Awesome / Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards

Per the site's regulations, spoilers are unmarked. You have been warned.

Powers

• The double Bomb power allows Kirby to open wide and shoot up to three homing missiles at any enemies in front of him.
• Bomb and Stone creates a bundle of dynamite that basically shreds any enemy onscreen. Of course, this can also damage Kirby unless you hold down on the control pad to hide under a hardhat.
• Bomb and Cutter lets Kirby throw Shuriken that explode after they lodge into something - usually enemies - and travel too fast to be seen.
• What happens when you combine Spark with Cutter? Kirby gets a yellow DOUBLE BLADED LIGHTSABER!
• Not to mention that Fire and Cutter instead creates a two-handed flaming sword that Kirby can throw ahead of himself.
• Double Fire lets Kirby take off like a meteor, briefly overlapped with flaming wings before sailing forward with very little that can stop him.
• Fire and Spike has Kirby turn himself into a bow that launches flaming arrows, also creating a temporary blaze wherever the arrow lands.
• While unable to move around, Spike and Ice allows Kirby to grow snowflake-patterned branches of sharp ice that act as a near impenetrable defense to any approaching enemies.
• The double Ice power has Kirby turn himself into a Human Snowball that sucks in any enemies in his way until he hits a block or wall.
• Unusually for the Stone power, Kirby is able to sprout his arms and legs and move about as a stone golem. The double Stone lets him make himself into a bigger boulder/golem.
• Stone and Spike arms Kirby with a drill as big as himself that tugs him along for the ride and can even fire through walls. Using it while holding down in the air also allows him to wield it downwards with his feet.
• Stone and Cutter carves Kirby into a golem of one of his past companions, which are both useful and nostalgic.

Kirby and Friends

• King Dedede gets one when he teams up with Kirby and for most of his appearances afterwards.
  • When he shows up, it's ususally to wield his hammer to great effect, smashing obstacles in his and/or Kirby's way with relative ease. Special mention goes to Stage 6-2, where a boulder drops down to block the way forward and he smashes it with only three strikes of his hammer. He's also strong enough to send Kirby flying with a Seesaw Catapult to another island in Aqua Star and into the sky in Dark Star.
• Kirby squaring off against more impressive bosses with each world. Whispy Woods is par for the course. The Pix are unusual, but not overly challenging. Acro easily functions as a wake-up call since you fight him in the water where he has the advantage and introduces you to two-phase fights. Magman continues the trend by starting as a Background Boss with a terrain advantage in a volcano for his first phase. HR-H has Kirby fighting a giant robot towering over the bridge the star warrior's confined to that then transforms into a battleship for the second phase. And Miracle Matter seems to operate as General of the Dark Matter, its defeat purging the majority of the darkness from Ripple Star. Not to mention that you fight the multi-eyed being in a dimension of its making foreshadowed at the end of Stage 6-3.
• The sight of the Crystal shining a light that sweeps all the Dark Matter off of Ripple Star. If you haven't collected every Crystal Shard, it'll be sent far into space. If you have, the darkness explodes shortly after being ejected from the planet.
• Why is the Crystal's completion so important for the Golden Ending? When complete, the Crystal can sense the presence of more Dark Matter and fires a beam into the Fairy Queen who turned out to be hiding a truly titanic amount of Dark Matter that goes on to form Dark Star and eclipse the sky of Ripple Star even from a distance. The queen turned out to be possessed by an entire planet's worth of darkness that also contains its progenitor as hinted in the bad ending where she looks at Ribbon with a malicious grin, and the Crystal made it all leave her body.
• While everyone else is either worried for the unconscious queen or staring in despair at the impossibly huge orb of darkness, Kirby is struck by inspiration and calls the Warp Star on a cell phone that sends out a signal from the star-decorated antenna. He and his friends then board to take the fight to the Dark Star and end things once and for all.
• The final boss, 0², serves as a Moment of Awesome for both Ribbon and Kirby: they face off against the embodiment of all evil together, armed only with the holy crystal of the fairies. Moreover, Ribbon actually CARRIES Kirby throughout the whole battle. She doesn't even drop him if they get hit! Her wings expand to three times their size, just so she can carry our favorite pink hero!
  • Villainous points to 0² as well, since it's clearly the same Zero that Kirby defeated once upon a time. The bandage over where its eye formerly was and new appearance implies that the body which Zero's eye abandoned for the final phase of the fight against Kirby back then survived separate without Zero's consciousness and regained power over time to take on a new form and plague the universe with its Dark Matter once again. The bandage being a weak point once the halo is blasted away lends more credence since 0² flails in pain with one hit to that spot.
• The final cutscene where the entire mass of Dark Matter is destabilizing, the eyes that come outward dizzy and unseeing to a triumphant theme. Kirby and friends sail out on the Warp Star mere moments before it all blows away with the music's crescendo. Afterwards, during the award ceremony, Ribbon kisses Kirby, which causes him to swoon and doubles as Heartwarming. This is his only kiss with ANYONE in the whole series!