Summary
- Western Kirby game box art made Kirby appear fiercer to appeal to American buyers.
- Kirby’s appearance in the west was modified to target tween and teen US buyers.
- Nintendo rebranded Kirby as the “Super Tough Pink Puff” to appeal to older children and boys.
Former Nintendo employees are talking about the difference between Kirby games’ box art in Japan and the west. While it was previously noted during a developer interview in the 2010s that Kirby typically had a fiercer countenance in the west to appeal to American buyers, this new discussion goes into a bit more detail on the Kirby game decision.
Kirby has been around for a long time, being one of the few remaining popular game characters still receiving new games that first appeared on a black and white console. It turns out that Kirby’s origins in Kirby’s Dream Land play a role in why his appearance looks different on some game covers.
Related
Kirby Could Cap Off the Switch’s Library the Same Way It Did for the 3DS
A critically-acclaimed Kirby game is reportedly getting a remaster for the Switch, which, if true, could replicate a similar occurrence on the 3DS.
In a recent chat with Polygon, former Nintendo localization director Leslie Swan and former Nintendo Minute host Krysta Yang both talked about the iconic puffball and why some of the game covers in the Kirby series have looked different in the west. According to Swan, the main change was to appeal to tween and teen buyers in the US. Swan points out that fewer girls were playing games at the time, so the company wanted to market the game to boys. Kirby’s Dream Land didn’t pose much of an issue, because classic Game Boy games were in black and white, but once Kirby moved to full-color systems, Nintendo of America became concerned about how to market a pink fluffy ball to boys in the west. Instead of recoloring Kirby or something similar, they instead added the furrowed eyes to the character on the box art, which Swan said was intended to make Kirby look fierce and tenacious, not angry.
Making Kirby a Tough Puff
Krysta Yang also commented, explaining that Nintendo wanted child-friendly games, but didn’t want to be labeled as producing “kiddie” games. As a result, the marketing team made an effort to make Kirby appear tougher, calling him the “Super Tough Pink Puff” so that older children and boys would still find him appealing. Yang notes that it wasn’t that outlandish to do such a thing, as Kirby games do contain a lot of action.
These days, many players know Kirby better from the Super Smash Bros. series than the original Kirby titles. Kirby does snap to his fiercer expression from time to time through combat and the games’ stories, but it also seems that players are much more comfortable with the idea of the tough-but-pink puff these days. In fact, Kirby may have even helped to boost the popularity of a similarly cute-but-tough pink puff, as Jigglypuff was added to the original Super Smash Bros. because it had a similar shape to Kirby, allowing for the two to have similar movesets and some shared animations.
Kirby
The Kirby game franchise stars the adorable pink blob with a voracious appetite. Kirby games have covered the 2D and 3D platformer genre for decades and are set across multiple consoles, with plenty of spin-offs along the way. Kirby’s unique ability allows him to suck up enemies to gain their powers.