Land 3's levels were somewhat engaging enough to want me to keep pushing through until the end, whereas Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards' (especially given the fact that there are rarely any of the series' staple secret rooms to be found for bonuses) comes off as underwhelming and dull. The only level that is remotely something to look at is the factory level in World 5, but that's only if you pair it with many of the other levels throughout the game that it's seemingly a very low bar to clear.
Occasionally throughout the game, Kirby's friends Waddle Dee and King Dedede will "aid" (which I emphasize for shortly after) him in his quest to go through obstacles and while a charming idea in its own right their overall execution leaves a lot to be desired, namely in the playable portions. Waddle Dee's sections have him and Kirby riding down a hill in a vehicle while avoiding easy-to-avoid obstacles that renders those sections as poor man's Minecart sections from the Donkey Kong Country series while King Dedede's sections are even more sluggish and dull than his pink spherical archrival alone and doesn't seem to introduce anything that Kirby couldn't do otherwise. From a gameplay standpoint, neither of those sections are all that amusing or fun and (especially King Dedede's) only adds to the aggravating monotony to the main campaign without doing so much as to improve upon anything. The only friend that is remotely interesting in stark contrast is Adeleine, but even her role isn't much to look at as aside from painting clues on her canvas to help the player solve puzzles for the collectible Crystal Shards, she paints Maxim Tomatoes and 1-ups for Kirby to grab that can also often feel like a "pity" feature at times.
Waddle Dee: "WIIIIPE OOOUUUTTT!!!"
I...don't think that white pom-pom substitutes as a 'quarter'...
Despite all of the flaws revolving around Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards' main campaign, there are some bright spots in other areas: At the end of each stage, you can try for a jumping mini game and attempt to collect all of the game's Info Cards, displaying info of the game's enemies, for fun. The game's cut scenes shed a tear of charm in many areas and helps give more insight into the game's story, much more so than arguably any other game in the series at the time. And despite the need to gather all of the Crystal Shards being a pain, unlocking the true final world with them held some form of accomplishment in the end, especially after defeating the true final boss.
Topping it all off, Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards' Multiplayer Mode is some of the most fun ever made in the franchise for its variety and overall fun factor in all three of its mini games, each built for up to four players (or up to three CPU-controlled players). While 100-Yard Hop and Bumper Crop Bump are both fun on their own the real showstopper here is the Checkerboard Chase mini game, wherein each player or CPU try to take each other down by launching a row under one or more of their opponents while striving to be the last man standing, nearly resembling the fun Hudson Soft series Bomberman. While this mini game yielded a lot of countless rematches back in the day, it does return in a better form 22 years later in the Merry Magoland mode in Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe on Nintendo Switch, featuring the exclusive unlockable High Speed mode that obsoletes every reason to return to the original mini game (unless if Nintendo 64 - Nintendo Switch Online's online play option matters that much).
Waddle Dee: "Hopefully you can float, Kirby! If not, too bad for you!"
In spite of its charming atmosphere and phenomenal multiplayer modes, the major problem with Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards is that just about everything great it tries to do arguably wasn't done as well as its mainline predecessors and sequels on both the previous and the next Nintendo systems, not to mention that it doesn't really revolutionize the third dimension on the same level as Super Mario 64 and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time did. The game definitely works and is playable, but that's about the best I can say about it.
...but looking on the bright spots, Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards is not a bad game like a few of the bad eggs out there such as Claymates on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Adventure Island on the Nintendo Entertainment System, plus the multiplayer portion is arguably better than the single player portion by the ton. Besides all of that, I'm always down for a mainline Kirby game as a huge fan myself, but Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards left me with washed out feelings that possibly made it my least favorite mainline entry of the bunch, especially since a lot of the greatness it had is seemingly outmatched by other mainline games in history.
Charming Elements!
Fun Multiplayer Modes!
Kickin' Soundtrack!
Watered-Down Gameplay Mechanics (even more than Kirby's Dream Land 3)...
Unbalanced and Broken Power Combos System...
Lazy Mini Bosses...
Wonky Camera and Levels...
Cheer up, Kirby. You'll get a true 3D platformer 22 years later on Nintendo Switch...
Thanks Drshnaps, Kamon, S3K Stage, and Jermungandr of The Spriters Resource!
