Kirby

Quick facts

Favourite game: Kirby's return to dreamland deluxe

Favourite character: Magolor

Favourite track: Star conquering traveller suite (30th anniversiary music fest version)

Kirby is a series that I've gotten far, FAR too invested in for the past 4-5 years, what initially seems like an easy platformer for children turned out to be one of the most interesting rabbit holes of my life.

My first game was Kirby's adventure, technichally. But it was on the nintendo switch online service, funnily enough. The first game I properly bought was kirby star allies in around 2019. That period was definitely a strange time in the kirby fandom, I've come to realise now.

You see, while kirby is known by outsiders as the cute pink nintendo guy that eats his enemies and steals their powers, the inner gaming community (eugh) had started to recognise the Kirby series for one standout quality; it's lore.

Ever since the current director, Shinya Kumazaki started writing kirby games, we've seen a trend of increasingly deeper story and characters in the franchise. Yes, the same franchise with the squishy pink marshmallow also contains a story of ancient societies, corruption, betrayal, atonement and redemtion alike.

I'm not overplaying it either, most modern (2008-current year) games have (infamously) been establishing more and more intricate (and convoluted) backstory to the world of Kirby. For example, the ancients, first mentioned in Kirby's return to dreamland, are a mysterious race of people responsible for many of the powerful artefacts and weapon seen throughout the series, from planet-sized clocks that can grant any wish, to starships that can travel between dimensions.

Believe me, i could go on and on and ON about the story of these games, but to save both you and me from 5 hours of research, we're going to leave that here for today.

...However, if you somehow ARE interested in pause-screen descriptions, english mistranslations and developer interviews, I may be able to provide some sources to read.

Wikirby is by far the best source of kirby information, unlike the Fandom kirby wiki, Wikirby generally has more quality information and sources, its what most kirby lore nerds like myself use. Here are some some cool pages!

The r/kirby discord is a great place to find more kirby fans, dumb memes and a generally fun place to hang. You might even see me spouting more nonsense there!

And... THIS lovely kirby lore chart, which is both recent and accurate, without falling into popular pitfalls (looking at you, kirby=void theorists), Warning, this image is BIG, like, REALLY big.