Earlier this year, Nintendo ended the six month celebration of Mario’s 35thanniversary by removingSuper Mario 3D All-StarsandSuper Mario Bros. 35from the Nintendo store, as promised. Despite the fact that limited edition games are nothing new in the industry, Mario fans seemed to take this decision by Nintendo particularly hard, declaring thatMario should no longer be the company’s mascotandKirby, the pint-sized pink alien, should be given the honor instead.
In fact, whether Mario is truly deserving to be Nintendo’s mascot has long been a bone of friendly contention, with many gamers feeling that developer HAL Laboratory’s creation is just as worthy. Since the first game in the series,Kirby’s Dream Land,which launched in 1992 on the original Game Boy, more than 30Kirbytitles have released on Nintendo consoles and it has become one of the best-selling video game franchises of all time. In April, the official JapaneseTwitter page began releasing Kirby artworkin celebration of the pink puffball’s 29thanniversary.
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Also this year, anew originalKirbyartbookwas released that contained concept art fromKirby: Star Allies,which released for the Nintendo Switch in 2018. Near the end of the book, which can only be purchased from Japan, the game’s director Shinya Kumazaki spoke very briefly and vaguely about the series’ future.Kirby: Star Alliesended what Kumazaki called an “11-year drought of side-scrolling titles on consoles.”
That accomplishment, along with the addition of the cooperative multiplayer that fans had long been asking for, left the staff at HAL Laboratory feeling that they’d accomplished something. Now, according to Kumazaki, the development team is ready to move on to Kirby’s next stage. What that next stage might be is not exactly clear, but the director stated that he tries new things at work every day and discusses with his colleagues where the series should go next. The current team, said Kumazaki, “is a culmination of the best aspects of theKirbyfranchise.”
While that might seem like an unsatisfying tease about what fans can expect next for Kirby from HAL Laboratory, two other developers from theKirby: Star Alliesteam have also spoken in the past about where they hope the franchise will go. In an interview withFamitsumagazine, lead action programmer Katsuyoshi Sumitomo declared that he wanted their next project to be the pinnacle ofKirbygames. However, that might not exactly be a good idea, because that would mean it would all be downhill from there. Design director Riki Fuhrmann shared that he would like to create a non-actionKirbyspinoff game, diverging from the franchise’s platformer roots.
No matter what awaits Kirby in the future, it seems certain that there will be many fans ready to welcome whatever HAL Laboratory creates, traditional or experimental. Even now,Kirby’s name is trending on Twitter, thanks to a poll that lists a number of Nintendo stars like Donkey Kong, Luigi, Link, and Samus Aran. “Choose 2 to protect you. The rest will try to kill you. Who do you choose?” Kirby seems to be the hands down winner, simply due to the fact that he can inhale and copy his enemies’ powers. In the words of one commenter on the poll thread: “Imagine not picking Kirby, the indestructible god of death and consumption.”
