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KIRBY

This is the page dedicated to the most awesome video game character ever, Kirby.

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Kirby's Birth

The Beginning

Mr. Masahiro Sakurai had the project of making a new Gameboy game, one for beginning gamers in which any player could reach the ending. During the production, he needed to create a dummy, until graphics and later code would be filled it. The dummy he created, was a funny smiling blob that soon became the star of the game. Everyone liked the funny little blob so much, they decided to expand on it.

The Creation of Kirby

The blob was first named Popopo, then later Kirby. Mr. Sakurai still can't remember how Kirby ended up being Kirby, and many people have come to their own conclusions. While Kirby does coincidentally (and ironically) have the same name as the famous Kirby vacuum brand, it is highly unlikely. One of the most likely rumors: In the 1980's or so, Nintendo was faced with a huge lawsuit from Atari. This was the time period Nintendo was gaining popularity and rapidly, so this lawsuit was threatening to squash the existence of Nintendo. The laywer who played super hero and saved Nintendo? John Kirby. It is rumored that upon making trademarks and such for the game, a copy was sent to John Kirby who was humored and flattered. While this hearsay does circulate the internet unconfirmed, it sounds somewhat likely.

While Nintendo legend Mr. Miyamoto wanted Kirby to be yellow, Sakurai insisted that he be pink.

Masahiro Sakurai Grows Distant

There was no doubt some tension leading to the creation of the Nintendo 64 for Sakurai. As the original Kirby's Air Ride was being developed, the release dates kept on being pushed further and further away until one fateful day it was cancelled. No real reason has ever been established why.

As word grew that the development team were going to begin a new Kirby platform game for Nintendo 64 instead, word quickly spread that Sakurai would not work on the game in any form. In fact, Sakurai commented that he would not let himself get involved. Supposedly Sakurai never even laid eyes on the game until it was released, where he played it for the first time himself with the rest of the public. Over the years, many gaming reports would describe Sakurai as 'sentimental', and this became evident as he clearly loss interest for the later games.

Masahiro Sakurai Quits Hal Laboratories

Sakurai, game developing veteran working on not only Kirby, but many other HAL games (including the Super Smash Bros. series), quit HAL Labs in June of 2003. While he claims to not have any hard feelings, there seems to be some resentment towards the direction of gaming.

(excerpt from Kirby's Rainbow Resort)