Kirby's Adventure

Kirby's Adventure is one of the most graphically-advanced games released for the NES, released near the end of the console's life cycle. It has a great amount of unused content, too – some of which would be recycled for future Kirby games.

It was remade in 2002 for the Game Boy Advance as Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land, followed by a 3DS port in 2011 as 3D Classics: Kirby's Adventure, using the original NES resources with minor differences like depth effects.

Unused Ability


These tiles of a tiny Kirby are found in sprite bank 8C, along with the graphics for the Mike and Ball abilities. These graphics were possibly used for an ability that no longer exists in the game. The oddly-sized Kirby would have been used for a shrinking animation (Kirby does the raised hand pose for abilities like Crash and Light that aren't demonstrated right away).



This Mini ability might have been replaced with the UFO power. All of the other ability tiles are close together in graphic banks 80-99, while the UFO Kirby graphics are located in bank C6. UFO is also the last normal ability by ID, further supporting this theory.



12 years later, this ability would finally be implemented in Kirby and the Amazing Mirror...although in that game, you can't slide while using this power.

Unused Song
Track 16 ( hexadecimal in-game) in the Sound Test is an upscale version of the Kirby's Dream Land title screen theme.

Invincibility Icon


An untranslated duplicate of the invincibility icon, stored in bank 14. The icons normally used by the game are stored in banks 40-4B.

Water Tiles


Graphics for seven different water tiles of this style, stored in banks 24-27. Only two appear in-game.



What they would have looked like animated.

Cannon Icon


This icon is stored with the rest of the ability icons and does appear in-game, but is nearly impossible to see normally. Using the Mix ability, it can easily be seen during the roulette selection of abilities using an emulator's frame-by-frame advance feature. It was meant to be used when Kirby hopped into a cannon and, oddly enough, is used in the French version!

This icon was also restored and used in the 3DS port.

Unused Stage Graphics


Bank 50 is entirely unused! It matches perfectly with the palette (0x84) and tileset (0x12) used for dark rooms, so it may have been used for more dark rooms later in the game.

Early Level Hub HUD


The level intro tileset seems to contain graphics for an early version of the level hub HUD. This is much darker than the HUD used in-game and the graphics are very different.

7th Stage Door


A 7th stage door graphic. The largest level hub only has six stages in it, rendering this unused.

Minibosses


Two of these three frames aren't shown in-game at all. The Poppy Bros. Sr. graphic is similar to his normal death frame, but his feet are on the ground. The Rolling Turtle graphic is strange – perhaps he could hide in his shell during battle?

The frame for Mr. Frosty is actually used, but in a very obscure behavior that most players will not see: If he doesn't have enough room behind him to walk backwards to toss an ice cube (by carefully tricking him into stopping right before hitting a wall), it will fall on his head with this animation, and cause him to ram forwards into the wall.

Crane Game


Apparently, the crane game was originally supposed to give you three credits, as evidenced by the presence of a "3" with the rest of the numeral graphics. Setting address to  as the game loads will give you three chances, as well as display this unused graphic, though it will still only count up to two Kirby plushes at the end of the game.

HAL Zone


At the end of the first room in Stage 2 of Vegetable Valley is the name "HAL" in the form of many Star Blocks; however, it is inaccessible due to the Warp Star beforehand that forces the camera to stop going to the right. However, if you manage to overload the game's sprite memory (e.g., by throwing Cutters while several enemies are present) as the Warp Star scrolls into view, it will fail to load, allowing you to see the HAL blocks.

Oddly, a Broom Hatter is present on the "L". There is also a door just off the top of the screen that leads to the next area, though it cannot be reached normally. This is due to the way Warp Stars work; a regular exit representing the Warp Star's destination must be placed within the level, though these are typically not visible.

Many HAL rooms, including this one, are also present in Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land, but they are inaccessible without codes.

Revision Differences
There are two versions of Kirby's Adventure: PRG0 and PRG1, both containing the same CHR ROM.

Text String
At ROM address, PRG0 contains the peculiar string RGKK_SetStillX. In PRG1, this was changed to an unreadable hex string.

Intro Story
The spacing of the "KIRBY'S ADVENTURE" text is incorrect on the first few story pages in PRG0. This was fixed in PRG1.

Regional Differences
The Japanese version is largely identical to the English one except for Japanese text, although all of the ability icons were originally rendered in English - including the "Burning" icon, which was changed to "Fireball" for unknown reasons. The Japanese version also lists Ice Cream Island as Icecream Island, and all instances of the Fountain of Dreams was the Fountain of Dream. Nightmare in Dream Land retains the respective regional nomenclature used in the original game.

The French version appears to be based on the English release, but the level and ability names were changed from English to French. It also used the rare "Cannon" icon properly, although it is now "Canon".