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Friday, August 23, 2013

Favorite Tunes #67: Maximum Pink

This month marks Kirby's 21st anniversary. Over here in the states, anyway. In Japan, Kirby hit the big 2-1 back in April. Anyhoo, in honor of the occasion, here's ten tracks dedicated to gaming's cutest, most hardcore pink blob.

Ending - Kirby's Dream Land (GB)



You can finish the original Kirby's Dream Land in about 20 minutes, probably less for some speed runners. To say the game is easy may be an understatement. It was designed with entry level players in mind. Even so, it was still a fun romp while it lasted with an exceptional soundtrack thanks to Jun Ishikawa. The Ending theme in particular doesn't get enough credit, usually being overlooked in favor of songs like Green Greens.

Grape Garden - Kirby's Adventure (NES)



Kirby's second outing is still one of my favorites, giving him is trademark Copy ability. Kirby's Adventure was also much longer than Kirby's Dream Land and with the reveal of Nightmare at the end showed us that even in a kid's game, not everything is black and white. A few of Jun Ishikawa's themes from Kirby's Dream Land were used in Adventure but all of the new music came from Hirokazu Ando who's contributions to the Kirby series would be as equally legendary as Ishikawa-san's. Grape Garden is almost like a lullaby in the form of NES music.

Trees in the Depths of the Earth - Kirby Super Star (SNES, DS)



Racing while eating food, taking down a huge flying fortress and... treasure hunting? Eh, why not? There's so much to do in Kirby Super Star but the Great Cave Offensive is by far the longest of all the games the cart contains. I know the word epic gets used a lot when describing music but really, this is some epic treasure hunting music.

Miracle Matter - Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards (N64)



Every now and then a song will crop up in a Kirby game that surprises me by even being there in the first place. Kirby Air Ride has Machine Passage and Kirby 64 has Miracle Matter. Just listen to this beat. It's freaking crazy awesome.

Light - Kirby Air Ride (GCN)



The gameplay may be incredibly simplistic but Kirby Air Ride offers more modes of play and so much to unlock than a great deal of more complex games. When taking that into account, one can spend years playing it. Every single race track has multiple shortcuts that can be taken to get ahead of the competetion, including races in Top Ride. The course Light has rails that, when lit up can be used to give you a good lead on other racers. I could say that makes it one of my favorite courses to race on, but the music also has a lot to do with it.

Cloudy Park (Stage) - Kirby's Dream Land 2 (GB)



It may not have been developed by Masahario Sakurai (many Kirby games made without his involvement have actually been quite good) but Kirby's Dream Land 2 was a worthy follow up to the original. It also began the trend of King Dedede being possessed by the true evil behind all the shenanigans. This theme was arranged and used as menu music for the excellent Kirby's Dream Collection to celebrate Kirby's 20th anniversary last year.

Boss Battle Medley - Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii)



It has tripping and other controversial things, but I still adore Brawl. It also has sick arrangements of some of some of gaming's most well known and lesser known themes. Hats off to Kentaro Ishikaza for this amazing boss medley that throws together music from Kirby's Adventure, Kirby's Dream Land 2, Kirby Super Star and Kirby 64.

Rainbow Falls - Kirby's Epic Yarn (Wii)



Are you feeling down? Play Kirby's Epic Yarn. Have you lost faith in humanity? Play Kirby's Epic Yarn. Are you full of rage? Play Kirby's Epic Yarn. It's impossible to be in a bad mood when playing this game because the thing is just so darn happy and cute. This game really is the cure for any and all forms of negative emotions.

Tree to Tree - Kirby Mass Attack (DS)



In what can be considered one of the more difficult Kirby games, Kirby has been split into ten different versions of himself. Getting 100% completion is no simple task and in some levels it can be quite easy to get all of your Kirby's killed in one fell swoop. Even so, Kirby Mass Attack was one of the last great DS games and made excellent use of the touch screen, with the game being played entirely with the stylus. There are are some delightful mini games that can prove to be quite distracting from the main game.

Cave Area (Current Stage) - Kirby's Return to Dream Land (Wii)



After more than ten years of being my favorite Kirby game, Kirby Super Star was at long last dethroned when I played through Kirby's Return to Dream Land, a game that had a development cycle of 11 years. The game packed solid four player action, fantastic boss battles and new Copy abilities for Kirby to play around with. Jun Ishikawa and Hirokazu Ando returned for the music honors to give us original and remixed music.

Favorite Tunes Database

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