New Kirby title planned

According to a report at 1UP, the latest issue of Japanese magazine Nintendo Dream includes mention of a new Kirby game as part of its Nintendo staff Q&A column. No further details were discussed - not even plans for the format - but the news will nevertheless come as something of a surprise after Kirby creator Masahiro Sukurai resigned from his position at Nintendo first party HAL Laboratory in early August.

Kirby's last outings on current generation Nintendo hardware were Kirby Air Ride for the Cube (still not released in Europe), which sold reasonably well but was generally derided, and Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land on the GBA (review), which was a spruced up remake of the pink blob's 8-bit debut, Kirby's Adventure.

Although our money would be on a new 2D GBA adventure (that's what we'd like anyway), Kirby is a versatile character who has fronted all manner of games over the years - from the aforementioned racing and platform efforts to puzzle games like Kirby's Avalanche on the SNES (a rebadged Puyo Puyo) and Kirby's Block Ball on the Game Boy. Not to mention of course his appearances in the Smash Bros. series, which also fell under his creator's direction.