Ask Guru Gobbo #116

1) Questions that make sense, plzkthxbyebbq.

2) Maxim Tomatoes are not present in the show for two main reasons: a) Watermelons were made his favorite dish rather than the beefsteak berry. It wouldn't make much sense to include something that inherently lost all worth. The tomato fully healed Kirby since it was his most favored fruit... vegetable. b) Since it is not a game, giving Kirby "full vitality" wouldn't make much sense. Unless, you know, they openly embraced Kirby being a game, a la Super Mario Bros. and had common game items collected nearly every episode. 'Cuz it was a game, and it should have been treated as such. Openly acknowledging game series originated objects in a series about a game? To some people, that didn't make any sense. Yeah, way to go.

3) Where did Kirby get his house from? Where did King Dedede get his mallet from? Kirby's shoes? Lololo & Lalala's blocks? Things don't really need spectacular answers. The phone just first appeared in The Crystal Shards. That's the most true of an answer that can be given on that matter. It came like all those other things: places of no importance. There's no real reason why it appeared, or even where Kirby keeps it. More in question would be how the phone communicates with the Warp Star or can open up doors that bridge across spatial dimensions.

Oh, yes, of course. A Mega Man game. How could I not have known you meant that, here at a Kirby site when there are tons of glitches that involve pausing?</sarcasm>

I'm inclined to say a big fat nay on this matter, however. Mega Man could have that work since the enemies were not given "invincibility times" like the player was. A stream of three bullets would each hit the opponent in succession. In Kirby, for the most part, aside from being a wholly different game with entirely different programmed damage deliverance system, game the enemies a sort of "hurt state" where they would do some silly reaction for a bit in response to damage, at least in Dream Land 1. Other older titles typically gave the foe a full on temporary invincibility to prevent horrible sweeping through boss battles.

Adventure would be the only likely candidate for the flaw, being as it was for the same system and had rapid attacking to stronger enemies. However, Mega Man 1 was an earlier title, 1987, and the first in a line. Kirby's NES cartridge was one of the last on the console, a whole six years later, and a follow-up game. Any of those let alone all say that more effort and checking would go into avoiding such a dumb error. Only much weirder and more compounded bugs surfaced in this game. For example, the only pause related trick in Adventure is the Splash trick. If any reader doesn't know what that is, go to the Kirby's Adventure section and read about it.

1) Questions will never rot away on my guard as I'll answer nearly everything that's not total garbage, like I do here. If a question is skipped over, it's because it doesn't deserve to be answered, and it won't be lying around. It'll get wiped and cleaned from the system with no trace left. Flooding with questions will probably just spark ire as, most likely, if one was regarded bad, the rest would be equally lame if not worse.

Speaking of rot, I just want to clear up that I planned on Mailbag #60 coming out a while ago, as that's when I was ready for it, but the question flow at MB isn't nearly that of Gurus, and the change of the guard probably only crimped that up more. Top that with the fact that the 'Bags are generally much more questions than I plop out in a session, and you get a recipe for chili con frequent.

2) I don't know where you might have heard it from, but you very well could have heard it here. The Crystal Shards' ability page clearly states that the fridge both hurts and heals, and I don't think you could get to any more fundamental of a place to check than the abilities page for a title. Besides, doesn't every ability have the potential to inflict damage? Some may be harder to aim with than others, but they all should have that capability.

3) Kirby doesn't have a crush on Ribbon. Just 'cuz someone kisses you and makes you blush doesn't mean you have a crush on them. Kirby just isn't smooth with the lady types. He doesn't know how to play it cooly-cool. As for Chuchu, just because you go for a spin in a parasol doesn't mean squat Additionally, it'd be kinda weird considering Cle- Anyhoo, I believe in a Kirby manga, one of the many, everyone is in love with Kirby, but he's too naive and innocent to pick up on it.

So, by my count of things, Kirby has no crushes. If you want to tally up female acquaintances with potential cross action, you'd wind up with that same two tally. Outside of fairy and the octopus, Kirby's next closest, non-enemy, female encounters are limited at Blob, Chao, and Adeleine, and I don't think there's anything in those ones.

