I’ve been playing video games for years now and I’ve started to notice a trend – games that skyrocket in sales tend to become meme titles whereas games that fly under the radar tend to become forgotten.
Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards is an example of the latter. It shipped during the twilight of the Nintendo 64’s life cycle. It released after games like Majora’s Mask and Paper Mario. Nobody cared about this game, and thus it faded into obscurity.
However, after recently playing through it again, I started realising – this game is elegance defined.
Kirby 64 isn’t revolutionary in it’s gameplay, nor did it push any boundaries of technology or graphics – instead it understood how to make platformers work and executed that knowledge flawlessly. To sum it up, Kirby 64’s developers understood their constraints and didn’t fight them.
Kirby 64 Actually Does
Kirby is a cute ball of pink fluff that eats things. In Kirby 64, there’s a variety of enemies that each have their own playstyle abilities. When Kirby eats his enemies, he gains their abilities – copy abilities such as sword, fire, bomb, ice, beam and many others. What’s most brilliant about Kirby 64 is its combination mechanic – Kirby can combine two copy abilities to form a new hybrid attack.
For example, if you combine bomb and rock you’ll get bomb rock. If you combine sword and fire, you’ll get fire sword. If you combine ice and wind, you’ll get ice wind. There are tons of different combinations and they all change how you solve both puzzles and platforming sections. Take the sword-bomb combination for instance – sword-bomb is very aggressive but difficult to control. Ice-wind is beautiful to use and allows you to control space with ease. Fire-beam is overwhelmingly powerful, but also very difficult to use properly.
What I loved about this design is how well balanced each combination is. No combination feels useless. No combination feels over-powered. Each combination feels like a tool that is there to solve a problem – you’re not collecting new abilities just because you can, you’re collecting new abilities because they’re the best tool for solving the current puzzle or challenge.
Levels are built around the combination mechanic as well. An obstacle will exist, a copy ability will exist, and you’ll have to experiment with different combinations to figure out which one works. Sometimes it’s obvious – this wall is icy, I need fire but what else should I combo my fire with? Other times you really have to dig deep and experiment. Experimentation is rewarded in Kirby 64, you’re just not punished for experimenting foolishly.
The Aesthetic That Was Born From Constraints
Something that technical people tend to forget – Kirby 64’s pre-rendered backgrounds were not a hack to get around the N64’s limitations, they were a style choice that both hid and accentuated it’s technical problems. The hand-drawn sprites, the muted colour palette, and almost watercolor-ish backgrounds all work together to create a beautiful aesthetic that was driven purely by style.
Indie developers have recently learned this lesson, good art direction can be used to hide technical shortcomings. Kirby 64 was doing it back in 2000. The sprite based Kirby also contrasts heavily against the pre-rendered backgrounds. Character animation is smooth and stylized. Enemy designs aren’t stupidly cute, they’re just fun.
Everything is beautifully clear. You can easily see where you can stand, where platforms are in contrast to the background, and enemies stand out instantly. Visual clarity is something modern games could learn from.
The Level Design That Properly Teaches You How To Explore
Kirby 64 doesn’t punish you with a tutorial – you simply start playing and quickly understand what you need to do. The first couple levels open up are very easy tutorials that teach you the movements and basic copy abilities. By halfway through the game, you are mindfully thinking about your combination needs. By the end of the game, you are calculating precise jumps with specific combination strategies in mind.
Each world has it’s own themes. Dream Land is whimsical. Shiver Star is icy and mechanical. Aqua Star is water-themed. Ripple Star is basically demented versions of the previous worlds with a darker theme tossed in. Pop Star is your volcano/ball theme. Kracko’s Cloud Domain is just fucking nutty, it’s the final world. Transition between familiar and unfamiliar is perfected.
Bosses are smartly designed, challenging, and actually reward you when you defeat them. Bosses teach you either about a specific combination strategy or skill then force you to apply that knowledge in new and crazy ways. Dedede is mostly a platforming test of your skills. Ado teaches you how to use combinations. Kracko will have you nail precise inputs during your platforming.
The final boss pulls back on all your previously learned knowledge and features tons of mini-game sections that you’ve already seen.
Optional content is large but not needed. There are secret areas all throughout each level, and if you explore enough, you’ll find them. However, not finding any of the secret areas won’t stop you from progressing through the game. Instead, it rewards you for exploring and gives extra bonuses to players that go out of their way to find them. This is how optional content should be done.
Why This Game Is Perfectly Underrated
Kirby 64 released during the fall of 2000. By this time, the N64 was starting to show it’s age while gamers were salivating over Nintendo’s next console, the GameCube. Kirby 64 is a whimsical and colorful platformer in a library full of edgy, action-adventure games and games with millions of dollars worth of budgets. It wasn’t technically impressive – it didn’t push any limits. It isn’t trying to be Hollywood or extremely complex in it’s storytelling. Kirby 64 is simply a really good game.
This is the exact reason why it gets brushed under the rug. Modern gaming has an obsession with complexity and ambitious projects rather than elegant games that simply execute their design flawlessly. Kirby 64 is the polar opposite of that. It takes a very simple task and executes it perfectly. There is no marketing evil sauce that can be plastered on top of this game to make you want to play it – it’s simply a good game that many people happened to overlook.
How Constraints Lead To Elegant Design
The beauty of Kirby 64’s combination mechanic is the fact that Kirby can only hold two copy abilities at a time. If Kirby was able to hold three or four copy abilities at once, then the combination mechanic would mean nothing. Limitations is what gives the player weight to their decisions. Which two abilities will I need for this section of the level? Will I need to switch my combination or will I just have to make do with what I have?
Levels being so small (even smaller than Super Mario 64) is another testament to efficiency. EVERY ROOM in each level has a purpose. There is no dead space or filler. Level design is quick and satisfying. You never have to walk far distances between challenges – you are always playing. This is tight level design that can only happen when a developer knows smaller doesn’t mean lesser.
Difficulty slowly increasing as you play also shows an invisible lesson in how to properly teach your player how to play your game. Games that teach you their game mechanics too softly feel cheap. Games that teach you their game mechanics too hard are unbearable to play. Kirby 64 finds the happy medium between the two where each new challenge feels accomplishable but requires you to pay attention to your surroundings. By the end of the game, you are doing true-Mario64-esque platforming with specialized combination strategies in mind.
Is Kirby 64 Still Fun Today?
Kirby 64 is just as enjoyable today as it was 20 years ago. Controls are tight. Level design is top notch. Graphics, while not crazy impressive, are still attractive. Platforming is buttery smooth. Combination system offers great depth and strategy to each encounter. When playing Kirby 64 in 2020, the only thing that feels behind is the graphical fidelity – and that has little to do with the game and more to do with its strong art direction.
Game runs butter smooth. Collision detection is forgiving. Respawns are fair. There are no glaring issues with this game – it’s just a good, solid platformer.
Conclusion
Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards is a shining example of how video games should be designed. Not because it did anything groundbreaking – it didn’t. But because it understood it’s constraints, worked with them, and executed every individual aspect of the game to the highest degree.
Play this game if you haven’t already. If you played it as a child and wrote it off as a shallow platformer, replay it and admire the elegance. And if you’re a developer who wants to learn how to design within constraints, look no further. Kirby 64 taught me that simplicity when paired with strategy is the ultimate form of elegance.
Rating: 9/10 – Overlooked Nintendo Classic That Will Make You Appreciate Beautiful Design
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