Ask Guru Gobbo #115

It's funny how I've gotten more questions in Gurus about Mailbag than I have gotten in Mailbag at all. I think the fact that its technical death was short lived is either poorly publicized or just passing along without care. My guess is both.

Anyhoozle, I don't really know what happened to the other members. I never really hear from them. The bulk of them are chat room haunts, which I try by and large to stay clear of unless I'm ghost hunting for Kindar Spirit, an effort about as fruitful as its real-life counterpart. Disaster Kirby is about the only one I know of that does actual on-the-site work, which has relevance as that's how the 'Bag gets posted. There wasn't any clamor to claim the crown of the post master at the resignation, an event that happened last time when Robo Mecha Dedede "malfunctioned". Then, I asked the staff who was going to do his various duties, secretly wanting them all. This time, since the baton wasn't directly handed to anyone, I just snagged.

Kinda getting off base, but essentially I don't know what they want, whether they wanted to be included, whether they wanted to inherit it, whether they are opposed to my usurping, or what they had for breakfast. It could have been toaster pastries, but I'll never know. In either point of knowledge, the answer probably wouldn't change my course of action.

But, yes, I do plan on rounding up a crew. Talking to myself isn't that fun, although solo flights have been launched on MB territory before. Mailbag #59 was stated, several times, to be a transitional period. It'd been too long since the last one, the questions were stale, out of season, addressed the old crew, and mentioned Christmas way too much for February let alone a later date. With all the time it would take to polish up, design a new format, rake in a new crew, and organize everything, it'd be a lot later and even worse off. So, it was rushed out as a statement declaring, "Out with the old, in with the new" and "tune in next time for something better."

Oh-kay. I woulda said yes, but you apparently don't check your email. Now the adventures of Lay, Squeaky Bogg, and the Ometon as predicted in this ancient testament to prevent the Maelstrom Ransack can never be.

P.S., no one ask to be in the mailbag. You get asked.

3) Well, the Halberd should be like it was in Super Star. It's the same ship. So, what? People complain if anything is changed but also gripe if it stays the same? This is why people stop caring about trying to please fans and just do what they want to: can't win.

1) Levels don't return 'cuz that would be boring. You don't want to go to some old place, you want a new, exciting place. But, really, Orange Ocean was the poorest example you could pull up. It's been in four Kirby games. Granted, two of those are just original and remake pairings with Adventure and Nightmare in Dream Land and returned in Super Star & Ultra. Just plain bad choosing on your part. Some levels have been in two distinct games, mostly from Dream Land 2 to 3, being Grassland, Ripplefield, and Iceburg. In two cases, a space may have come in or been removed from the name, which doesn't really change anything in my opinion.

2) There's plenty of others doing work for the site, but I'm just one of the ones that comes across with more face time for the public. Then, of course, there's one guy who isn't even officially staff around here who does more work than me. Phantom staff > actual staff.

That I am aware of, no. That was probably only a flaw in Adventure, at least if you are referring to the Splash trick. "Pause and resume" could be a lot of things, and given that no details were given on what this was, that no trick is given that exact name in any listing I could find for Kirby, and it wasn't even specified what game it appeared in, I can only guess. Remember, kiddies! Say enough for Uncle Gobbo to know what you are asking about!

There was something about how abilities and damage were done in that game in particular, probably related to the Ouch! state of being, that was a powder keg of messerin' up. It was an old 8-bit game, however, and they were temperamental. Or, if you are referring to some sort of pause-and-resume miss some damage trick, that was common in a lot of old games. It was faulty programming, or at least poor coding. I would say certainly it would fail in any game higher than the NES, if it even exists.

0) "And remember, kids, this isn't your soap box." This tripe is so riddled with horrible wrongs that I can't help but shoot it down. So, lock and load!

1) False, Batamon are not any form or relation to Kirby. They are like the Mimic Octopus or the Killer Whale. Even though you can look like a sea snake or your namesake, you are still, respectively, a mollusk and a large dolphin. Batamon are clearly stated to be, a rare occurance in the Kirby-verse, to be enemies that just look like Kirby, not "Kirbies", just the main star of the game, who is an individual. Less his many game-related copies and twins... which I have addressed early on.