4) The battles aren't involved? Each is choreographed to be a dance of dodges while trying to secure some ammo for attacks. The battles only break down when you can snag some over-the-top power like Smash and lay waste to a foe in a matter of moments. They've always been increasing innovation in battles. Heavy Mole required the player to struggle to keep up. Meta Knight forced a sword fight. Sweet Stuff took the battle beneath the waves. In Super Star, what do you think Paint was? Not an involved activity? It could alter the course of the battle! Then, most all the bosses in Dream Land 3 were split between two (if not more) modes. In Crystal Shards, yeesh, you want to talk about involved? Miracle Matter is a huge mess of involvement. Moving on, Mega Titan needed knocked into walls. Moley had to be ... wait, no, scratch that. But Ms. Moley was- no, same thing.

So, you can see, there are a lot of involved battles. Not everyone can just be rushed. Even in such a case where they are just a beat down, a lot of bosses leave the screen momentarily to not allow a full fledged wailing. I know the old games, so I think about how they worked. Outside of the ability-fests like Super Star +/- Ultra, Amazing Mirror, and Squeak Squad (I'm guessin'), were pretty involved and well paced. The player really had to think in them.

Do you know where you could have looked it up? On this site. Meta's prefix has been addressed right here not to mention has a fully and wholly spelled out in the Meta Knight Article courtesy Ms. Ivy J.

What you have done here is singled out a tree in the forest. Dictionaries list their terms with multiple definitions for a reason. The occurrence of the word you found will use one of those said definitions and not all of them. If I say that I ran afoul an urchin on the beach, I probably stepped on a spiny creature. If I ran afoul one on the street, then I probably got pick pocketed by a pipsqueak. What you did was look up the meaning of the "meta-" prefix and chose the least fitting definition to affix to Meta Knight's name.

After, beyond, other means of ascendance or excelling past the norm. That's what his name means. He is a superior soldier in a class of his own. He is not his own knight.

What? Me, a chick? Didn't you watch that movie? Dude totally doesn't look like a lady, Mr. R.O. Smith~!

... Um, wait, what about the voice? Could a chick pull off those KRRR Radio sessions of Mikarin?

No, wait! I'm almost convincing myself there is something wrong now! I am Bogg's identical twin, so unless he's keeping some strange and scary secret from you and I, the Ometon is spelled X-Y... despite not using those letter to spell the word earlier in that sentence.

1) You can find plenty of art in plenty of places. Museums, galleries, on walls, or on-line. If you want to know where to find a more selective form of art, then you should ask more specifically. I'm not a mind reader. Well, okay, I am, but I don't get a direct mental connection when I just look over a vaguely worded text submission.

2) Ah, addressing the lack of official sprite work. You're already starting off better than Luther the King. Anyhoo, while there are a lot of custom sprites at Dr. Shnaps, and of a lot of Crystal Shards boss types, Miracle Matter is absent from that site and any other that I could find. It is a 3-D model, after all. They're done to avoid sprites ever being made.

There has been one Kirby event that I know of, and that was the "Kirby Clouds in the Sky" event done for Ultra. Such an event works for the Pokémon franchise as there are a multitude of creatures and variability that each player can collect. Kirby, in the few games with collectibles, has just a small slew of tidbits. There aren't the massive amounts of customizability. Any type of special thing would want to be included in the game. There isn't even item trading or player interaction outside of just playing together.

Folks would go to a Pokémon Center to get a Goldeen with some normally impossible move on it, but what could a Kirby Center offer? A different spray paint? Not only is there nothing that would really be offered up of much worth, Kirby is no where near as large a phenomenon as Pokémon was, past or present.

This question is eerily familiar to the empty "Who is Marx?" question of not to late ago. In fact, almost everything about this question is answered there just 'cuz NOVA has so little details and information surrounding his being.

