Review: Light

There are reviews of great abilities. There are synopsis of killer powers. There are dissections of which weapon holds the edge over the other. What there is not is a review over the lamest copy ability of all time: Light. Frankly, I can't blame SiR6. I don't even know how you could review such a worthless power. Now, I do not say it is lame just on the basis that it does no damage to foes. No, that is a perfectly acceptable flaw to it. But this ability is terrible for a whole slew of reasons. However, it is still an important milestone in the series of abilities and led to greater things.

Light first appeared in Adventure, and rarely at that. It was offered by one enemy found in only a select number of rooms in just as few levels. Those stages with it, in fact, all of them, are Level 3-6 and Level 4-6. That's it. Two rooms in the entire game utilize it. Outside of an unlucky mix, those are the only times the light would shine. And when it shines, it burns out. One use is all this ability grants you, not that any more uses are needed. It's almost a blessing that it removes itself.

The appearances of Light were all the same: enter a dark room, can't see where you are going, see a flashing Angel Boo, snag it, pop it, and light up the joint. Now you could more easily see where Kirby was going and avoid any unseen pitfalls that may have been, which isn't even in every case. Also, doors become visible so you can find your way out.

So, the ability has point and use. It appears to overcome obstacles and, in some cases, find secrets, being a door that you couldn't at the beginning of the room before Light was handed to you on a silver platter. The problem is that this is not much point or use. Other rarely used abilities include Paint and Mini.

The former only has use against two bosses, one of which can only have it used against them a single time. However, when not in these highly specialized situations, it at least inflicts damage to all visible (and invisible) enemies. The latter does no damage but is needed to access inaccessible areas. This requires skillful manuevering on the player's part with dodging foes and abondoning and reacquiring the power.

I mention these other abilities as they get it right, or at least more right. Light is 100% worthless outside of its tightly defined areas of use. At least Paint carries out some type of function, otherwise, with its whole two uses, it'd be questioned why it was even made. Mini, likewise, is like Light in that both are non-combat abilities that are used for the sake of overcoming obstacles (darkness, tight spaces). The difference is that Light gets used and then is done. Mini requires tactiful game play even with the ability, to obtain the cheese at the maze's end. Light, on the other hand, requires the player to... back track. Nothing else really adds to it.

This is why Light is total garbage. Not only is it rare, not only is it limited in its use, not only is a waste of an ability mixing, not only does it do no damage, but even in that one purpose it is suppose to fulfill, finding secrets, it doesn't even complete this role in a manner of necessity. It doesn't add anything to the game play, and it doesn't ask anything from the player. It is more of a bump in the road. About all it can really claim is requiring the player to drop whatever power they currently have in exchange for Light. Wow, a minor inconveinance. That's what it is boiled down to.

Light could have been made into something a little bit more, in retrospect. Much like the other powers I called reference to, there could have been an added catch to what using Light did. Actually, I'm surprised they didn't add a little something to it in Nightmare in Dream Land with how that title tweaked powers. The obvious and boring answer would be to make it damage enemies. A small blast that would take out common foes would at least not cause rolled eyes when the power was mixed. However, that would be a bit droll and was already the case with Mike and Crash. Another screen buster would have really killed their value.

Another course of action, that probably was too complex for the original version, would be to have Kirby himself glow like an Angel Boo. He would glow as long as the power was had, but couldn't use any sort of attacks. Maybe only a small area around him would be brightened or maybe he would have to activate the power in order to see anything at all and darkness would return once the button was released. This would have added some difficulty with having the ability and backtracking through the rooms to see if anything was missed. All of the bad guys would come back, but they couldn't be easily dealt with as Kirby had no weapons or means of attack, outside of a slide and air bullet.

One of the things I really do not get is why they even needed a Light ability in the first place. The game introduced fuses for the first time in the series. They were lit up by heat-based attacks like Fire, Burning, and Laser. Well, then, why didn't they just make a candle wick, like there were in Super Star. I guess making it initially visible would be a bit of a struggle, however.

Now, as lame of a power as Light is, it did set course for an important legacy. This can be seen in many of the titles to follow. In Dream Land 2, Light's legacy can be directly seen in Kine's Spark ability. He pops a bulb out of his mouth and lights up dark rooms. Now, it was additionally an awesome attack, even when it was nerfed in Dream Land 3. The lighting was just an added bonus it carried. Likewise, Paint was set up with its limited appearances from the rarity of Light. Again, they learned from the first time and added something more to it: screen wide damage. And, finally, Mini, the only other non-damaging ability in the Kirby platformer series, would probably never have been if not for the illuminescent trailblazer.

So, here's to you, Light. You are awful, you are worthless, and you aren't even good in terms of what you are suppose to even be used for, but, gosh darn, we're glad you stopped by. But, if you ever show up again, either in my mixes or another game, I'll bash yo' face in!

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