Ask Guru Gobbo #20

Heh. You did a lot better job of this than the last guy. It's true, someone already mentioned this fact. A mere single question lied between your report and the previous questioner. However, yours is a lot more explanatory and less accusatory. Also, yes, Fumu shipping certainly ain't cool.

I agree that there definitely is something there, but it is no where near blown up to the point of being "love". This case, however, I file under "Kirby ain't smooth with the ladies." A doll delivers the congratulatory smacker, and Kirby pretty much faints. It was a bit more than he expected or his little heart could take. This more has to do with bashfulness than affection, however. Why, I know some guys who pass out if a dame just makes eye contact with them. By the way, their names aren't me. Yes, that ought to throw them off the trail, and typing out my inner musings certainly won't foil my ruse. Bullet proof!

This is what we call egg on my face! Admittedly, I don't watch or know much about the series, and while back, I got a question about "poyo". I operated under the assumption that the questioner was asking why did they change his speech from baby sounds to poyo, not why did they use poyo instead of baby sounds. Again, I don't watch them, I don't know better, but I do know that America likes to change things. From the limited Japanese scenes that I have seen, I never heard Kirby say "poyo" and it all sounded like "whahs" and other indistinguishable gibberish to me. Granted, he was crooning into a microphone, so his singing probably was not comparable to regular speech. But, I rolled with it. I kinda questioned it since I thought that the same voice actress was used on both sides of the ocean, but, again, I just shrugged and nodded. Yyyep, my bad. And there's your answer: I'm an idiot. This is why there were two experts before and probably why they gave straight answers instead of fluffing up what little they knew with cross referenced material to make it look like more.

Meta Knight is the leader, yes, but all bow to the captain when on his ship. The masked pudge has knowledge in the sword and in how to be mysterious. His nautical know-how is lacking, I would take it. Commanding a ship, especially one of that size and, um, flight, takes a lot of capability. This falls to the captain. Sure, it's Meta Knight's crew, Halberd, and leadership that are taking them through with the plans, but it is the captain who has his hands on the wheel. It would be the swordsman's authority and rule, but this established order would be enforced by the ever looming battleship. He's good, Meta Knight, but he's not good enough to take a country by storm on foot. The actual takeover is largely performed by the heavily armed Halberd. It's a weird, two-seated throne of power, I guess. There's the number one, in command guy, but he can't do much of anything without the pilot. Likewise, the pilot would be out of a job without his leader.

The captain never appears again, or at least hasn't yet, much like why no one else ever appears again: there's no reason to. Revenge of Meta Knight was all about Meta Knight. It could afford to have the extended cast of characters. Captain, however, doesn't even have a game sprite*. He's just a face in a box and has only ever delivered dialogue. His in-game involvement was limited at best. Much like we don't see much of the Meta Crew anymore, he's not going to be coming around unless his boss gets another show stealing role. Being a level end boss doesn't count as enough.

This question has a follow up in Session #24.

* This is corrected in Session #27.

I would have to say no, at least, not on this site. And if it ain't here, I won't shill for it. There are, however, MP3 files of the two stage musics in the Air Ride Multimedia Sound Section of this site. Folks are more prone to the higher quality MP3s nowadays, I've noticed, then the ever popular MIDIs from ten years ago when I first crawled onto the web. Ever since download speeds, well, allowed for the more true format, most folks never saw the reason to make a MIDI of stuff.

Where did this even come from? I would say no to that. They don't really look alike. Meta Knight has more of a chance of being Kirby's brother than Marx does, I would think. Being that he is nefarious and shows little similarities to the pink hero, similarities that King Dedede is ripe with like inhaling, spitting, and inflating, I would just have to say no. He does demonstrate the use of copy-like abilities, namely Cutter and Ice, but this is after he gets his god-like powers from NOVA, and there's nothing to show what he was capable of before getting superfied.

"New feature"? Quite false, Puff, I'm afraid. Squeak Squad did a little bit of time travel. You used to always lose your copied ability, knocking it out as a star, when Kirby was struck, or at least hit hard enough. This was the case in Adventure, both the post-original Dream Lands, and Amazing Mirror. I could be wrong, but I could swear that foes could still remove your ability in Super Star, it just didn't happen after any old hit. Since damage was no longer dealt in bars, it just had to be major damage to rob you of an ability. Again, losing abilities has always been the case. It was not something changed for just Squeak Squad.

Ah, the staple food of games: the mystery meat. The roast with a bone through it has appeared since the times of The Legend of Zelda. It looks like a double-sided chicken leg, which doesn't make biological sense at all. I believe it is some type of cattle or herded beast, like mutton or beef. You generally see this cut laterally, with the familiar ring of bone in the middle. It's cleaned up a bit to have the bones free of skin and other fleshy leavings. At least, I think. Maybe it grows on trees. Tomatoes do on Pop Star, after all, so why not?

That's actually a bigger can of worms that one might think to answer. Most folks probably just pick which one is the least stupid and actually does some good, I'd assume. However, that was never my situation. You see, I have a twin brother. Whenever I played Super Star, or Dream Land 3 for that matter, he was always there as co-pilot. Or, as it is actually known, Player 2. I don't know why he liked being the helpers more, but that's just how the situation stuck. So, really, I never had any choice on what helper to use or, really, any ability to gauge which one was better.

Now, going on the basis of which one is more awesome just on superficial preference, I always dug Biospark. Even though he's as fragile as a leaf, I just love purple foes. Now, if given my choice to play as any helper, I would go with Plasma Wisp. I love the fact that he doesn't move like Kirby, what with his levitating. Plus, blocking, as much as I dislike it, in air is a plus. Now, if I were to rate the helper on its actual worth, I think Rocky would be the winner. He's solid, can be made temporarily invincible, and only has one choice of attack, so I know he won't be using the weakest skill against enemies. I'm looking at you, charge up halfway before firing a regular beam whip Waddle Doo!

Old school, all the way: Kirby's Dream Land on Extra Mode. This was, basically, the only Kirby game to have a mode that was designed difficult. No other time when playing a Kirby game have I exhausted all my lives and continues. They throw those things at you like pennies nowadays. Plus, powers and helpers are a huge boost, as they should be. In this mode, everything is different. The breezing through levels is replaced with less predictable enemies and bigger attacks. Why, I actually still die a good number of times on Green Greens in this version. That's some crazily tough stuff.

And now I can never be asked that again.

This answer is continued in Session #31.