Trivia / The Legendary Starfy

The following The Legendary Starfy games have their own Trivia pages:

• Densetsu no Stafy
• Densetsu no Stafy 4

The series as a whole:

• Dueling Games: Often seen as the upstart rival to Kirby's fame.
• Fan Translation:
  • Two English translations for the first game exist; one made by a fan called Torchickens and posted on her website, the other made by the team MiYaku Gaming and kept on GitHub. Neither are full translations as both are still works in progress, though the latter is in general a more literal and less polished translation than the former.
  • The second, third, and fourth games have been covered by Autumnchild via let's plays of the games on her YouTube channel, translating what certain important text in the game means. Unfortunately, the translations of the second and third titles can't be seen in the videos anymore, since they were provided by annotations (which YouTube no longer supports). The translations of the fourth game are still intact due to them being edited directly into the videos.
  • There's recently been new translations made via let's plays of the games on Youtube for the second and third games! Which you can find here and here.
• Franchise Killer: The Legendary Starfy is this for the series, as there hasn't been a new Starfy game in over 10 years, and it was sadly the only game in the series to come out in America, and didn't even come out in Europe. While it did get good reviews in America, it sold poorly, and it wasn't received as well and didn't sell as well as the first four games in Japan, mainly due to being dumbed-down, and the fact that the first four games were never released outside of Japan. The first three games in the series did get Virtual Console releases in Japan, though so far there has been no news of a new release.
• No Export for You: Because the series was deemed too Japanese by Nintendo of America, only the 5th game left Japan in 2009, with the chances of the other four titles getting released outside of Japan very unlikely.
• Marth Debuted in "Smash Bros.": The title character's first US appearance was in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga as a poster. And much like the trope namer(s), it took an appearance in a Super Smash Bros. game to get the series localized.

The Legendary Starfy:

• Acclaimed Flop: While it didn't sell very well in America, it got good reviews and the people who did buy the game generally really liked it, with the series still having a decent cult following in the West.
• Acting for Two: Satomi Koorogi does Starfy and Mermaid.
• Development Gag: The 3D models of two of Starfy's unused transformations—frog and mermaid—are present as Specials in Stuff.
• Dummied Out:
  • There's an unused dummy stage with glitched graphics hanging out in the game's code that can't be legitimately accessed, likely used for testing purposes. Interestingly, some areas in the stage contain the same environments that show up during ability demonstrations.
  • Unused text in the Japanese version has Moe describing a gameplay feature known as Helpful Stuff, possibly an early form of the game's version of transformations, where you can use various "devices" to help you in levels and against bosses. Moe also mentions Helpful Stuff having different "attributes" such as fire, ice, and poison, which would involve Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors depending on which you used.
  • Data for three unused transformations for Starfy (cockroach, frog, and mermaid) exists in the game's code, detailed more under What Could Have Been.
  • There's also a sprite of an unknown large, yellow, bear-like creature in the files, possibly an unused NPC.
  • A few of the stage backgrounds from Densetsu no Stafy 4 are present within the files, some of which appear in dummy rooms.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Moe's unused dialogue suggests that this game's version of vehicles/transformations was originally going to involve choosing between several different abilities (with different elemental strengths) for a single transformation, rather than multiple transformations with different skills. The text also alludes to having the option to transform before a boss battle, even in co-op mode, meaning that Starly was likely planned to be able to transform as well—compounded by sprites of Starly transformed with Bunston also existing (as well as 3D models viewable in Stuff).
  • Three transformations, those being of a cockroach, frog, and mermaid, are fully sprited (even with Starly variants), but unused and lingering in the game files. The latter two even have 3D models which are actually viewable in the game proper, having been recycled for the Ribbit Costume and Mermaid Specials in Stuff.
• Woolseyism: The Terrible Trio are named Jan, Ken, and Pon in the original Japanese, Janken being the name given to rock-paper-scissors in Japan, where it’s common to shout "jan, ken, pon" while playing. This is translated to the three having names based on the three choices of rock-paper-scissors (Snips - scissors, Ronk - rock, and Papes - paper) to keep the theme.

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