Kirby's Adventure

One day, everyone in Dream Land suddenly lost their ability to dream! King Dedede was behind it - he stole the Star Rod and broke it into seven pieces and gave them to his friends! Now, it's up to Kirby to beat them all, retrieve the pieces, and reassemble to Star Rod to make everyone have their dreams back!

Kirby's Adventure is a 1993 NES Platform Game in the Kirby series that introduced Kirby's now-signature Copy Abilities, which allow Kirby to copy special powers from enemies that he has eaten. The game also expanded on the level designs, taking advantage of Kirby's then-new abilities.

Remade as Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land on the Game Boy Advance with upgraded visuals and music, along with different minigames.

Rereleased in 3D for the Nintendo 3DS as 3D Classics: Kirby's Adventure, with support for autostereoscopic 3D, while also cleaning up the graphics and revising the controls to fit the different control layout.

Not to be confused with Kirby Adventure.

• Advancing Boss of Doom: Kracko Jr, who will chase you up a series of clouds before turning into Kracko and fighting you in a proper boss battle.
• American Kirby Is Hardcore: The English cover for the GBA remake shows Angry Kirby kicking with the Backdrop ability and gives a lot of focus to Meta Knight, who looks so mysterious and shady in the background.
• Attack Its Weak Point: Unlike the game's other bosses, you can't properly hurt the Nightmare Wizard unless you hit a specific weak spot, with said weak spot being the tornado-like body that he hides under his cape.
• Awesome, But Impractical: A lot of Kirby's copy abilities are this. They lack the in-depth movesets they'd get in later games, are often short-ranged and lacking in invincibility frames, and any hit you take will result in you losing your power which will bounce erratically and quickly around the screen before vanishing.
• Balloon Belly: King Dedede weaponizes this with a new attack that wasn't in Dream Land. He puffs out his belly, takes to the skies, and chases you down in hopes of smothering you under his bulk.
• Beam Spam: The Laser and UFO abilities let you do this. Ironically, the Beam ability does not: you basically get a laser whip instead.
• Big Bad: King Dedede or so it seems. He's a Hero Antagonist protecting Dream Land from Nightmare.
• Bigger Bad: Nightmare isn't an active threat until the very end of the game, but the conflict stems from King Dedede sealing him away and trying to prevent Kirby from accidentally unleashing him.
• Bonus Feature Failure: Extra Mode in Kirby's Dream Land was cool because it changed the patterns of many enemies and bosses (along with reskinning many of the former), but here it just cuts your life meter in half. The remake didn't improve that (beyond allowing you to save), but it did introduce the "Meta Knightmare" mode that allows you to play as resident Ensemble Darkhorse Meta Knight as compensation.
• Boring but Practical: Inhaling stars/projectiles/enemies and swallowing them or firing them at your enemies is always this, but especially so in this game. Because of how easy it is to lose your copy abilities as well as how simplistic and somewhat tough to use they can be, it's easier and more practical to just fight the way you did back in Kirby's Dream Land.
  • Among the abilities themselves, Hi Jump isn't all that flashy - you simply jump really high, as the name implies. And yet, it's one of the most practical abilities of the bunch, since you're completely invincible while leaping into the sky and crashing back down.
• Breath Weapon: Fire Kirby attacks by breathing a stream of flames.
• Bubbly Clouds: Grape Garden is the successor to the trope namer, complete with a showdown against cloud monster Kracko at the end.
• Cannot Dream: No one can as long as the Star Rod is not in the Fountain of Dreams.
• Cave Behind the Falls: There's a hidden door at the bottom left corner of the waterfall in Vegetable Valley's first level. Go inside, and you'll be taken to a starry vista where you can get the coveted UFO ability.
• Cool Shades: Nightmare wears a pair in his wizard form.
• Death Mountain: Yogurt Yard, which takes place in a rugged mountain range.
• Detonation Moon: The result of the fight with Nightmare. Though in this case, it's mostly intact - it just gets a gigantic hole punched through it.
• Difficult but Awesome: Ball Kirby seems like an uncontrollable mess of an ability that will slam-dunk you into bottomless pits, and it takes a while for its invincibility to kick in. But if you dedicate some time into the learning the ins and outs of this ability, it's actually right up there with UFO in terms of raw power. It offers a ton of invincibility frames mid-jump and it's an amazing speed-running tool.
