Here's The Hidden Reason Behind Kirby's Adventure's Chunky HUD Design

Last month, we covered the news that Super Smash Bros. Creator Masahiro Sakurai was starting his own YouTube channel, and he's certainly wasted no time uploading some fascinating videos on his career and the design of his games.

The latest example of this comes in the form of a video he uploaded earlier today on Kirby's Adventure, for the Nintendo Entertainment System.

In the video, he starts by talking about the period of history in which Hal Laboratory was nearing bankruptcy, explaining that the reason the second Kirby came out on the outdated system was that they needed to get the game out to market as quickly as possible. He then goes on to explain the origins of Kirby's iconic copy ability, which was designed apparently to satisfy both newcomers and veterans of the console.

This will obviously be the highlight for a lot of fans watching the video. But we also found another insight to be particularly interesting.

At about the halfway mark, he talks about the differences in aspect ratio and resolution between the NES and the Game Boy, the handheld on which the Kirby series began. He remarks that apparently, with this added screenspace, the character could fly over just about every obstacle it encountered, so he considered removing the flying ability altogether. Eventually, however, he came up with a different solution, expanding the information panel at the bottom of the screen.

This restricted the vertical space, making the character look larger and also giving the team a place onscreen to display cute illustrations of each copy ability. It's a neat lesson on how decisions in video games are made, with almost everything you see onscreen being the product of conversations and endless problem-solving.

What game are you hoping Sakurai covers in the future? Let us know in the comments!