I have fond memories of playing Kirby Super Star on the SNES, but I was disappointed that the demo only had a limited selection of unlocked modes to play. The SNES title actually had nine different game modes available, ranging from the easy "Spring Breeze," to "The Arena," which was mostly boss fights, to the "Samurai Kirby" mini-game. I could clearly see that Kirby Super Star Ultra had even more modes than the original, but the only modes available were the beginner-centric "Spring Breeze," and new touch-based mini-games "Kirby Card Swipe" and "Kirby on the Draw." Two new major modes, "Revenge of the King" and "Meta Knight Ultra," remained grayed out, as did the third touch mini-game, "Snack Tracks."

"Spring Breeze" is a Kirby game geared for ease. Aside from the standard platforming repertoire, Kirby can inhale and swallow enemies and consequently gain a specific special ability, and in the first stage of "Spring Breeze," some enemies when swallowed gave Kirby the ability to fire energy beams, throw spinning blades, or throw bombs. In a specific example of how this game is geared for beginning players, once you collide with enough enemies to have critically low health, Kirby starts sparking. At this point, Kirby will no longer be knocked back and stunned when he collides into an enemy. He'll still take damage, but enemies that touch him will also rapidly take damage, allowing players to ram through one or two enemies and defeat them without attacks, merely by touching them. "Spring Breeze" also featured a new 3D intro cut scene, an addition that hopefully the other, more challenging Kirby modes benefit from as well.

Nintendo also decided to take advantage of the DS touch screen and add some new mini-games built around multiplayer play. In "Kirby Card Swipe," four players have a selection of cards on the bottom screen, and must be the first to tap the card that matches whatever is revealed on the top screen. The first player to win three rounds is the victor. In "Kirby on the Draw," four players compete to shoot (by tapping) cutout targets that appear in a Wild West style environment. Some targets are worth more points than others, and some (which I have a propensity for shooting) actually cause you to lose points. But you also have to manage your ammo: you can reload your gun one bullet at a time at any point during the match by tapping the bottom of the touch screen.

Both of these mini-games were designed for four players and support single-card play. With the emphasis on reaction time and tapping the correct thing first, however, both games felt like only temporary diversions. And since I had no one else to play with wirelessly, the game instantly gave me 3 computer opponents to keep the participants at the required number.

I was dismayed to be told that unlike the SNES original, the game would not feature two-player cooperative play in the platforming sections of the games. But if that's the only feature missing from this version, then it would be fair to say that players can otherwise expect a pretty faithful update to this SNES classic, with a select few additions.