Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards

Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards is a Kirby game for the Nintendo 64. It is one of the few games to not feature Meta Knight or be directed by Kirby creator, Masahiro Sakurai. It is Kirby's first 3-D Adventure and the sequel to Kirby's Dream Land 3. This game was later re-released on the Wii's Virtual Console in America and Europe in early 2008.

Story
One peaceful day on the planet Ripple Star, a dark cloud covers the planet. The queen of Ripple Star orders a fairy named Ribbon to call for help. She gets one crystal and tries to fly away, but is defeated by the Dark Matter minions. She crashes on a planet called Pop Star, losing 72 crystal pieces in the process. Kirby finds one crystal and gives it to Ribbon, whereupon the two set out to find the others.

During their journey, Kirby and Ribbon find three friends who join them:
 * Waddle Dee
 * Adeleine
 * King Dedede

Planets

 * Pop Star
 * Rock Star
 * Aqua Star
 * Neo Star
 * Shiver Star
 * Ripple Star
 * Dark Star

Bosses

 * Whispy Woods
 * Pix
 * Acro
 * Magman
 * HR-H
 * Miracle Matter
 * Zero Two

Gameplay
Like every other main-series Kirby game, The Crystal Shards is a platformer that features Kirby's signature abilities of flight, inhalation, and ability imitation, though a few adjustments have been made to their mechanics. Whereas in most other games Kirby is able to fly indefinitely, here he is limited to a grounded jump and seven midair jumps (possibly due to this same limitation being present in Super Smash Bros., which was released prior to Kirby 64.) It also features the special aspect of combining two copy abilities to create new ones by either sucking up two enemies up at the same time or releasing a power star then inhaling that star and an enemy. Each power has a different color power star and a double power star has the colors of both sub-powers in a 10-point star. Also, the game only features seven (base) abilities: Burning, Ice, Spark, Cutter, Bomb, Needle, and Stone. Some combo abilities include Volcano, Refrigerator, Light Saber, Snare, Ninja Bombs, and Double Stone.

Multiplayer Mode
Kirby 64 offers a multi player mode up to 4 player-simultaneous. There are 3 Mini-games.
 * 100-Yard Hop
 * Bumper Crop Bump
 * Checker Board Chase