Forgotten Gems is a daily column about notable video games which have moved out of the general public eye and is probably not simply accessible anymore. To see all the opposite video games I’ve lined to date, make sure you take a look at the 12 earlier problems with Forgotten Gems in our Columns part.
In an alternate universe, HAL and Nintendo’s beloved Kirby collection by no means made it out of Japan. As the pink puffball conquered one platform after the opposite along with his lovely buddies, the Kirby video games slowly emerged because the extra forgiving, kid-friendly options to Mario. If Mario missed a soar, he was a goner. Kirby? Just pump the button to drift and also you’ll get one other probability at redemption. Kids had no issues leaping into Kirby video games and finishing the primary campaigns – however older gamers in search of just a little extra additionally discovered some surprisingly devious challenges on the trail to 100% completion.
But in our timeline, Kirby’s Dream Land hit Game Boy within the US and Europe a mere months after Hoshi no Kirby debuted in Japan in 1992. While the unique recreation was an enormous gross sales success that subsequent releases couldn’t fairly replicate, Nintendo caught with Kirby. The religion it positioned within the franchise designer Masahiro Sakurai (of Smash Bros. fame) constructed paid off. A full 30 years later, Kirby Star Allies after which Kirby and the Forgotten Land blew up on Switch, promoting nearly 12 million copies between them.
Which brings us to The Legendary Starfy. The collection shares greater than a passing resemblance to Kirby’s. Its cute, starfish-like hero appears to be like like he’s ripped straight out of a Kirby or Mario recreation. The developer, Tose – like Kirby’s creators at HAL – seem to share rights to the character and video games. And Starfy video games are very simple to get into and straightforward to finish. But not like Kirby, Starfy has been a kind of Nintendo franchises principally launched and promoted within the Japanese market.
My first expertise with Starfy goes again all the best way to the 12 months 2000. At Nintendo’s annual Space World expo, often known as Shoshinkai, the writer confirmed a playable demo of a recreation named “Densetsu no Stafy” for Game Boy Color. I recall enjoying it briefly on the time, in fact unaware that that recreation would by no means see the sunshine of day. With the discharge of its subsequent handheld {hardware} a mere 12 months away, the builders retooled the sport for launch on GBA as an alternative.
Developer Tose (“toh-seh”), headquartered in Kyoto not distant from Nintendo’s personal HQ, has been round for greater than 40 years. IGN’s database lists greater than 100 titles throughout a dozen platforms that Tose has labored on, from wrestling video games to anime-licenses, to titles Nintendo followers will immediately acknowledge, like Game & Watch Gallery and Super Princess Peach. Many publishers, resembling Square, enlisted Tose’s assist throughout the GBA and DS eras to assist port their classics to the handhelds, together with Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, Front Mission, and Dragon Quest.
But the true tally of video games Tose has labored on is probably going a lot greater. Tose is one of some Japanese improvement studios which have signed away their improvement credit score on video games it’s labored on – a follow that basically obfuscates the true authors of video games in favor of pushing the writer model. See additionally my piece on Sky Odyssey, a recreation that was in better elements made by phantom devs CAProduction and Future Creates. This generally results in awkward gameography entries on their Japanese company pages, itemizing their previous works as “motion recreation for main writer” or “recreation design for PlayStation 4 recreation”.
This is all to say, Tose is probably not a family title, however it’s an skilled group with greater than 4 a long time of expertise designing video games or engaged on adapting and changing video games. That expertise exhibits within the Starfy video games. They look and feel like Nintendo video games – or, extra precisely, a combination of HAL video games and Capcom’s SNES platformers. If you haven’t performed one in every of them but (which, you probably haven’t – that is Forgotten Gems, in spite of everything), you’ll discover how a lot Starfy appears to be like like Kirby’s brother from one other bubblegum mom.
Instead of counting on the flexibility to drift, Starfy’s adventures are principally aquatic. You pump the A-button to swim quicker underwater, use spins to destroy blocks, and you’ll in fact sprint upwards to catch some air and soar above the waves as properly. What begins with easy block-pushing and platforming puzzle challenges ultimately will get extra advanced, with Breakout-style mini-games, auto-scrolling phases, and even autos. You’d be hard-pressed to name the primary Starfy recreation – Densetsu no Starfy (or Stafy, see sidebar), a top-tier platformer in Nintendo’s general library, however it’s competently made and pleasing.
