I’ve always been a major fan of the original SNES Kirby Super Star, and while I was hoping it would eventually hop to the Virtual Console, I was just as pleased to hear about its remake coming to the DS. Soon, though, a bit of unease set in. There’s a level of comfort one can associate with the Virtual Console in knowing their games will be preserved, more or less, but who knows what could happen to a game if it’s being remade. Fortunately, HAL Laboratories has remembered KSS’s charm and secret to success, and done their best to duplicate it here, with good results.

For the uninitiated, Kirby Super Star Ultra is not your average platformer, even for a Kirby game. Instead of one long single-player adventure, the game consists of a number of different single-player modes to play through. Most of them are adventure modes, but there’s the occasional change-up as well; actually, there’s constant changing-up from mode to mode, but I’ll discuss that more in a bit. All of the original content from KSS is still here, though not all of it is accessible right away, of course. You’ll start with Spring Breeze, which is a shorter retelling of the original Kirby’s Dream Land; once that is complete, you’ll unlock several other game modes to play through. The game generally progresses in this manner, completing and unlocking various single-player modes.

KSS veterans are undoubtedly wondering how the two games compare, and I’m glad to say that I could notice almost no difference at all. Again, all the original games are intact; the levels and controls are pretty much identical, and considering the DS’s similarity to a SNES controller, it really does feel like the original KSS was crammed into a DS for the most part. This is not to say the original game was flawless; many people have said that the game is not very difficult, and I have to agree, having breezed through the game’s content with little trouble. It’s as entertaining as it ever was, though, especially if you take your time to complete the more intricate game modes.