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Masahiro Sakurai Talks Kirby Victory Dance

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*victory music plays*

When you think about the most iconic characters of Nintendo, most would arguably talk about Mario, Link, Samus Aran, and Pikachu. But never forget that Kirby has been around since the original Game Boy days, and due to the characters malleable nature (in terms of both his body and his gameplay style), there have been MANY mainline and spinoff Kirby titles over the years. In fact, Kirby today is celebrating its 30th anniversary of life! And to celebrate, Masahiro Sakurai has gone and revealed one of the most important backstories of the characters history: the birth of Kirby’s victory dance.

Believe it or not, Masahiro Sakurai was actually the one in charge of creating the iconic dance on the original Game Boy title Kirby’s Dream Land. Small world, wouldn’t you say?

Anyway, when he was animating the dance, he asked the sound designer how many frames within the game he had to work with and the person…didn’t know. So, Sakurai went and grabbed a copy of the victory song and went to work animating it to the vision he eventually thought up.

Now, a fun little Sakurai note here is that you might be curious as to why the copy Kirby’s show up to dance with the main one. According to Sakurai…it was “more fun that way”. Yep, that’s definitely a “Sakurai moment” that fans have become used to over the years.

Of course, the Kirby victory dance would be iconic in various ways. Not just because of the sound byte that has been used in every Kirby game since, but the dance itself has become one that has been redone and modified based on the Kirby title. Including in the hit game Kirby and the Forgotten Land.

So as we celebrate 30 years of Kirby, be sure to do your own victory dance if you’re one of the fans who helped it get this far.

Source: Twitter

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