Ask Guru Gobbo #32

1) There's not reasons for it. It's just a character trait/flaw. He can't sing, plain and simple, and comedy (or agony) results from it. I don't think he was dropped on his head when he was a baby (more of one) or anything like that. He's just no good at carrying a tune.

2) Squeak Squad was just short. It didn't have the long, winding map like in Amazing Mirror or the mountains of levels Adventure. I would say that the game was made as more of a sprint, like the original Dream Land, where you are suppose to be able to blow through it in a relatively short amount of time. Then, the real fun/challenge comes in replaying it with a higher difficulty.

Also, it could have been a production side decision. The game makers may have felt that the length of Amazing Mirror took away from their target audience, beginning gamers. It also could have been that they rushed the title out and didn't have time for more filler and level design. I can't really say why, why, but this title wasn't delayed like some released titles, as I recall. Maybe those long waits wind up being worth it in the end.

3) The original Dream Land isn't remade since it, first, Spring Breeze is about as much as a remake as it needs and, second, this was the only Kirby platforming title to lack copy abilities. Those really took hold of the series as Kirby's defining attribute, and robbing that function would really diminish the game. Also, it was short and didn't really have much to be remade with. Again, Spring Breeze basically covers this area sans Kaboola.

The following Dream Land titles are not remade since this isn't the direction the Kirby series headed. It forked back in the mid '90s with Super Star: there was the friendly, cute, power-simplistic Kirby games and then the faster paced, more action oriented, hat wearing Kirby games. They kept building up the latter's library and stopped with the former all together. The man responsible for those titles did leave the company, so that's another nail in the situation's coffin. Then they remade Adventure, you'll notice, it took on elements from Super Star rather than, say, Dream Land 3. This is the way of Kirby that they favored and wanted to move forward with. Animal Friends and under ten abilities were put back in sacks and tossed in a cellar.

Correction, I do not recall anyone saying that Adeleine was a boy. The character in The Crystal Shards has pretty feminine traits about her. However, when dropping back to Dream Land 3, I know many folks feel that Ado. I've made my opinion known about the situation, but the great difference in graphical depiction leads a lot of people to see this 16-bit painter as more masculine, which still only ranks him as a little pansy boy. The gray dress doesn't show up much, outside of the end-game credit pictures, and most of what the player sees is a green smock.

This actually relates a lot to early animation character traits. When portraying gender, features are greatly exaggerated to get the message across to the view. Women are made extremely feminine while men are made very manly. Ado, being a bean pole of a youth with short cut hair, a tiny game sprite, low resolution, and already is a bit of a wuss, doesn't really drive the point home with a lot of players.

Oh, and what made you think that I had "some" part to do with it? The fact that it is my name alone plastered on every page of it or the part that says, "Hey, kiddies, it's Uncle Gobbo here with a new kind of contest"? That is to say, yes, it is mine. This was part of some of the stunts that I planned to pull for the summer before hearing about Disaster Kirby's Project R.A.I.N.B.O.W.. It's not a letter, so it's not his. I'm actually a little offended since this is not the first time someone was unable to tell it was one of my side project.

Anyhoo, it'd surprise me if most of the staff even knew I had that thing going on from the way they reacted to "Señior Meta Knight" and the RR Election. It's not that widely advertised. Anyhoo, the decisive round, which was suppose to be held at the start of the month, was going to be a visitor vote. I'm not sure if the vote will really have final say in anything as I've already picked out a winner in my mind, but I want to know what other's impressions of the things are, mainly so I'll know how to better prep the next run contest, if there is one.

As for the Vee part, in my own defense as I have said countless times, my source said Commander Vee was titled as "lady-in-waiting", so the only natural conclusion I could draw from that, logically, was that Vee was suppose to be recognized as a woman from the start. That sort of junk is pulled off in Japan and changed when it comes overseas, so it wouldn't have shocked me if it was true. I mean, I don't really care being wrong about it as, really, it's that stupid source that was incorrect and I shall go take a crowbar to its head. But, hey, at least I got to educate you all on a lot of weird gender changes and switch ups from some of your favorite cartoons, right? And, despite everything, I still stand by my opinion that you'd have to blind as a bat and damaged in the brain to think that Commander Vee was actually male. I mean, really, how did anyone buy that?

