Prerelease:Kirby Super Star

This page details prerelease information and/or media for Kirby Super Star.

NES Prototype

To do: The "Kirby SuperStar NES Kirby sprites.png" image embedded on this page appear to be from a Famitsu magazine scan - issue number, page number, and full scans of the article

• 

  Beam ability

• 

  Yo-yo ability

• 

  Fighter ability

• 

  Cutter ability

Kirby Super Star started development on the NES/Famicom and was apparently feature-complete. It was only shown in HAL internally and was meant for testing primarily. Some images of the prototype's sprites along with a video demonstrating the Cutter ability running on NES hardware were posted on a Famitsu article featuring Masahiro Sakurai in 2017, where he states that the team used the already available NES development tools while waiting for the SNES tools to be prepared.

(Source: Famitsu)

Scrapped Copy Abilities

Concept art for several scrapped abilities was featured in the booklet packaged with the Japanese version of Kirby's Dream Collection:

• Card: Let Kirby throw cards. This is similar to the revamp of the Magic ability seen in Kirby Squeak Squad. Hat: A top hat.
• Flower: Would have planted flowers on enemy's heads, which apparently would have poisoned them. Hat: A large ribbon, apparently a reference to Panel de Pon (the main character, Lip, wears a similar bow).
• Mantle: Gave Kirby a cape to attack with. Hat: None.

An early design for Wing Kirby is also seen, which lacks the feathered headdress and bears more resemblance to Cupid Kirby from Kirby and the Amazing Mirror. Also, the Fighter ability was originally known as "Rush".

Mexican "Club Nintendo" Magazine Screenshots

In March 03 1996, an issue of the Mexican "Club Nintendo" magazine showed off a preview for Kirby Super Star (referred to as Kirby's Adventure Super The Luxe, likely a mistranslation). The preview page can be read here. All the screenshots (besides the one in the center) present interesting changes:

Green Greens with a layout close to the final game's.

First off there's Green Greens, which has a slightly different layout of enemies.

Then there's this Dyna Blade screenshot, showing the fight with a blue sky. The final game's boss fight has a sky that swaps between cyan and purple, with the sky turning purple when Dyna Blade swoops in. It's unsure if Dyna Blade is in the middle of her defeat animation and the sky is turning blue again, but the shade of blue is noticeably darker then the final's cyan. Also of note: Burning Leo is shown here with his Enemy palette (red + grey), rather than the helper one (blue with green) like in the final. This implies the palettes got swapped or changed in the final game. It'd take until 2018's Kirby Star Allies to allow for a playable Red Burning Leo.

Unused level layouts.

Peanut Plains in Dyna Blade also featured completely different level layouts not seen in the final game. The assets remained the same, though.

Garden Area tileset with a pink sky.

This is an interesting screenshot, since it features Garden Area's background having a pink sky (or ceiling, since it's underground), rather than a blue one. It also shows a much different layout for the level. This isn't intended for a Milky Way Wishes level reusing the tilesets either, since the level shows Treasure Chests.

A neat difference in the 2nd room of Green Greens: The infamous self-bombing Poppy Bros in the right was originally gonna be a Boomerang Poppy Bros. It's even sporting the green palette!

A slightly different version of Sub-Tree Area's first room. Only notable changes are the thin slope in the bottom left corner (it's a solid slope in the final), and the slightly different enemy choices.

A couple differences in this screenshot of Halfmoon. Enemies haven't been palette swapped yet, plus the enemies featured here are different than the final game's. (A sleeping Grizzo is shown in this spot instead of a Waddle Doo). The background also sports a double moon, something not shown in the final game.

Halberd on daytime?

Probably the most shocking of these: This screenshot has a level with the Halberd tileset taking place during daytime! This isn't for a planet in Milky Way Wishes either, since the HUD doesn't match the previous screenshot. Maybe Revenge of Meta Knight was gonna take place during the day too?

More sky in background, and a scrapped portrait for Dedede.

And last but not least, we see Gourmet Race's first level showing off the background was originally meant to show much more sky (it's cut-off and much lower in the final game). And a surprise: Dedede used to have a different portrait for this mode!