Ask Guru Gobbo #160

At first, I was going to write this off as an unanswerable question; there are not any real metrics to who is how strong and such. Thinking on it for a bit, when I next looked upon this pondering, I realized that it is actually clearly answered, often, and as early as the original Dream Land title.

The King is often portrayed as stupid, gluttonous, and standing upon the shoulders of his many, many minions. This view is probably due to the animated series turning Dedede into Boss Hogg in a robe. You have to keep in mind, however, that King Dedede is tough.

The mighty monarch, first and foremost, is not wearing a regal robe: a posh, velvet draping with trim of ermine. This is the straight-up attire of a boxer on his way to a ring. This, of course, is the site of Kirby's first -- and many later -- battles with the boss. He is (or, at the very least, presents himself as) a fighter, through and through, and faces the people's hero square in the middle of a ring, sometimes to the spectacle of his adoring? citizens. Right off the bat, I'd say he's looking quite strong.

Of course, that is all speculative. There are, I suppose, weak boxer's, after all? (or... wrestler? some type of show-fighter) Proof as to who is stronger, now, comes when you look at this first battle in detail: King Dedede is Kirby 2.0: newer, better, and badder. What does Kirby do, without his ability to copy other's abilities? He can inflate his body, fly through the air, spite air pellets, and inhale objects. King Dedede can do all that and swing a hammer. If we were to stop right here, it would seem that our hero is ranked lower, but that's only by a hammer (now a unit of measurement?). The King's lead, however, can be elevated more, possibly to three hammers!

The King does not just do what Kirby can but does it better! All these abilities, which Kirby used to battle through Pop Star, have no effect on the King. Granted, that's true of most boss battles (less Ado), but they are not specifically using Kirby's own tactics against him. The King will literally suck Kirby up and spit him out like the puffball did to so many Waddle Dee's earlier. That's just adding insult to injury.

An arm wrestling contest is pretty much the tried and true method of pitting one's strength against another's: you dig in your elbow, grip hands, and push, arm against arm. It's the purest test of strength. Likewise, if you have Kirby face-to-face with King Dedede and have both attack each other in an identical way, the King will always top the creampuff. His suction is strong, his air pellet is stronger, and his rage-spit will shatter any star bullet Kirby is trying to spit at him (that's really the only time the player can interact with the boss's projectile rather than being it).

Kirby does not out-muscle the larger and stronger King to gain victory, of course. He moves faster and fights smarter. He weaves, ducks, and looks for openings in the King's defense; it's a meticulous and drawn-out battle of skill versus brute strength. Strength, and a hammer.

I'm not answering these. These questions are based on the assumption that Planet Robobot -- a game that is not slated for release until June -- has been played. Look, when the games are years old (or even months), I see no problem discussing the intricacies of what happened in them, even when that story is "get cake" simple as Kirby games go. When they have not been released (in the primary American market that this site caters to, at least), I'm not discussing anything that is revealed during the game. Characters, copy abilities, features; all of that is well observed. Things that happen, main boss fights, twists -- off limits. Gurus is not about spoilers. Maybe in July, these will be revisited.

This is a pretty cut-and-dry list, when you think about it. The Kirby series has, in fact, already given us these characters. They are the one's who stand by Kirby's side and battle the baddies with him. Whether they are helps, cohorts, or go on their own play through of the entire game but with a time limit and maybe some wonky version of the boss. King Dedede, Meta Knight, Waddle Dee (with or without a bandanna), Gooey (pretty much just Kirby Lite after all [or Kirby Dark, amirite?]), and the Animal Friends. Yep, how predictable of a response, right?

Nerts to that! I do not think that just saying "Uh... the second player?" is what anyone wants. I assume that if the star was taken out, his A-Team would not be far behind him and probably equally in a pickle, so they will be counted out for the sake of argument.

So, let's call in the B-Team! No one is better fit for fighting than Meta Knight's own brigade of weapon masters, I'd say. Ax Knight, Javelin Knight, Mace Knight, and Trident Knight: the Four Halberd Horsemen... who are on foot... or maybe jet-pack. Half the team already was given speaking roles in the Revenge of Meta Knight sub-game, meaning that I guess the other two are either more robotic or the quiet type.

A Kirby game where Trident Knight hops on a Heavy Lobster like an Animal Friend to fight the lasted faux-Dark Matter? Make this happen, HAL!

That's four, so -- to get to five -- I'll throw out a crazy one: Marx. Yeah, that's right, the guy who got destroyed twice by Kirby, even his soul. But, what if, when he hijacked the wish and gained power, some of it was retained? What if he did not truly die... again... after the final final battle but merely was stripped down to his original form (like what happened after his first defeat according to the cinema intro to the Marx Soul fight). Rather than just floating in space for an undisclosed amount of time after this loss, he returns to Pop Star as a pariah. However, when things get dicey and no cream puff can save the day, perhaps the glimmers of Nova power are enough to help Marx gain redemption?

Such was actually gonna be the plot of a fan comic, Marx' road to redemption, but then Super Star Ultra came out and turned the character from forgotten one-off boss into beloved figure. Phooey.

Kirby Wikia strikes again! For those unfamiliar with the back story, there was an encyclopedia on this site, full of all sorts of useful information, mostly for the old games. Nothing was wrong with it, and most of the articles were written by me (probably). Since no one knows old games, some jerk just did a copy/paste of all my hard written articles and put them word-for-word to the Wikia. Called out on it, some were poorly reworded to not make it blatant plagiarism. However, if you are transcribing a language you do not know into a language you also do not know, there are bound to be errors.