Go, specifics! Flying ability. If you mean Kirby's natural talent to swell up with air, that is called Fly. Unimaginative, I know, but that is how it is called in all the early instruction manuals (Dream Land to Super Star), normally accompanied with "Hover". I normally called in "Inflating", but I guess that's wrong. Now, if you are referring to the one where he gets the little wings, as I know there's no confusion to what Jet and Wing are called, you may be referring to Cupid. At least, that is what America called it. The ability was really called "Angel" but little wusses like to complain about the religious affiliation so they changed it. He shoots little heart arrows, so I'd say that "cupid" is better fitting, anyways.

Yeah, you're right, about the me not really having much to say sort of thing. I know that, most likely, a lot of the names can be explained if or are at least more obvious when Japanese. The names come from obvious English sources, like Puffy and Whiskers, are dead give aways, but know that some things are just engrained in Japanese culture and are just more obvious to that audience than the type overseas, much like how there subtle Americanisms in American work. We probably don't even realize that they are there since we take it for granted, but it could greatly confuse a foreigner. Same thing but for the reverse. Example: Apollo from Dream Land 3 is not named after the Greek god but a Japanese candy. Likewise, Kapar is named after kappa, the turtle-monkey boy monster from folklore. Common to them, questionably known to most anyone here. I know those are easy examples but they are the ones that popped into my mind.

I'm not saying that it wasn't a keen observation with the hands, but they did sorta exist prior to Amazing Mirror. They were more of just cameos. And, again, they don't really make things that deep in Kirby. You can look at the dark reflections and instantly know what it came from: Dark Mind to Nightmare/Dark Matter (depending on the form), King Golem to Whispy Woods, and a pair of gloves to the sun and moon? It would have a lot more credence if the makers of Amazing Mirror actually tried to carry their gimmick through the entire game, but I really believe they stopped caring at the count of four (tossing Dark Meta Knight and Shadow Kirby in the mix). I mean, Kracko, whole and original, was one of the bosses. That's proof enough they were too lazy to see the trend to the end.

As for the Kirbypedia, that is incorrect! Why, I just did a Heavy Lobster article about a week ago or so. I mean, that was it, granted, but my hands have been a little full with this thing section. The "other language" pages are just jibberish that Ivyna J. Spyder wanted down to just make the pages not blank. It was a fun idea but got really annoying as the pages stayed that way for, what, a year and counting?

A big problem with those pages is that they are not recognized as being needed since they exist, so when looking over what links lead to no where, they aren't mentioned. On a related note, TAC has a double page for quite the same reason. A lot of pages are linked to in different manners when they have an irregular naming convention. I kinda just sprinted through and tried to make all enemy pages at one point and didn't check to see if any variations were already there. If it wasn't mentioned in the prime list, then I didn't care about it.

I really don't know what you mean by "unprofessional". Most any of them that I have seen are written concise and seriously, which is one of the reasons we disallowed general user editting on pages. That being as such, it's hard to just "fix" that all since it is quite a daunting task since it isn't broken but needs rebuilt. Also, I don't think that it can just be "made" part of Project R.A.I.N.B.O.W.. That has all of its letters predetermined and planned for, despite it not seeming that.

This question has a follow-up in Session #35

This question has a follow up in Session #42.

The Waddle Dee in The Crystal Shards is a lot like King Dedede -- former enemy, current pal. The Waddle Dees in about half of the previous titles were, in fact, possessed by Dark Matter and thus were evil while the other almost half were under charge by the King to stop Kirby, once for a selfish reason and again for the good of Dream Land. At this point, only really Super Star had bad Waddle Dees for next to no reason. This Dee, who was possessed at one point, decided to help Kirby with his quest. That's what makes him different. All of the other bad guys are still just under dark control.

As for the air puff, it is a little peculiar. The Air Pellet has been a staple since Dream Land 1. He does sorta blow it reeeally hard and... yeah, it doesn't make much sense. Maybe he has halitosis? That'd be the perfect compliment to his tone deafness!

That was the tumbleweed, a staple of the Mailbag used to answer a question that no one felt like answering or was too stupid to be answered. The joke was stemmed from someone asking in the previous mailbag, "Is Bimblesnaff trying to steal mailbag's thunder?" in reference to this very Q & A section I took on. While normally just a squiggle drawn on MS Paint, the tumbleweed has many varieties, including animé eyes and deluxe. I guess the gag was lost on a lot of folks, huh?

The title of "uncle" was affixed to my name partly as a joke when doing an intro for a KRRR - Radio segment in which a "crowd" of children asked me a question, referring to me as "uncle". The relation is generally applied even when not a parent's sibling and maybe just a friend. Since I have some ten years, if not more, on a lot of the site's visitors, I started using it to reflect at an instance my general age gap. Plus, I wanted more alias. All the other staffers have, like, fifty. I got nothin'!

