Ask Guru Gobbo #128

1) He does, in fact, have a set of chompers. Much like other Dream Landians, Kirby shows teeth in the mangas. Everything is crazy over there, but its also a lot more artistically liberal and capable. There's not much room on Kirby's sprite to fit anything like that in-game, and he's too busy with a cuddly smile to do a toothy grin. He actually does have teeth, however, although I do not believe they are used much since he tends to swallow his food whole.

2) Never dug through the old sessions, huh? Anyhoo, much like how Kirby's mouth varied in color as did what he liked to put in there, shoe hue is another minor change made to Kirby's character. I guess already being a bright, gaudy pink was enough trouble to stare at for the shows' duration. In a game sprite, you want distinctive, contrasting colors to help tell where your player is. In a show, character design tends to be more muted so it doesn't irritate the viewer. His shoes are really red. The animated series goes for more of a burgundy or maroon shade. Depending on how plum your purple is, that works, too.

1) That's not how all-powerful works. You don't just do things like that. Sure, he can manipulate time, is giant, and all sorts of other stuff, but magic doesn't work like I Dream of Jeannie, where nods can make anything happen. It's more like the ol' crossroads deviltry pact. If you wish for a million dollars, it doesn't just appear. That money has to be taken from some source, be it insurance policy on a loved one or from a crime that the wisher gets pinned for. Sure, NOVA can make Pop Star kneel before Marx, but a planet-sized giant normally doesn't have two other celestial bodies to compete with in his wheelings and dealings. That's a monkey wrencher.

2) Way too much thought for a game where a balloon collects stars. He was frozen in time, meaning the temporal flow passed right over him. He couldn't act or age during this duration. The moment, in what exactly, or other details don't really matter much when you're breaking the laws of physics. He was out of commission; that's the home-driver.

1) Yes, 100% includes obtaining all of the medals. You also need all the unlockable secrets. There's 250 of those buggers out there. Assuming you don't have them all, that straggling 0.1% could be the missing piece. That, or the numbers could round. They aren't really equally distributed or anything. Frankly, I'm surprised this title uses decimals as they tend to stick with whole numbers. I guess they had to in this case, considering the medal count alone would force them to a smaller unit of measurement.

2) Triple A is the highest score possible and an automobile service agency. The player is only required to get yay far through the endless challenge to be deemed satisfactory. Everything on top of that is just bragging rights.

3) The amount of levels is insignificant. You just need to reach a point total, this one being 36,000 points for an A ranking.

4) Yes, I bet it is hard. Don't know, personally. Try not failing? You also could be drawing too fast. Haste makes for more errors than a slower approach may avoid while still completing in a satisfactory time period.

5) Everything is always easier the second time around for no other needed reason than you know what to expect. Every game is like that. Their little sneaks and tricks are known. You already make defensive maneuvers before the attacks even come. Dark Matter was a pain to me in Dream Land 2, but then I learned to hit his shots and everything got much simpler.

6) "AAA" is the highest possible result, although a single "A" is all you need to get the satisfactory completion level to an event. They would have jumped straight from A to S rather than bloating a string of A's, I'd take it.

7) "J" is the worst result possible. And, you know, simply visiting Game FAQs could have more than easily answered all these questions.

1) Super Star takes the cake as most influential of the titles, but I think you mean more of "inspirational" than influence. Obviously, there aren't much contenders in this running. Only games released this decade could even pack the awe inspiring graphics needed to stir up mood and impressions. As much as I love the clunky 8-bit graphics, they don't come any where close to the grandeur of a full rendered background. Dream Land 3, a 'tweener to the lot, had some nice ascetics, but it would only rank as "whimsical" on the scale and not "breathtaking". So, even though my experience ends at Amazing Mirror, I'd reckon that the added years and handheld device prowess would amp up the appeal more and give the cake to Squeak Squad. Which, when you think about it, is fitting.

2) Who wouldn't want to live on Pop Star? Candy is laying on the ground if it isn't the ground, mountains are made out of food, and you sleep all day on clouds. Plus, you'd be, like, a giant in that landscape so you could go Godzilla on the pipsqueaks. Of course, then they'd probably have a hero uprising to quell the evil "Bony Gigas" who terrorized their land and turn into a hardened, war-torn civilization devoid of merriment or beauty and thus defeat the very wonder you sought to enjoy in living there. Is that what you want, Taxi, to destroy their way of life by being a misunderstood giant? ... Okay, yeah, that one's not making it into your quotes list any time soon.

1) Meta Knight's wings are made from his cape. It has magical properties, apparently, to alter its shape and form, just like his sword switches from branched and straight-edge between gameplay and cinema scenes!

