Although Kirby Super Star is one of the most memorable Kirby titles ever made, it wasn’t the vacuum-powered anthropomorphic alien balloon’s SNES debut. That honor belongs to Kirby’s Dream Course, an imaginative and surprisingly sophisticated mini-golf game.
Developed by HAL Laboratory in tandem with EarthBound, Kirby’s Dream Course originated as a Kirby-less game called Special Tee Shot. Special Tee Shot was officially advertised before being retooled as a Kirby title, though the original game did eventually see release several years later exclusively via the Super Famicom’s Satellaview broadcast service.
The storied development is likely the reason Kirby’s Dream Course is one of the most challenging and technical games in the entire Kirby series, which has historically skewed toward accessibility and relative simplicity. This design philosophy was perhaps best demonstrated in 2010’s Kirby’s Epic Yarn, which was unanimously hailed as being notably easy, yet remarkably enjoyable and rewarding. Kirby’s Dream Course, on the other hand, still defies domination to this day, with only a small handful of extraordinarily devoted players laboring to contend with its intricate mechanics and more demanding courses.
On the surface, Kirby’s Dream Course fused the mini-golf formula with Kirby’s patented, lively visuals. Each hole takes place on an isometric, pseudo-3D checkerboard, complete with obstacles and enemies lifted from the Kirby-verse. The goal of the game is to set up shots in a way that Kirby collides with each enemy. The final remaining enemy then turns into the “cup,” and when Kirby enters the cup the hole is complete. This rule alone greatly expands the possible methods a player can use to finish any hole in the game.
But it wouldn’t be a Kirby game without Copy Abilities, and Kirby’s Dream Course further augments the potential strategies for each hole with an assortment of familiar powers obtained from certain enemies. For players looking to complete each of the game’s courses in as few shots as possible, the secret is chaining abilities together so that a single shot can carry Kirby all around the map, hopefully ending triumphantly in the cup.
On their own, these mechanics aren’t particularly daunting. However, Kirby’s Dream Course includes a very robust shot system similar to Nintendo’s Golf for the NES, which was the first golf game to feature a power gauge for aiming. Players can not only perform a variety of trick shots such as top spins and back spins, skipping Kirby over bodies of water and banking Kirby off the environment, but once a shot has been taken, Kirby’s movement can be “boosted” to extend farther or bounce higher by timing precise button presses. It’s all incredibly in-depth, and requires exponentially more skill and cunning as the holes become larger and more intricate.