• Disc One Nuke: If you know where to look, you can find the game-shatteringly powerful UFO ability in the first level. This is balanced by the fact that you can't take it out of the level, but if you know how to exploit a certain glitch? You can. Have fun nuking everything in your path!
• Drop the Hammer: King Dedede fights with a powerful mallet as usual, same with recurring miniboss Bonkers. But this time, Kirby himself can wield a hammer of his own if he swallows a defeated Bonkers!
• Dual Boss: Mr. Shine and Mr. Bright.
• Duel Boss: Meta Knight. While every boss (save for Mr. Shine and Mr. Bright) is a one on one duel, he forces you to fight on his level with the same weapon as him.
• Early Installment Weirdness: While the formula for the series going forward has been more-or-less figured out, not every gameplay mechanic was quite fully-realized yet.
  • There are no Copy Ability hats, for one. When Kirby inhales an enemy and copies its power, his color will change to a vague shade of orange to signify that he has an ability. Ice and Freeze would turn him white-blue and the "Screen Nuke" abilities like Crash and Mike will have him start flashing, but that's as far as unique "transformations" go.
  • Likewise, Copy Abilities have ridiculously simplistic movesets: press the B Button, and launch a unique attack. That's it. Even more "complex" abilities like Hammer and Sword only have a single extra/modified move, and lack the refined and extensive movesets they'd have in later games.
  • When Meta Knight offers you a sword before his boss fight, picking it up is not an option. You will fight him on equal ground as a fellow swordsman.
  • Meta Knightmare in Nightmare in Dream Land is a straight-up replay of the main story mode, just with Meta Knight instead of Kirby. Later installments of Meta Knightmare, Triple Deluxe's Dedede-tour, and Star Allies' Guest Star modes would have you play through an abridged version of the main game's story instead, and would throw in fights with souped-up bosses from the main story (with unique attack patterns and pause screen descriptions) as well as a few unique ones at the very end.
• Eldritch Abomination: Nightmare is the series' trendsetter. He's the embodiment of bad dreams, and manifests in the form of an orb-like entity made of darkness and stars. He also turns into a sunglasses-wearing Humanoid Abomination during the second phase of his boss fight.
• Eleventh-Hour Superpower: The Star Rod, the first of many final fight-exclusive abilities/mechanics in the series.
• Elite Mooks: Ax Knight, Mace Knight, Javelin Knight and Trident Knight. They're warriors that serve Meta Knight, are much more dangerous than most other enemies, and ambush you out of nowhere for surprise miniboss fights (of the Wolfpack Boss variety).
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Orange Ocean is... well, an orange ocean.
• Flunky Boss: Kracko. Unlike in most games, however, he doesn't summon Waddle Doos. Instead, he summons Starmen (the enemies that give you the Hi Jump ability).
• Generic Doomsday Villain: Nightmare. No explanation is given as to what his motives are, he simply wants to spread bad dreams presumably because it's what nightmares do.
• Get Back Here Boss: Heavy Mole. While he'll occasionally shoot missiles at you, he's an otherwise passive boss that spends most of his boss fight digging away from you.
• Good All Along: Dedede. He split the Star Rod so that he could stop Nightmare.
• Green Hill Zone: World 1, Vegetable Valley. It's a lush forested area full of easy levels, and the game's equivalent to Green Greens from Dream Land.
• Invincibility Power-Up: Lollipops, as per usual.
• Jerk With a Heart of Gold: King Dedede is this, contrasting with how he was a straight selfish Jerkass in the previous game. While definitely not nice, he's still helping protect Dream Land from a terrifying demon, and doesn't hold it against Kirby when he accidentally releases him.
• Killer Gorilla: This game marks the debut of Bonkers, a gorilla miniboss who tries to flatten Kirby with a mallet (and the main source of the Hammer copy ability).
• Knight of Cerebus: Nightmare is a huge upgrade from Dedede in terms of threat level (evil Eldritch Abomination sorcerer vs fat doofy bully of a penguin), and despite being a relatively tame villain in the grand scale of things, set the standard for even nastier threats like Marx and Dark Matter to follow.
• Light Is Not Good: Mr. Shine and Mr. Bright, on account of being bright celestial bodies that want nothing more than to turn Kirby into a pink stain on the ground. Though on the other hand, they are helping King Dedede protect the Star Rod and thus are holding the line against Nightmare...