Galactic NOVA is a planet sized, mechanized being of gears and clockwork. He can grant wishes to those who are able to summon him by collecting the surrounding stars' power. Kirby summoned NOVA to stop the quarrel of the sun and moon, but Marx stole the wish and, instead, obtained great power and dominion over Pop Star. Kirby defeated NOVA and Marx, causing the two to perish in a giant explosion. However, NOVA returned when Meta Knight, upon uniting all the star's powers again, wished to face the most powerful warrior. Now, later still, Marx was spontaneously reincarnated from the glimmers of NOVA's exploded body. He did not merge with NOVA. He never became part of NOVA. He just came back to life/unlife. Where you got "merging" from, I'll never know.

1) "Dream Land" was called such before the Dream Spring or even the sequal to Kirby's first game ever came to be. So, that nomenclature hypothesis isn't quite so "chicken and the egg" but rather "radio and the television". Still, "Dream Land" is only Dream Land in the States and probably some other countries. The real realm goes by Pupupu, which I can tell you right now does not translate to "dream". It's just a triple syllable like what was used frequently before Kirby became Kirby: Popopo, Dedede, Lololo.

2) The Dream Spring was the only venture to directly involve dreaming, as the fountain supplied them. Other titles that focused on stolen stars, chiefly by King Dedede in games like Dream Course and other non-platformers, would cause the residents to lose heart, appetite, and sleep, and thus stop dreaming. But, like was said, Dream Land really has nothing to do with dreams. The residents just like to eat and sleep. Since food was the big focus of the first title, the second focused on the people's second pastime.

3) Dream Land has rightfully been remade twice now. I know that you even said that Ultra didn't give the full experience, but that title, now, is considered "not Kirby". It's the only game without copy abilities, and some people even go as far to say that Dream Land 1 is more a prototype than a real game because of this fact.

Moreover, games shouldn't be remade. The trend started by Nightmare in Dream Land was the worst thing to happen to the series, in my opinion. Old games should just be released on something like the Virtual Console, like Dream Land 3 recently was. Old games don't need remade, just made available.

Mixing the two previous statements, a title like Dream Land 2 is contrary to the current trend of Kirby games and would be better released on something like the VC. I think they're making a Game Boy version of that thing or something. Really, I've beat this dead horse to a pulp, but it's scattered across the minefield of one-hundred sessions, and "remake" appears in every other one.

1) The bandanna wearing Waddle Dee, better known as Bandanna Dee, is simply King Dedede's right hand man... er, Dee, from all I can tell. It's Number One, Second in Command, Something with a Three in It. And, of course, to be set apart from other people, you need some meaningless piece of clothing added to you. Frankly, I think the bandana makes him look less important than other Dees.

2) The recurring pattern is just her preference. It doesn't actually represent anything. It's like in Power Rangers. Each ranger has everything to their ranger color. It's the same case. Tiff likes everything in her ugly pattern.

3) A downgrade in capabilities comes, primarily, when it is felt that an ability is too good. The classic "nerf" sets down what was considered too powerful of a power to make it on par with the rest. I don't really know if Cupid was hampered, but I never thought it was any good of an ability to start with, quite frankly.

1) The cheat pages are pretty much at their peak. Where they left off is about all that was there for them. Yes, there are probably more cheats and such. Do you know where those are listed? Game FAQs. Do you know how we'd get them? Ripping them straight from Game FAQs. Do you know who Classic Gaming is partnered with/owned by the same parent company of? Game FAQs. Do you know what is linked to on every game page right smack dab in the side bar? Game FAQs' page on that very title.

Truthfully, the cheats pages need removed, not updated. I think this site has, like, one cheat or secret not mentioned there. I say that as there's one I found not even a year ago that is absent from all FAQs on Dream Land 1. There could be more, but it's not likely, one would suspect. Why, a lot of the contributors at Game FAQs were once big names at Rainbow Resort if not current. Overall cool dude Wolf4Knowledge tackled the latest game's FAQ there, in fact.

2) A Zodiac would pretty much translate to just a real Zodiac sans the mysticism or characters placed over the mythological ones. Which, in the end, would lead to it being just a plain ol' Zodiac. It's a nice thought, but some type of "Which Dream Lander are You?" quiz would be more interesting in the end and have actual relation to what the site is about.