As for the Dark Matter picture switch up, that they are swapped. There's a lot more problems than that with the game pages. Currently, an effort is underway to correct all of these errors which should spill out in one massive flood.

1) Outside of Extra Mode in Dream Land classic, I would give the gold for grueling to Adventure. The other Dream Land titles were pretty easy going. In fact, I just snagged 100% in Dream Land 2 a little bit ago in just a few hour intervals. Super Star had a lot of twinking in it with the blocking feature and overpowered powers, in my opinion. Fun, yes, but I was never on the brink of dying. Nightmare in Dream Land, while being a remake, had the difficulty severely reduced. Adventure actually offered some good challenge with it, and some of those switch puzzles were pretty tricky to solve. I like how, in this case, it doesn't matter that I haven't played Squeak Squad or The Crystal Shards since those two titles are regarded by fans as some of the easiest in the series. Hah-ha!

2) My favorite boss is Kaboola, if it came down to the wire. Despite being only in one game, the flying air pellet battle was such a change of pace from the rest of the game that it really stood out. Granted, it went on to be duplicated in about every title to come, but back then it stood out as Kaboola's gimmick, not the end-of-the-game, final blow-out, big battle scene.

3) I can't really rate a lot of the new Kirby games since I don't own the two newest and haven't even played them. It would appear that they are still trying to capture unique elements to each game, especially with Canvas Curse. On the other hand, Squeak Squad seemed like it tried too hard too fast and fell short of its potential. "Hey, power mixing is back!" "Yay!" "It works for, like, two combinations!" "Ye- ... what?"

That was why the Ask the Gurus segment was originally cancelled. They said that everything had been asked. And, really, I don't think that it will ever end, quite, but it sure won't be a daily event. Maybe weekly or so, like it was originally intended to be.

1) The Meta Knight game in Super Star Ultra, called appropriately Meta Knight Ultra, is actually a touch screen skills game, not a platformer. I would take it that this would put it closer to something like Wario Wares instead of an actual side scroller, but I could be wrong. Regardless, I don't believe that "Copy Scrolls" would be obtained. The game is suppose to focus on Meta Knight training for some type of competition, so it will probably centralize on honing sword skills, executed with the stylus, to later use in said contest.

2) Master barely counts as a final power, in my book. A true final ability is one that is final. You only use it during the boss fight. Master, really, is more like Ghost in Squeak Squad -- it's a really cool, really powerful ability you can get at the end of the game. Master is more like a suped up Sword meets Smash ability since it can just do more stuff. On top of that, you don't even have to use Master to fight the boss, although it sure helps. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's a great ability, but so is UFO. Rare, limited availability, and powerful applies to both of them, but they can be used about anywhere in the game. Not really boss beating only weapons. Now, my favorite is the Rainbow Sword since, unlike almost all others, it didn't have Kirby shoot anything. Rather, you had to deflect the main boss's shots back at him, added much more skill and timing than just flying around and shooting stars.

3) Bohboh gives me nightmares, and I think Batafire is strangely adorable. As of such, Batafire would soar beneath the composite horror, searing the sands beneath them (they are fighting in an arena, I would take it, which are loaded with fine sand). The flaming bat would then lift up the freshly produced glass sheet and scorch the back, blackening it. The makeshift mirror would then show Bohboh just how ugly it was, and it would rightly explode. All would rejoice and be merry at its demise.

4) I don't have anything to say on this one. I just thought it was hilarious.

The game is hardly canon, what with Snake and Sonic meeting Mario. I'm still wondering why Snake is confused by the giant penguin instead of the deformed plumber who throws fireballs. Anyways, King Dedede, beloved as he is, doesn't have much in the way of special moves to go from. Kirby was able to have a plethora of copy abilities to take moves from, but Dedede has no such luck. So, basically, they just made stuff up for him. I'm pretty sure this happened for, oh, most of the characters. I don't exactly think R.O.B. had much of anything to go from, either. The reason really is as simple as it being awesome. I mean, really? Giant mecha-mallet? Sweet!

"Hey non-Uncle still-Gobbo, would you mind holding onto this foreshadowing for me?"

Outside of puroresu, my next-in-line fave is Parasol, which I think I've covered before. It's widely available and is the only near-every game power to offer defense without even using it.