2) False, and this is just stupid. A single life form does not evolve. Evolution, or polygenesis as the real and current method is dubbed, is a change within a species over several generations. Know how many one lifeform goes through? One! No, King Dedede is just a big, blue, bird thing. He was born a small, blue, bird thing.

3) False. Does Meta Knight ever look sad? The many times he is unmasked, does he seem to be frowning? No. Meta Knight wears a mask to hide the fact that, truthfully, he's one of Kirby's people, or possibly has some connection to him. That's what he hides from, the truth, the truth that will never be revealed. The basis for your theory is pulled from absolutely nowhere, saying that he was sad. Theories are based on some type of facts, not "Here's some stuff that I thought up that explains everything, lulz." Additionally, this proposal hinges on there being blue Batamon, which there are not since a Batamon is, as stated, an enemy that looks like Kirby, who is pink and so are they.

4) False, Kirby only left Dream Land/Pop Star to save Ripple Star in The Crystal Shards and gather the wishing stars for NOVA, which was in the same solar system. Pulling out some event from no where doesn't make it truth. In fact, fabricating events is the essence of un-truth, also known as "lies" and "total bull".

5) False. That's just areas where Batamon were found. They were just a fun inclusion to largely taunt the player. Trying to find, or in your case wholly inventing, some over-the-top reasoning behind some fun little insert is like concocting some grand and way stupid theory about something as simple as Kirby involving the evolution of species while not really know what that even means, apparently. Psst, a hint: both are stupid.

6) False. The enfeebled inhale was an effect for inhaling heavy enemies, which only really appeared in Amazing Mirror. It had nothing to do with him being split into quarters. Defeated mini-bosses inhaled same as always, despite their size. The only case this would not hold up for would be Grizzo and the Combo/Twin Cannon's giant cannon ball, but you can just say those were ligher than they looked.

But really, chaining any event from Amazing Mirror to Super Star Ultra is pretty much like saying "Disregard everything I have said as I obviously do not know what I am talking about." Ultra was a remake. In the Kirby time line, it would have occurred at the same point in time as, not surprisingly, the original Super Star. The events did not happen twice. They happened once, twelve point five years ago. Or the year XXX by in game story, whatever that is. Sounds dirty.

Regardless, it's Kirby. Storyline and consistency is not exactly top priority, like how King Dedede gradually turned good, and then went right back to bad. And it was gradual. He was either possessed, actually working for goodness, or in some type of remake up till they turned him heel again full time. Trying to make sense of the events in Kirby is like building a jigsaw which is all corner pieces. No matter how much you try, it'll never fit together as it can't possibly happen.

7) Truthfully, I was about to not post this. I mean, really. It's just awful. I consider this a head on a pike, a grim warning to anyone who may want to post such ridiculous things. Then again, I'll probably be tired and just ignore it. This one just had a lot of contradictions to correct and came across largely as educational, which may make up for the brain cells it rotted. For the benefit of the reader, I chopped off most of the statements at their first atrocity. It comes as even stranger that just last session I explained clearly that the fanon "tie it up with a big, well explained bow" is not how things work ever. Was that not clear enough? Trying to draw a straight line through so many scattered points just can't be done, and filling in the vacuous blanks with half-baked ideas doesn't help a cause, especially if the line connecting facts to your ideas aren't even properly anchored.

And this was the more friendly course of action. I could have been much more bitter.

That's some nice going. The pre-smacks save me the hassle!

The UMKRA is just a semi-item fun deal found in these pseudo-levels. At the end of every repeat-boss mini-stage is a door, and that door is blocked by a Gordo. Normally very closely located to the door, just around the spiny ball usually, is this replica. It's doing some repetitious action, like spinning and posing or floating in place, in a confined location, like one square, until collected. Touching it is identical to activating a Microphone to clear the screen of enemy fodder. However, the mike can be swallowed. If this were to happen, the player would have been stranded. Thus, the touch-and-go UMKRA was created to by-pass this unwanted-but-possible occurance.

