26 comments

[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 55.2 ms ] thread
As someone who has never played these games I would be interested in screenshots of how these assets look in context in-game.
FYI they're supposed to "pop" or look out of place in the game so that you can easily see them amongst the mayhem
Wow TIL about Mont Blanc and about Tempura Soba. Both are delicious prospects.

Also I’m very entertained by the ‘big bonus foods’ - that hamburger is ridiculous.

Also hugely popular in German speaking Switzerland under the name of Vermicelles.
That "cabbage" is clearly a lettuce.
This is the same for Tomodachi games, isn't it?
This kinda of article is exactly what the internet was made for. More of this, less AI
(comment deleted)
I've always thought this was inspired by the depiction of food in earlier arcade games like Bubble Bobble.
And (Kirby's) Gourmet Race with its food sprites, the clear ancestor of all the Kirby racing games... and from the same designer.

Even if its sprites are not photo-realistic, I am bit surprised it was excluded from TFA.

> I've seen a few folks online remarking about the “JPEG” or “PNG”-like quality of the images

What do they mean by this?

Isn't it about compression artifacts?
The article misses the "Super-spicy curry" item that appeared in Brawl (and maybe Air Ride?). I think that's also a billboard.
> I paid $50 plus shipping on eBay for this PNG. This is the closest I'll get to NFTs.

Buying a cartridge of an old game just to preserve a non-blurry copy of the sprite. Now THAT's dedication.

> In the process I also learned that the cover of Kirby Air Ride changed between the Japanese and international releases. The Japanese cover art features a smiling happy Kirby where the international cover has Kirby with a furrowed brow and serious look.

This is not the first Kirby game to have its cover art changed to look more serious and "gritty" for the US release; in fact, TV Tropes named a page after this phenomenon, and Kirby Air Ride is currently the featured page art at https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AmericanKirbyIsH... (caution, TV Tropes will consume your free time, only click when you have a few hours to spare).

P.S. Since the link chopped off half way through the name of the wiki page, I'll just mention that the page is titled "American Kirby is Hardcore".

> Have you ever noticed that the food graphics in Super Smash Bros. and Kirby Air Riders is flat “billboarded” stock images of food?

I have not... A video showing what it's talking about would have been a good addition to this article.

A few screen shots of the sprites in the game would be helpful. Did I miss any links in OP?
As an avid Smash player since the N64 days, I love how specifically niche this piece is. Please write a follow-up article about the health benefits of eating nothing but a Super Smash Bros based diet broken down by version.
Small error: the "Large foods" image section has steak but no fruit basket, while the list includes fruit basket but no steak.

Great article though!

Great eye to detail! Thank you: ill fix this when I get home :)
article contains the best chart in the world