The Quickening: Kirby · 3:41pm Aug 18th, 2017
Time to talk about one of my favorite Nintendo franchises. The fact that Metroid is getting a new game made me think about this franchise, that's because both the bounty hunter and the pink extraterrestial have a lot thing in common when it comes to their distribution and how profitable they are to the company. Here are ten reasons of why Kirby doesn't have the recognition he deserves as a franchise and as a videogame.
1. The games are judged by the cover, "they're too childish".
All fans know the franchise has dark bosses that will envy H. P. Lovecraft. From a happy, drawn with crayons, full of candy world the most disturbing nightmares, fears and traumas can come true, even paranoia can become real in some cases. But when your main character is adorable, has a ton of color and even the enemies look cute... you can see why. And I said fans, but the average or casual player they still look chidish.
Even at my 20's, this guy still scares the shit out of me.
2. The exploration part is usually skip, it's obvious, many people only play them once.
It's true that the games are short, but these games are for completionist. If you skip the exploration, you miss 90% of the game and, therefore, you downgrade Kirby as a game.
3. His main games usually appear late, when Nintendo decides to make the leap to the next generation.
This has been the rule since the series inception. His canon games appear when the current console has one year left before it dies. And this occurred in NES, SNES and so on. The Switch will be the first console to break this rule in a long time (ok, technically it also happened in Gamecube, but Kirby Air Ride it's a spin-off).
4. Sales don't go well with the saga in general, more markedly in Europe.
This point goes along with the previous one. Kirby's Dream Land is still the best selling game of the franchise, even to this date. The rest don't even reach this sales, being Kirby Super Star Ultra, Kirby's Dream Land 2 and Kirby: Nightmare in Dreamland the closest. The rest of the games have sold as well as F-Zero. Europe is the most affected continent since the sales have been lower than America and Japan.
5. The 2D platformer is no longer a canon in the video game world.
20 or 30 years ago the genre was popular, nowadays has lot its impact. And you might say "but what about New Super Mario Bros. or Rayman Legends or Shovel Knight?" Let me clear things out: it's true that the genre has made a comeback since the Wii/PlayStation4/Xbox360 gen, but that hasn't change things. If it wasn't for nostalgia the genre would probably not sell.
6. Other sagas and characters of Nintendo have greater protagonism.
This is one of the most toxic reasons. If we see Nintendo Directs, announcements, conferences, etc., we'll see an oversaturation of Mario, Zelda and Pokémon (Fire Emblem has been added recently to the list). Nintendo focus more on popular and well-selling franchises. And don't get me wrong: I like these franchises, everyone does, but we want more variety. This is why Samus was set aside for a long time.
7. Scarce advertising to the games on television or magazines.
Two decades ago, the character was popular and had advertising in printed media and TV. But it seemed that the boom of Internet and Netflix has overshadowed the franchise. Without a good marketing, your game can't sell very well. Therefore, less people are interested in buying the game. Who buys a Kirby game? People who have known the character from a long time. It's a franchise that's not recruting new fans.
8. Poor analysis in blogs and web pages.
All reviewers said the same thing: "it's too easy, it's too short, it's too repetitive". With reviews like these, of course nobody will play them, specially if you're a newcomer or an average player. And most of them don't play the game at its full potential. If you play like this for a review, you have lost 90% of the game because there are extra modes that can only be unlocked if you finish the game.
9. Few online communities and little fanmade content.
This character has barely internet fame. He has, but very scarce when we compare him to Mario or Zelda. Heck, even Metroid and Earthbound have more online communities than Kirby!
10. The protagonist is not taken seriously, despite the charisma of the same.
When you character looks like this, I can comprehend why. But childish concepts have evolved into something else. Adventure Time, Gravity Falls, Steven Universe and Don't Hug Me I'm Scared are the biggest examples. A more mature person can enjoy more this games, but because he's pink and adorable, people judged him and, like I said in one of my previous posts, when you're a teenager you have that thought of "what will they say of me if they see me watching cartoons?"
To be fair, I'd give him and Oscar and a Palme d'Or for this performance. This has been more mature and heart breaking than almost everything I've seen this year.
This is not me saying they should do more games. This is me wanting more recognition for the character and his universe. And you may wonder: how does this has anything to do with Metroid, like I said at the beginning? Both have similar problems, being overshadowed by other Nintendo characters, barely have recognition and don't sell well. Kirby has sold twice than Metroid, but he's not a selling game either. And yet, he had his 20th anniversary.
This was not because of the sales, this was because Kirby has a father who worries about him. I'll talk about Metroid once more (this is the first part if you want to check it out), but for now, all I can say is:
Happy 25th anniversary Kirby!