Densetsu no Starfy was profitable sufficient in Japan to get a sequel. And one other one. And one other one. Despite not seeing a launch within the west, Starfy gained some appreciation from import players, with the third GBA recreation particularly turning heads and resulting in questions why the collection continued to be landlocked in Japan regardless of the recognition of platform video games on Nintendo’s handhelds and consoles. With Densetsu no Starfy 3 in 2004, Tose had seemingly perfected its components. Although developed in document time in only a 12 months, Starfy 3 looks like one thing HAL would’ve made – from the intelligent puzzles and lovely characters (Starfy’s sister is playable on this one – and appears much more like Kirby!) to mini-game multiplayer challenges and even Wario showing and giving Starfy quests. There’s little question that Starfy 3 would’ve launched to constructive opinions within the west, however Nintendo made us wait one other 4 years for his stateside debut.
Starfy – and the affirmation that, sure, there’s an “r” in his title – began his world tour in earnest in 2009 with The Legendary Starfy for Nintendo DS. Despite the title being a literal translation of the primary recreation’s title, it isn’t a remake. First launched in 2008 in Japan, The Legendary Starfy for DS is an all-new quest that makes use of the twin display setup for tutorial and character interactions on the underside display in addition to for expanded playfields throughout mini-games, however aside from that, it’s classic Starfy gameplay. Our reviewer beloved it when he first performed it and stated that it unified the “finest parts from video games like Kirby, Donkey Kong Country, Little Nemo, and Mario himself”. But there have been already indicators that Nintendo hadn’t forgotten about Starfy when the little yellow star made his debut as help trophy in Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
Despite the constructive opinions, Starfy didn’t ascend to change into a mainstream hit on Nintendo’s DS. In Japan, it offered fewer copies than its predecessors – maybe an indication that curiosity in lesser-known, conventional platformers was waning in favor of recent, touch-screen-centric experiments. Or maybe the mascot platformer style was simply too crowded on Nintendo’s handhelds. Whatever the rationale, as an alternative of being the beginning of a ravishing friendship, the Legendary Starfy ended up turning into the final bow for the collection.
But don’t rely a great platformer out. This week, Nintendo surprisingly added the primary three GBA Starfy video games to its Nintendo Online with Expansion Pack tier. The shock isn’t that these video games returned to the highlight in Japan – in spite of everything, nostalgia is fueling an ongoing barrage of rereleases, remasters, and remakes the world over.
The shock is that every one three additionally obtained added to the US and European GBA collections on Nintendo Switch.
As of July 11, 2024, Densetsu no Starfy is again in energetic distribution after greater than twenty years. Pour one out for recreation preservation, of us! Physical copies of the 5 present Starfy video games aren’t exhausting to seek out through public sale companies on eBay, however aside from the 2008 Nintendo DS launch, you must know that they’re all in Japanese and do include fairly a little bit of Japanese textual content. Now, the Nintendo Switch Online releases aren’t localized, both. Nintendo is anticipating gamers to place up with numerous expository textual content from NPCs in Japanese, however the core recreation is simple to know even when you don’t learn kana. So that is positively an occasion of not wanting on the proverbial present horse’s tooth too carefully. And when you’re trying to be taught Japanese, know that the language used within the video games is easy: you don’t must be taught kanji to have the ability to learn what’s being stated.
Giving Starfy wider publicity is an excellent factor to see. I want it was a extra concerted and critical effort – certainly, localization of video games with out voice performing and cartridge house constraints isn’t all that costly. Plus, dropping three very comparable video games directly isn’t precisely a rigorously curated introduction to an unknown franchise. But as a lover of the obscure and forgotten, I’m excited to see Nintendo experimenting with its again catalog extra and daring to deliver again the stuff of even the tiniest legends.
Peer Schneider heads up IGN’s Guides, Tools, and Map Genie groups and is worked up about Nintendo’s latest additions to Nintendo Online. Not each recreation’s a gem, however preserving video games, even by including them to subscription companies, is a welcome pattern.