Before he was made of yarn or a stylus-guided sphere, Kirby ruled the original Game Boy and starred in several console classics. This week we examine Kirby’s pre-2000 era, which includes bubbly tunes from Adventure, Super Star and all three Dream Land titles.
SHOW NOTES
0:00:00 – Green Greens (Dream Land)
0:09:35 – Bubble Clouds (Dream Land)
0:11:06 – Mt DeDeDe (Dream Land)
0:20:25 – Music 2 (Adventure)
0:21:21 – Music 3 (Adventure)
0:22:53 – Music 9 (Adventure)
0:30:53 – Rick’s Theme (Dream Land 2)
0:31:45 – Dark Castle (Dream Land 2)
0:34:11 – Boss Battle (Dream Land 2)
0:41:58 – Dynablade Theme 1 (Super Star)
0:43:25 – Dynablade Theme 2 (Super Star)
0:45:26 – Begin Treasure Hunting (Super Star)
0:52:26 – Flying into Nova (Super Star)
0:53:22 – Gourmet Race 1 and 3 (Super Star)
0:55:38 – Gourmet Race 2 (Super Star)
1:01:30 – Grass Land 1 (Dream Land 3)
1:04:13 – Ripple Field 1 (Dream Land 3)
1:07:03 – Iceberg (Dream Land 3)
1:09:49 – Ripple Field 3 (Dream Land 3)
1:22:22 – Ending and Credits (Dream Land)
Man, Kirby’s Dream Land 3 means so much to me. We got our SNES for Christmas ’97 because our family didn’t have a whole lot of money. I rented the hell out of DL3 until our Blockbuster stopped carrying SNES games. The music and the cute crayon-drawing aesthetic of the game is just top noch.
Strange, I don’t see this article on the Laser Time main page.
Awesome episode Brett. I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up as much as I did because this was “classics” and I was wondering if Epic Yarn was going to be covered. Epic Yarn is probably my favourite Wii games and one of my favourite soundtracks of all time. Any chance of an appearance on an upcoming episode?
Yesssss, finally a Kirby ep.! I’m not the hugest Kirby fan or anything but after assembling my Snow Level VGM playlist for the holidays, I started listening to a bunch of Kirby 64 & Epic Yarn music and I’m blown away by how good it all is. I understand you guys keeping it to GB/NES/SNES era for this one, but I highly recommend the Kirby 64 OST, it’s astounding! Especially the following two:
– Shiver Star https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGUZG8V1OMU
– Horobita Star https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yhGG7etN-8
During Friday last week I had nothin’ but Kirby music going in my headphones thanks to world events (in tandem with some recent inner emotional turmoil). I wanted to be as uplifted and happy as possible despite whatever world events were going on, and it did the trick.
“Iceberg” was insanely good! I think my fave of this was “Ripple Field 3”. I’ve never played Kirby’s Dream Land 3 but now all of a sudden I’m eyeing my Kirby Dream Collection I barely played and thinkin’ things…
I greatly appreciate Kirby Super Star but admittedly the whole “collection of games” thing was confusing to me. I remember the first time I played I felt a little overwhelmed and wasn’t sure where the best place to start would be. I wanna give it another shot though. I’ve only ever finished the original Dream Land on 3DS Virtual Console.
Btw, if you like Jun Ishikawa and the Kirby-esque SNES sound fonts, his Alcahest soundtrack for Super Famicom is also amazing, and has one of my favorite title screen themes of all time. Really beautiful stuff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsO_FR66JPg
Didn’t pay any attention to Kirby growing up; in fact, the first Kirby I ever played was a DS game I bought and played a few months ago. It was fun enough, but like most of the music played on this episode, it was mildly enjoyable, homogenous, and utterly forgettable. I can’t even remember the name of the game; I think it may be a Super Star remake or something. Both the game and most of these Kirby tracks felt like eating a giant, pink, marshmallow. Not bad, but it’s not as satisfying as I thought it would be, and afterwards I’m left wondering if I actually ate anything at all.
In any case, Kirby 3 is the definite exception. All of those tracks you played are interesting, compelling, and have an identity. I’ll have to grab the OST and give it a listen.
Just a disclaimer: The episode itself was still fun, and your discussions about the games are always fun. Mike’s absurdist sarcasm and Chris’s humor are always a nice addition to your podcast, and your ability to use nostalgia to illustrate how these games fit in their historical and cultural context is always worth listening to, even in those rare instances when the music is only okay.
I cant believe how rich some of the songs in Dream Land 2 sound, especially Dark Castle. There’s just so much going on. Anyhoo, I laughed off Dream Land 2 when it was published because it looked pathetic in size with its like 2 levels compared to the billion levels in Kirby’s Adventure and now kind of wish I picked it up in its prime.
So as it turns out, there are a surprising amount of British gaming historians on youtube that got me interested in the sound capabilities of systems like the Atari ST, which had a midi port included out of the box. Because that existed, there were a healthy amount of enthusiasts that took advantage and became chiptune artists. I have no idea who exactly, but I’m sure they’re great. Anyway, I’ve been listening to some of the best of Atari ST playlists, and I came across this gem:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CO7cZr-hNFs&index=14&list=PLvf41E1k8S56HHewILZJ07qDZdRJP-UcO
Its from a game called StormLord, and while it has nothing to do with Kirby, but it may have one of my favorite voice samples ever. Enjoy!
I’ve been humming the Gourmet Race song all day after listening to this episode. I didn’t play any Kirby games growing up, with my first real exposure to Kirby being his appearance in the first Smash Bros. on N64. I also watched a lot of the Kirby show, because I was a dum dum who liked video games, so I endured much more of that cartoon than I should have.
No Kirby’s Pinball Land? I’m disappointed.
Anyway, great episode and a reminder of how rockin’ the Dedede boss theme is.
Also thank for flinging the Gourmet Race music back into my brain.
Reminded me to listen to this gem again: