#capsule j

Happy 30th anniversary to Kirby Super Star!

Kirby Super Star: Capsule J

Like most characters you encounter in the Kirby franchise, Capsule J is both an adversary and an ally for the players. Capsule-J made it's first and only appearance in 1996's Kirby Super Star. If inhaled by Kirby, the pink poof copies their jet ability.

In 2008, a remake of Capsule-J's debut game, Kirby Super Star Ultra was released. While this remake brings back all of the copy abilities from the original version including jet, Capsule-J doesn't make an appearance.

So then how does Kirby acquire the jet ability in Super Star Ultra? Enter, Capsule-J2. Capsule-J2 most assuredly replaces Capsule-J because of the latter's resemblance to Konami's Twin Bee character.

Capsule-J comes from a different era of video games where titles like The Revenge of Shinobi would outright copy designs from well known characters like the Terminator, Batman, Godzilla, Spider-Man and Rambo.

Three years after his debut, Capsule-J2 would reappear in Kirby Mass Attack. Five years after that, a third jet character, Capsule J3, would appear in 2016's Kirby∶ Planet Robobot. This tidbit from WiKirby.com may give us a clue as to why Hal Laboratory felt the need to reintroduce yet another "Capsule" character∶

In Kirby Super Star Ultra, the internal filename for Capsule J2 is "capsulej", suggesting that Capsule J2 may have replaced Capsule J late in development. Additionally, it appears that Capsule J2's sprites used Capsule J as a base, since the lower half of it resembles an edited version of the original sprite. In Kirby∶ Mass Attack, its file specifies "j2".

So, it may be that HAL Laboratory was never satisfied with J2's appearance because they might've been quickly thrown together midway through development. As such, when it came time to model a 3D character with the jet ability for Planet Robobot, they opted to outright replace J2 with J3. This is all just speculation on my part, though!

HAPPY 25TH BIRTHDAY KIRBY!!

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