Glitched Kirby: Squeak Squad

(NOTE – This contains spoilers to the game “Kirby: Squeak Squad”, All rights belong to the developers and Nintendo)

Kirby: Squeak Squad, known in Europe as Kirby: Mouse Attack and in Japan as Kirby of the Stars: Calling on the Dorotche Gang, Developed by Flagship and Natsume and published by Nintendo and HAL Laboratory for the Nintendo DS.

It’s not my favorite game in the whole wide world, but it’s my favorite game from the Kirby franchise. Don’t get me wrong I love all the Kirby games, but there was something about Kirby: Squeak Squad that really caught my interest the most. Being the first Kirby game I’ve owned and favorite Kirby game in general, I was bound to play it many times until the file was 100% completed.

It was around 12:00 A.M. when this strange event happened. I was watching my TV trying to find channels that would interest me, unfortunately there were none to be found. Now I lay on my bed as I began to get bored. As I try to get some sleep I turn to my side to see my DSI laying on top of a bunch of paper, books, and drawing supplies to the side of my head.

“Hm…?”

I sat up as I picked up my light blue potable console, remembering the fun and addictive games that I’ve played on it.

“I’m surprised that this thing is still here to this day, but I have no complaints at all.”

It was true. It was rare that I played on the DSI ever since the 3DS was released. The games on the 3DS had better graphics, It could play virtual console content, and had more potential. I stood up and went to my dresser and open the top drawer to pull out a DS game to play. I dug through the drawer looking at games that I wanted to play or not.

“No…nope…n-…wait…what’s this one?”

It was a black case with nothing on it, it was just blank. I flipped the case over to see if there was anything on the other side, and to my surprise there was a ripped piece of paper that had the words “Kirby Squeak Squad” written on it.

“…I know what I’m going to be playing, but I really need to change the cover to this case sometime later.”

When I got this for my 7th birthday it never came with a case to go with the cartridge, just a small container. So I got a black blank case and slipped a piece of paper inside of it to remember what game it was. After taking the cartridge out of the case and into the DSI, I sat on my bed was excited to play one of my favorite DS games of all times.

Once the game loaded up, it felt so refreshing returning to the game after some time and listening to the title screen music, even if it wasn’t much. I did 100% the game multiple times, meaning that I got all spray paints (My favorite one being Yellow), all of the pieces to the secret map, and even unlocked Ghost Kirby. Let’s just say my experience returning to the game were nothing like that…at all.

Once I loaded up my file, I decided to do Boss Endurance mode. I was in the Transformation Hall and took these transformations in order. Fighter, Sword, Tornado, and Cutter. As I entered the lair of King Dedede, I noticed something strange.

“Wait…Wasn’t the game supposed to drop a Max Tomato?”

There was no Max Tomato for me to pickup, leaving me with nothing to heal myself with and an empty item spot on the bottom of my screen. I may have not have played this game in a while, but I’ve played Boss Endurance enough times to know that the game gives you a Max Tomato before King Dedede.

As I entered King Dedede’s arena, I was met with King Dedede but horribly glitched blue and out of proportion. I instantly paused the game and just looked at the screen.

“What the heck?” I muttered to myself.

After taking some time to think about this, I decided to resume the game and fight…whatever that thing is. I decided to use my sword transformation to fight him, but there really wasn’t anything different with him. The only thing that was different about him was whenever he slammed his corrupted hammer on the ground, the star that comes out that I could inhale damaged me if I touched it. Luckily it only happened twice and it didn’t do that much damage to me.

After only a couple slashes of the sword, he was defeated and i could move on to the 2nd boss. Then again I was scared that my file was corrupted so I did what anyone would’ve done, Restart my game to see if that would fix it.

After restarting the game, my file was still there but Boss Endurance was still the same. No Max Tomato, Still a Glitched up Dedede, but I took no damage this time so that was good so I moved on to the next boss.

Mrs. Moley was the next boss to fight, and she was glitched with the color of green. I knew that my game was corrupted, but the glitch only effected the bosses. Like King Dedede, Mrs. Moley wasn’t different but it chucked the trash at me twice as fast which made it harder for me to dodge. But luckily none of it hit me and I was able to defeat the boss.

The next to fight was the boss I hated the most in my time playing this game, Mecha Kracko. The only way I could defeat him was with the Tornado Transformation due to its fast mobility, good damage, and I can stay in the air to avoid falling in the void. Mecha Kracko looked like a glitched squeezed sprite colored red and was really fast but instead of doing what it normally did, all it did was bounce around everywhere. If I didn’t use that Tornado Transformation, there was no way I would’ve won that fight.