That's really all there is behind it. It's nothing special, it has no deep meaning, and it certainly has nothing to do with Batamon. I believe that sprites of Kirby were chosen for it so that the player would know beyond a doubt that it wouldn't do any harm to them. A lot of older games would make your extra mans a version of yourself. That's probably about the deepest that can be expected of it.

Ah, Ask the Gurus, crushing whimsy and dreams for half a year!

Ya know, I haven't the foggiest. It's never made much sense to me. Yes, you are correct. Pop Star is lightyears away and completely out of reach from Earth. It is but a faint glimmer to Earth in the clear night sky. Ado, however, is very much human, and very much the same dame as Adeleine, but she's there. I use to think she was some sort of fairy like Ribbon or other form of sprite, but, nope, she's just a human, plain and simple. I bet the mangas explain more about this, as they address her being human as well as her differences in appearance from other human women seen on Pop Star. 'Cuz there ain't just one.

Of course, also in Dream Land are R.O.B and his professor, Samus Aran (that priorly mentioned other chick), and, if you want to include them, Mario Mario and Luigi Mario. So, apparently, Pop Star's main story line occurs not just hundreds of light years away but hundreds of years plain, too. I mean, that's where Samus and the Professor are from, right? The future?

I'd had to cop out with this answer, but, truthishly, it's just something that the game makers wanted to do. "Hey, let's make a human painter girl." "Why?" "I have a grudge against Paint Roller." "Makes sense to me!"

Meta Knight is never shown with wings in the animated series because he doesn't have wings in the animated series. Like was stated previously, characters in one form of media do not have to be characters in another form. The winged, sinister Meta Knight gimmick that first debuted in Super Star was not the image the blue ball projected in Right Back At Cha. The original pilot for the series, however, did show the masked menace with wings, but he also was a minion of Nightmare, fighting alongside Ice Dragon, Master Green, and Dark Matter. That was how it should have went down, though, and they went with a friendly, non-demonic Meta Knight instead. Boo.

1) Nothing is known about Meta Knight's past. It's part of his mystery. There are characters named "Trident Knight", allegedly, so it could be true.

2) By right of Kirby game logic, no. Brawl has the advantage of making all of Kirby's copy abilities just a likening to another character. In the rest of the series, Meta Knight would probably only yield the Sword ability.

3) Nope. Master is a final ability, and final abilities are one game a pop. Note, remakes count as the original title for the sake of that statement 'cuz, you know, they are the same game.

4) The Wii title keeps getting delayed since they keep thinking it can be better. Since it went through a system transition and so much time, there have probably been a lot of technological improvements that could have been made to it. Kirby became too big of a name to get a sub-par, rushed game made. Although, really, they could have released the Game Cube title and made another one for Wii, and I think fans would have been more pleased with the handling of it.

1) There's actually a little known "elemental" system in Kirby. Or, at least, it was little known before Squeak Squad. Anyhoo, electrical attacks, like Beam, Spark, and Plasma, are "more effective" against mechanical enemies, something that barely comes up in most games. However, this edge is made very evident in Amazing Mirror, which makes a nice little Mega Man secret weapon like quality to the Mega Titan fight. Anyhoo, Laser, while a laser, isn't a super laser like the reactor's defense uses. That sucker plows through Kirby and doesn't even flinch. It's much more heavyweight than that of Laser Ball.

2) I don't really have anything out on the horizon except to actually do mailbags once they fill up with letters. The rate, however, is much slower than it is here at the 'Rus. I can guanantee, however, that questions sent will not be rotting any time soon. If anything, they'll be burned for warmth before decay starts.

Yes, you can submit manga scan translations, or scanlations as the cool kids call 'em. Typically, folks just email site contents to me. They seem pretty well worded. Of course, I don't think spot on translations really hinder them in anyway. Plus, I am sometimes mischief.

... Which means I'll have what you gave me up shortly. Or later. I dunno. Sometime?