• Living Dream: Nightmare.
• Luck-Based Mission: The second boss, Paint Roller, attacks by drawing random stuff and sending it at Kirby. For the player to get a good time in Boss Rush mode, the first thing summoned by him should be a cloud, so Kirby can get the Spark power and use it against him and the next boss.
• Lunacy: Mr. Bright, who's an anthropomorphic moon-like object.
• Man on Fire: The Burning ability turns Kirby into a living fireball that rockets forward and annihilates any enemy that gets in his way.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: After defeating King Dedede, Kirby has all the pieces of the Star Rod and attempts to place back onto the Fountain of Dreams, with King Dedede warning him not to. Kirby immediately finds out why after Nightmare emerges from the fountain as a power orb.
• Not Helping Your Case: King Dedede couldn't have done a worse job at convincing Kirby that he wasn't the bad guy. Bathing in the fountain of dreams makes him look like a vain, self-absorbed asshole indulging in hedonistic behavior instead of protecting his kingdom from an Eldritch Abomination. Ditto for attacking him on sight, and hiring his own squad of dangerous armed mercenaries to repeatedly try to kill him on top of that.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Let's give Dedede some props here; he managed to defeat an Eldritch Abomination all by himself before the game even started! While he merely sealed Nightmare away instead of killing him, it's still nothing to sneeze at.
• Oh Crap: Dedede gets a silent one when he desperately begs Kirby not to put the Star Rod back in its pedestal, complete with bulging eyes.
• Palmtree Panic: This is the theme for two worlds, surprisingly. Ice Cream Island is a chain of tropical islands, while Orange Ocean is more ocean-oriented in general (hence the name).
• Poor Communication Kills: Kirby investigates the disappearance of the Star Rod only to find Dedede swimming in the Fountain of Dreams. When Dedede says he took the Star Rod and split it in to several parts to divide amongst his henchmen, Kirby immediately storms off to collect them before Dedede can explain that he did so to keep the true villain from obtaining it, and that collecting the parts is a really bad idea.
• Power Copying: Adventure is the first Kirby game in which enemy abilities are obtainable.
• The Power of the Sun: Mr. Shine, a sentient, miniature sun who fights you with fireballs and the occasional pillar of sunlight.
• Promoted to Unlockable: In the GBA version, Meta Knight is playable in an unlockable speedrun mode.
• Purposefully Overpowered: UFO is a stupidly powerful ability that gives you incredible aerial mobility, speed, and firepower that surpasses that of every other ability in the game. So naturally, you're not allowed to take it out of the stages you get it in.
• Scenery Porn: The bright colors, clean spritework, and beautiful environments make Kirby's Adventure stand out as one of the prettiest games on the NES, and this goes double for the remake. Its background art in particular is downright stunning and feels like something you'd see in a digitized painting.
• Shock and Awe: Spark Kirby. When you press B, he envelops himself in a shower of electric sparks that defend him from enemies and bosses.
• The Spiny: Gordos return, and are as pointy and dangerous as they were back in Dream Land. There's also Togezo (replaced with Needlous in the remake), another spiky enemy that you can actually inhale, with the resulting Needle ability turning Kirby into a "Spiny" when he uses it!
• Stealth Mentor: Meta Knight sends his mooks to fight Kirby, challenges him to a duel later... and yet brings lollipops to Kirby in a couple of levels (this doesn't happen in the remake). It's likely that he was preparing him for the fight against Nightmare.
• Theme Naming: The worlds in this game have this going for them on two fronts - Except for Rainbow Resort, they're all named after food. However, their names also have a subtle rainbow motif going on. The first letters in Vegetable Valley, Ice Cream Island, Butter Building, Grape Garden, Yogurt Yard, Orange Ocean, and Rainbow Resort spell out VIBGYOR. When reversed, this spells out ROY G. BIV, a common acronym for all seven colors in a rainbow.
• Tunnel King: Heavy Mole, who is a digging machine of some sort.
• Turtle Power: Rolling Turtle, a surprisingly powerful and agile miniboss. He gets replaced with Phan Phan the elephant in the remake.
• Unexpected Shmup Level: The first part of the fight with Nightmare.
• When Trees Attack: Whispy Woods is the first boss once again, and he still drops apples on your head and shoots clouds at you like he did back in Kirby's Dream Land.