The next boss was the boss who chases you down, Yadogaine. He was a huge massive stretched glitch of the color yellow, but the really weird but special thing about this was that the stage wasn’t moving and Yadogaine was just standing still, not even throwing rocks at me.

“Shoot…This could REALLY be bad for my progress, well it’s to late to turn back now. I mean I already defeated 4 corrupt bosses”. Like the others, I didn’t get hit. Lets hope my luck doesn’t fail me now,

Next was the fire bird, Bohboh. It was good for me to have the Tornado Transformation so I could hit a target who could fly. The glitched color it had was fitting, it was stretched and orange. It could dash at me but for some reason I didn’t take any damage, It’s just like he fazed right through me. It also only took a couple of hits to defeat him too.

Now I had to fight the main villain of the game, Daroach. His glitch color was brown and looked a little bigger than before, even if he was a glitch for that matter. All he did was spam the bomb throw, so the tornado transformation proved to be very useful.

After beating Daroach, it was time to beat Meta Knight who was one of my favorite Kirby characters, but now he looked like a dark version of Meta Knight. He wasn’t corrupted or anything but he looked like a remade sprite that looked more menacing than before. He was like Galacta Knight but more menacing and mysterious, wielding a crimson blade and moving extremely fast. About 40% of my health was gone when I beat him using my fighter transformation.

After beating him, A cut-scene played where his masked cracked vertically and he quickly vanished.

“Wasn’t the mask supposed to shatter instead of crack?”

I already had questions but I knew that now is not the best time to be asking them.

The next boss was Dark Daroach and he was barely different except for what was on his head, it was a Yellow Kirby being covered by a red X, it’s even worse that my color Kirby was yellow, I was his target, was in the same room wuth him, and was in his line of sight. I had to switch to the Cutter Transformation to do some good ranged attacks on him, and it worked to my advantage. After defeating him, it didn’t go to the final boss, his sprite just blew up longer than expected. The screen faded to white and then to black.

It then faded in to the Transformation Hall, but the whole room was darker than normal and I lost my cutter ability, there wasn’t even any transformations that I could take…it was empty, no music, no items, nothing. I walked to the end of the hall and at the end was the dark Meta Knight I defeated before, he instantly charged at me but I was able to low sweep him. He fell on his face, and his mask shattered. The screen flashed white and his face was revealed.

It was a colorless Kirby with big white eyes with no expression. He just stared at me with his pure white eyes. The completely black Kirby walked up to my Kirby and did something unexpected, he ended up…hugging me. Then he abruptly vanished… Then the screen faded to black as the Yellow Kirby sprite walked off the screen in the direction I just came from…

This made no sence, why was my game glitched with bosses? I played through Boss Rush and the whole game before, but that never happened to me. And this type of Kirby was evil but when the mask broke off, he just hugged him and disappeared?

I had several questions to ask on what just happened…

Was the mask controlling him? Why were the bosses glitched colors different each time? Why were there glitched bosses? Why did the Shadow Kirby hug me? Why did the glitch only effect the bosses? Why did the Dark Daroach X the Kirby I was on his head? How did I never encounter this before?

I need time to think about this, but for know I still have the game with me, it still works and if anyone would like to ask me any questions, then feel free to do so, but for now I just need to think…

——————————————————————————————————————————————

(AFTERMATH)

By the time I was done, the time was 1:27 A.M. I felt super drowsy but confused at the same time about what the heck just happened, so I decided to try and figure this out in the morning.

The dream that I had was strange. I was in that same transformation room but it was in a first person perspective. I then walked down it which in my dream took me ages to do but at the end of the corridor, I actually saw that Strange Kirby. He was there, floating…but his feet was somehow lying flat in the air.

He then said to me in a Dark Raspy voice “…Imprisoned…Locked…Now shattered…I…am…free…” He then faded out of existence and I stood there for a couple of seconds before I turned around to where I was to be met with a bright light. I walked towards it and I just woke up in a flash.

I checked my file once I woke up to see if the story mode was different. There were a couple of glitched enemies but there wasn’t a huge change of story line. Most of the day I was just thinking about the Kirby I met near the end of the corridor and the dream I had. If the rest of the glitched monsters tried to kill me, why didn’t he finish me off? Was it that mask he was wearing? Did I free his soul from that mask?

That’s the only Explanation that I could think of.

But what controlled the mask?

That question makes me confused even to this day.