2) A Kirby RPG would be on the fence. Personally, I'd still prefer a tactical RPG. That could utilize a lot of the elements, like inhaling and shooting, at least that make Kirby be Kirby. If any foe could just be sucked up dead at any point in time in a standard RPG battle format, the game would be a little empty. However, fighting Kracko who spawns a bunch of minions for ammo or abilities would be a very tactical tactics game.

3) I'm old school and see it that copy abilities should come from an enemy and not just be, "What doesn't Kirby have the ability to do?" to fill out some sort of imaginary elemental spread. Plant isn't really anything. You can't just say "Have plant or not". There'd have to be good, founded reasoning to why plant was had. If it was "vine wrapping" or "petal shower" or "log chucking", more could be wagered on its worth, but just generic "plant" leaves a lot of openness. Only Super Star was Super Star. All the other titles spread out abilities from being one conglomeration of related properties.

1) It's already been said in numerous places that submitting an entry does not guarantee it will be excepted.

2) There's a difference between "bad" and "off mark". Believe me, there were some bad ones. Later into the contest, though, and especially for repeat submitees, I raise the bar on entries. Since yours were all fairly close within submission time (days opposed to weeks), I remembered that Chain Knight was of caliber X and the rest were of caliber X - Y. Also, you weren't a total pestering sniveler who kept resubmitting the same entry again and again until I got tired to it junking up the submission pool and just posted the third despite flawed knight. An easy to solve puzzle! Anyhoo, I'll cover this a lot more in the Finale wrap-up, but it basically came down to the underlying goal of the contest target being lost over the course of time. My upholding to this standard fluctuated over the weeks.

3) Legend of the Stars is supposed to have King Dedede as the big bad, and it seems he's legitly doing the wrong himself like the good oldest days. And, besides, I don't think 0 will ever return. Only have said that enough times.

Mega Manning is actually a pretty common instance. Kirby, eating his foes, just took the next step to digest them. It can't be said whether this was directly inspired by Mega Man himself as the idea of power mimicry has been out there.

1) They are not supposed to be able to freely roam like Kirby. However, compotent human players can easily work around this with rapid pressing. With my button press speed, I never even noticed a problem.

2) These are two separate and unrelated events. A helper does not have to star warp to Kirby in order to grab onto his feet. And, really, you didn't ask this one immediately following your question about limited helper flying and realize, "Oh, Kirby can carry the helper since they can't as easily carry themselves." This and the head rocket were special oversight features added to the game in order to help get helpers through levels. The oversight, now, was not realizing that its a lot easier to just warp right to Kirby rather than working harder to get from point A to B. Also, the air jumping wasn't as scaled back as it should have been. Something more like Chuchu's floating would have been more appropriate.

3) "Rainbow Resort" is the final and inspirational level from Kirby's Adventure that urged Kindar Spirit to make this site in the first place. Now then, change your handle to "Dip Crazy", 'cuz that's what ya is.

4) 'Cuz they are references to other games. Shock. The point of a reference -- to reference. Really, though, I don't think the stock counts as so many. It's not even a quarter, and they scaled back the references in Ultra.

5) Suggestion: leave to the boozin' to me and learn how to properly phrase a coherent question or master the nonsense word salad. Gotta do one. Don't fence sit.

6) A-duuuuuuuh.

7) Don't make me hurt you.

8) Refer to answer #6.

9) All of the helpers are a different color in Helper to Hero. Did you only play it with Waddle Doo or something, or do you just pay that little attention?

1) All the names have been known for quite some time. You can find them attached to their most commonly circulated sprite sheets. I don't feel like going there, but yeah, those are all right and proper.

2) Well, schucks. You've gone and beaten me to the punch, and you're darn tootin' right.

3) No, the games state no information ever about what happens to that stuff, largely as the games state nothing. Seen in the games, Squeak Squad only really, is that his stomach is some sort of large container that can be filled, apparently, by a number of bubbled items. It also has a star pattern on it.

1) Yes, question specifics do help me understand what in the world it is you mean by that. You know what? Nuts to it. It's Kirby. Chances are whatever you want to know is as simply answered as "Dark Matter is a big blob of darkness that takes control of stuff since he's awful at making friends."

2) In Adventure, Kirby was working for the common good. His rampage was justified. In Squeak Squad, the puff was plowing through non-possessed, not under order citizens of Dream Land who were not trying to Kirby from reassembling anything to keep evil at bay, and all so he could get a piece of cake for himself. This is an entirely selfish motive, and that is the root of evil, care for one's own benefit. Pay attention. I've only covered that all the time.