Kirby's Avalanche

About Kirby's Avalanche

Kirby's Avalanche (1995), Kirby's Ghost Trap in Europe, is the Western SNES version of Compile's Super Puyo Puyo, recast with Kirby characters, and the only Kirby game never released in Japan.

Kirby's Avalanche in Depth

The play is the same as in Super Puyo Puyo. Pairs of coloured blobs fall from the top of the screen, and the player rotates and moves them before they land on the floor or the pile, so that blobs of the same colour touch above, below or to the side. When four or more of a colour touch, they disappear and the blobs above fall to fill the space. Setting off chain reactions drops rocks on the opponent's screen, filling it and leaving less room, with the number of rocks depending on how many blobs are popped and how many chains follow in a row. Rocks only vanish when a group of blobs touching them is popped, and a player loses when either of the middle columns of the top row fills up.

King Dedede challenges Kirby and the other residents of Dream Land to an Avalanche Competition at the Fountain of Dreams. Kirby battles through the forest in matches against old foes from Kirby's Dream Land and Kirby's Adventure, among them Whispy Woods, Kracko and Meta Knight, to a final showdown with Dedede for the Cup. Cut-scenes between rounds show Kirby and his opponents trash-talking in full sentences, and this Kirby is far more sarcastic and confrontational than the near-silent, friendly hero of other games, just as Arle and Carbuncle are in the Japanese version.

Making Kirby's Avalanche

Compile and HAL Laboratory developed Kirby's Avalanche and Nintendo published it for the SNES in North America and Europe in February 1995. Released late in the SNES's life, it has bright colours, advanced graphics for its time and several voice samples. Reviews were generally positive, averaging 74% on GameRankings from seven reviews. IGN gave it 7.5 out of 10, and GamePro wrote that "although Kirby's Avalanche is a rehash of an overdone puzzler theme, it's so well done that it's worth playing", singling out its graphics and cute digitised speech. Next Generation said that although it offered no improvements on what had come before, it was "still excellent fun", and EGM called it "one of the simplest, most addicting puzzle games around". Total! listed it ninth among SNES games in 1995, and IGN later placed it 68th in its top 100 SNES games.