Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards

24 Mar 2000

Nintendo 64 Wii Wii U
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N/A rating
170 want
548 played
43 playing
29 reviews
Developer
HAL Laboratory
Publisher
Nintendo
Gradiente

Tags

Time to beat

Main story icon

Main story

3h 33m
Main story and extras icon

Main story + extras

-
100% completion icon

100% completion

-
Based on 3 answers
Summary

Kirby's first 3-D adventure is also his Nintendo 64 debut, and it finds the always-versatile hero battling a new enemy called Dark Matter. Dark Matter is after a distant land's powerful crystal, but a young fairy named Ribbon attempts to save it by escaping with the gem to Dream Land. Now the crystal has been broken, and it's scattered around the world. Take control of Kirby and help him journey across six worlds, battling a wide variety of enemies and challenging bosses, as he tries to collect all 100 pieces of the shattered crystal.

An endearing, cute and charming experience through unique and well structured levels. Simple, short and sweet. Struggles from slightly uncomfortable controls and frustrating intricacies, but well designed and distinctive mechanics add an extra layer of elegance to this title. Outstanding and catchy audio design, this game is colourful and vibrant, however the simplicity and the shortcomings hinder this from being one to come back to.
7.5/10
14 Dec 2024
Fusing abilities like this need to come back!
21 Apr 2024
Overall, a bad game.
The only thing that kept me from dropping this after the first two levels was, in fact, Kirby: I am convinced that, wasn't this a Kirby game, everyone would have disliked it.

The soundtrack is catchy, the 3D models are adorable and way more pleasent than others Nintendo 64 games and the plot is
Interesting (as much as a Kirby game plot can be), but those are all the positive aspects I can think about when talking about this game.

The level design is boring, despite the semi-3D attempts being sometimes cool (it's a hit and miss, really) and the game is overall too easy (gone are the days of me complaining on how hard the first two games were...). Some bosses don't even move, they just stand still waiting to be killed while launching at the player useful resources.
What really keep a player from finishing this game in 1 hour is how SLOW and UNRESPONSIVE everything is.
My thumbs literally ache everytime I play this game for more than 20 minutes, and I'm not even joking.
Some levels have partners helping Kirby, but they often end up making everything more annoying than being helpful.

Yeah, what a shame, this game looked cool and all, but I guess Kirby early days were really a hit and miss. While I enjoyed the first two games, some spin-offs and loved Super Star, everything else is... Kinda of a letdown.
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21 Jul 2024
Would have been better if it wasn't kinda difficult and slow
09 Apr 2024
I feel like the combing copy abilities is the only thing people talk about with this game
09 Apr 2023
i don't like the 2.5d prospective used in this game and the controls for kirby but the combination of the abilities is cool
09 Sep 2020
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