LogFAQs > #915450844

Match 80: Isaac vs. Kirby

Isaac 8982
Kirby 21249

This is an SFF match, plain and simple. Golden Sun is a handheld-exclusive series, and while Kirby isn't quite handheld-exclusive, he is very handheld-dominant. His debut game, Kirby's Dream Land, was for the original Game Boy, as was Dream Land 2. Dream Land 3 was a Super NES game...released more than a full year after the debut of the N64. And then there's the little matter of the 2000s. Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards came out in June of 2000. Let's look at the ensuing decade--and keep in mind that Isaac's debut game wasn't out yet when this decade begins, while his most recent game was just a few months away from release when it ends.

August 2000: Kirby Tilt 'n' Tumble for the Game Boy Color. One of the first games to use motion controls.
December 2002: Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land for the Game Boy Advance. Remake of his console debut, 1993's Kirby's Adventure for the NES. Like Dream Land 3 with the N64, that was well after the debut of the SNES.
October 2003: Kirby Air Ride for the GameCube. Racing game spin-off. Surprisingly fun given how simple the controls are.
October 2004: Kirby & the Amazing Mirror for the Game Boy Advance. I really need to go back and beat this game. I think this is the only game that I've ever gotten stuck in and my sister was able to beat.
June 2005: Kirby: Canvas Curse for the Nintendo DS. Like Tilt 'n' Tumble, this is about 50% tech demo. Kirby tends to be the go-to series for Nintendo to try out new gimmicks.
December 2006: Kirby: Squeak Squad for the Nintendo DS.
September 2008: Kirby: Super Star Ultra. An updated remake of Kirby's second console outing, 1996's Kirby Super Star. Super Star just narrowly manages, in all three regions, to be Kirby's first console outing to be on the most recent console at the time--none closer than North America, where it was released just nine days before the N64 came out.

And that's it. Kirby did manage another console outing before Isaac's most recent game came out (in November 2010), October 2010's Kirby's Epic Yarn for the Wii, but that's outside the 10-year window from, we'll call it starting from July 2000 since Crystal Shards came out in June of that year. 10 years, seven releases, and only one of them for a home console rather than a handheld. And that one was a single-button racing game rather than the platformers that he's known for. Yes, this conveniently ignores that HAL Laboratory in general and Kirby creator Masahiro Sakurai in particular are also responsible for Super Smash Bros., and that the focus on the three Kirby characters in the game has led some people to consider Brawl's Subspace Emissary "basically a Kirby game with a lot of guest stars", and thus if you include the two Smash games from that time frame, Kirby had some very prominent releases in that decade. Kirby's a handheld star in my mind, just like Pokmon.
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Also known as Cyberchao X.