Game:

Kirby's Avalanche (1995)

Duration: 1:49

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5

Wow, neat! I mean, I realize he's kinda a "big" (not really, maybe by miniboss standards... and surely because of a lot of good press during his stint as a Helper) deal this far after the fact, but he really was "just one of the new minibosses" before. Okay, well, maybe not just that. He WAS one of the two really super cool ability carriers, what with the Backdrop ability that would one day form the foundation of Suplex.

The other really cool, but not quite AS cool ability was Throw (which is basically Kirby's inhale/exhale attacks on steroids), courtesy of the kinda-lame Rolling Turtle... although MUCH later, we get Phan Phan, a being I believe principally composed of concentrated awesomeness in miniboss form... but that's a tale for another day, and suffice to say that Bugzzy is not QUITE so unusual a choice after all.

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Competition, Stage 7: Bugzzy

Now I just get the impression that... there was no idea what to do with the guy. There was apparently even LESS of an idea what to do with Kirby in this scene, though, so... what the heck? Also, all the shaking of the screen is pretty weird, isn't it?

I do feel like now is as good a time as any to pick another flaw in the game to just sort of toss out there for whomever might find it interesting... if your active piece is falling through a one-column narrow gap, it can NOT be rotated. At all. Later games in the series as well as pretty much every game to use the same control scheme ever will at least let you flip it vertically for lack of anything else to do.

I feel like this was more of an oversight than an actual design choice, although I have little to no knowledge of the series as it is, let alone how it evolved, mostly being available in Japan for many years and even many years now. I'm even willing to entertain the notion that this is perhaps a case of game-specific glitch. Whatever the cause, it's definitely very destructive to the potential playability, especially at higher speeds when you'll be making late adjustments in an attempt to keep up.

Anyway, this proves to be much more than a minor nuisance if things get particularly dire and you have only one space of freedom to make a deep clear and get things right... and if you mess up, not only did you block the space you wanted, but the one atop that as well.

On the other hand, not having enough in the way of narrow spaces is something to be equally (if not more) concerned about, because one small layer of an attack can completely isolate the top of the play field from the rest. So, basically this match was a comedy of errors that only just happened to end up working out in my favor. I'd like to see THAT happen again.

(No, really, if it happens again, then it gives off the illusion that I have even the faintest idea what I'm doing against progressively smarter opponents.)

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