This quote, as taken from the Wikia, states exactly: "Kirby's inability to inhale Acro stems from a glitch in Kirby's genetic code". They proceed to give the source of the quote, an archived webpage for Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards. However, when you actually read the page, you find this: "Unfortunately, a glitch in his DNA means that Kirby cannot assimilate the powers of aquatic predatory mammals.".

Writing captions for a catalog of screen shots can be both fun and tedious. People like to pepper them up a little bit. I can relate easily. When Epic Yarn first was revealed in a grainy video, I put up an analysis of screen captures to identify all the characters that could be blurrily spied. With no names or basis for anything and barely a few seconds of footage for each, I had to fluff the pieces, mostly for my own entertainment. A lot of these names (which may or may not still be up on this site) were actually used by other websites -- the accused included -- since no one read enough into the article to realize that I was filling in the blanks.

Back to the task at hand, the writer of the Acro article did not read to well. The source page makes mention of Kirby's ability to copy the whale's water prowess. He can mimic and mix seven different abilities, but nothing in this title improves his swimming and, thus, chances of surviving the battle against the orca.

The Wikia article, now, clearly interpreted and wrote that this blurb was about Kirby's ability to inhale the enemy. The whale (dolphin, really, we call 'em killer whales, so shut up, zoologists) spits out various objects, including smaller versions of itself. These can be inhaled but no abilities can be taken from them. This is probably what the original citation was referring to as the archived page does not actually have the screen shot.

So, the short of it is thus: the mention of copying is turned into inhaling because someone does not know how to think and/or read. Likewise, no one is bothering to check out the clearly marked reference source for themselves, so anyone spreading this rumor is equally at fault.

As for the super inhale, weight is only one factor involved. Sure, being heavy stop the pink puff from snagging a snack, but Grizzo is a very large foe, and he was gobbled up in the first title. Rocky, as well, is very heavy, but it goes down just as easy. Meta Knight is neither large nor heavy, but he cannot be pulled in. The difference? I'd wager that inherent strength plays a big role. Foes can put up a bit of a fight to prevent themselves from turning into food, after all. Each of these three can be applied in tandem or alone, but -- after some imaginary threshold -- the force of suction overcomes the enemies' "inhaled potential" and gets eaten.

This reason is more likely to be a developmental issue more than any story related cause. This game featured Ripple Star, a planet of fairies. With these sprites padding out the cast, a big, black blob was not too needed. Additionally, this title was the first time the series ventured into three dimensional graphics. Now, while the low polygon count is a battery against the modern eye, it was the best that could be done then. Furthermore, can you imagine how poorly and boring it would be if one of the characters was an irregular sphere? First off, he would not even be all that round, so that'd look very odd.

There are early screen shots that seem to show King Dedede, Waddle Dee (sans bandanna), and Adeleine appearing in game play, suggesting they were playable. I'd assume that each one played slightly different than the others, giving a point for this multiple character feature to exist in the first place. Given such, it would not be too entertaining to have Kirby Lite (see previous use of joke) appearing as one of these options, sorta like a Ryu/Ken situation. As a second player, he should be as similar as possible

Marketing and demographics would be the best assumption. Women are, after all, regarded as more friendly and inviting than men (see most any customer service), and children -- being the target audience -- just fit the intended quarry. Young women are cute and charming, a warmer face for the player to be greeted by. Additionally, you are more willing to aid them, probably. Men, typically, want to save women, and women often want to help their own.

A very common trope with any series is to have the tour guide or the outsider character. In order for the audience to know what is happening, there is either someone who is equally unaware and needs it explained to them -- and thus the viewer at the same time -- or who is the only one who knows the lay of the land or events and is needed to explain it to everyone -- characters and viewer alike. These interchangeable, big headed, thin bodied, lady-types fill that role nicely, each with a different dress and hair style. Not everyone has to be progressive, America. Hah!

That was the primary reasoning that I assumed as well, yes, his hammer looks like a drum. Although, using my super-non-existing-guru powers, I shall also remind you that King Dedede has other relations to this drum hopping rhythm game. Case the first, the King often has some of the greatest jams in the Kirby series associated with him. Gourmet Race? Amazing! His strawberry preserves? To die for! The second note, and commonly forgotten, is that the King's big thing -- way back when -- was swinging a hammer and jumping about, hard. His basic movement in Drum Dash is close to exactly what his rocket leap and meteor landing were like in classic Dream Land (and a few more). It would just be silly if Kirby were to be in this game and, say, switch between Hi-Jump and Stone, it'd just look silly. It's a good fit for the obvious star of the series.

First, I just want to clarify that such is not grass. That is gooey, slimy residue popping out of the burst little capsules. It sorta looks like grass, I will agree, but it is most certainly the resulting splat smearing on the walls.

These little blobs, from reasoning's stance, are the tiny manifestations of Dark Matter throughout the land. When a stage is cleared, the very darkness is siphoned from the surrounding area. Each of the bad guy's is under the influence of the menacing miasma. How so? Well... I'd imagine that they are infected with these little guys like a bunch of large bacteria. Maybe that makes sense? The white ones, I assume, are tidbits of "miracle matter", the white stuff that I say comprises Zero. I'm looking, but cannot find out if the original Japanese has the whities pop into red rather than green. I think that'd look a little too extreme, even given the literal eye-popping finale of the boss battle.

There is no point -- at all -- for these things to exist in the game. That's the point: it's pure color. Dream Land 3 is a very artistic game. From the water color graphics to the layered backgrounds, many things exist just to look good and immerse the player into the world. If Kirby walks by a dandelion, the seeds will scatter in the wind. If he walks by little blobs, they pop. It's just a fun little touch, and these little details are the icing on an already great cake.