Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards

About Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards

Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards (2000) is HAL Laboratory's first 3D-rendered Kirby, a 2.5D platformer in which Kirby gathers the shards of a fairy crystal shattered by Dark Matter, mixing copied powers into combos.

Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards in Depth

Dark Matter invades Ripple Star, a planet of fairies, and when the fairy Ribbon flees with a sacred crystal, Dark Matter shatters it into 100 shards and scatters them across the galaxy. Ribbon, clutching one shard, falls onto Pop Star and befriends Kirby, who agrees to recover the remaining shards across six planets and defeat Dark Matter. Along the way the artist Adeleine, King Dedede and his minion Waddle Dee each stumble on a shard and are possessed by Dark Matter, so Kirby must fight them to free them, after which they join him.

Like Pandemonium! and Klonoa: Door to Phantomile, it is a 2.5D platformer, with 3D characters and environments but play on a 2D plane. As in earlier Kirby games, Kirby crosses levels and gains powers by swallowing enemies, and new Power Combos let him mix two powers into stronger ones. Up to four players can compete in three multiplayer minigames. Critics praised its colourful visuals and classic play but found it too easy and short, and likened it to other 2.5D N64 platformers such as Goemon's Great Adventure and Yoshi's Story.

Making Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards

HAL Laboratory developed it and Nintendo published it for the Nintendo 64 in 2000. It received "generally favorable reviews" according to Metacritic and was re-released on the Wii Virtual Console in 2008, Wii U in 2015 and Nintendo Classics in 2022, as well as in Kirby's Dream Collection in 2012.