I REVIEWED Kirby 64 for The Dallas Morning News back in the day. In fact, I even got a tag line on the front page of the technology section for that review. Those were some great days in my game reviewing 'career'.
Kirby 64 is great and I love the combining abiility gameplay. You can do some pretty silly things. Electric and ice turns Kirby into a fridge that shoots food. Cutter and rock sculpts Kirby into statues of his animal friends from Dream Land 2 and 3. One of the sililest (and most useless) combos is fire and electricity. Kirby will rub his head to create static, but he rubs too hard and his head catches on fire and he runs around in a panic!
The only bad thing I can think of about this game are the graphics look horrible. But then, it was on the N64.
The painter girl's name is Adeline. Or Ado in the Japanese version. She was originally a boss in Kirby's Dream Land 3, who imitated the attacks of Paint Roller from Kirby's Adventure. I'm surprised they never used Adeline in the cartoon. She's a cute character.
Here's some interesting facts about the game: the very first level and the first level on the last planet are exactly the same, just a different pallete swap. And if you look at the Shiver Star planet closely in the map screen, it looks like Earth all covered in ice! One level in this planet is an abandoned shopping mall, and another is a robot factory. Could Kirby have entered a post-apocolyptic Earth?
You can play Kirby 64 on the Kirby Anniversary Collection on the Wii. Hopefully someday they'll make another Kirby game that revisits the combining ability aspect, as it was lots of fun in thsi game. --Cary
