Nintendo Challenges Kids to Discover Their Own Super Abilities

Nintendo wants to inspire kids across North America to discover their inner superheroes with some help from the iconic Kirby^™ video game character. Starting today, kids who visit http://kirby.nintendo.com/superability will be invited to create drawings and descriptions of their dream Super Abilities, taking inspiration from Kirby’s Super Abilities in the new Kirby’s Return to Dream Land^™ game for the Wii^™ system. Their imaginative creations can be submitted to Nintendo and may be featured as part of a project to aid Starlight Children’s Foundation^™.

Launching exclusively for the Wii console on Oct. 24, Kirby’s Return to Dream Land features five new Super Abilities that are activated when the heroic Kirby inhales special enemy characters. For example, the Flare Beam Super Ability allows Kirby to deploy a ball of energy that can wipe out an entire screen’s worth of foes. Visitors to the site at http://kirby.nintendo.com/superability can download a Kirby coloring sheet and come up with their own Super Ability that they would use to help others. For added inspiration, kids can visit The Stacks at http://scholastic.com/stacks and take a “What’s Your Super Ability?” quiz. Participants can answer questions to determine which of the Super Abilities featured in Kirby’s Return to Dream Land would suit them best.

Kirby's Return To Dream Land

Kids’ completed Super Ability coloring sheets can be submitted via mail, email or fax. Nintendo and Scholastic will post select submissions to a virtual gallery on the Nintendo site, and some submissions will be featured at a special Oct. 27 unveiling at Miller Children’s Hospital Long Beach in Long Beach, Calif., to celebrate Nintendo’s sponsorship of an interactive Starlight Fun Center^™ mobile entertainment unit. Patients at the hospital will also be invited to use coloring sheets to create their own Super Abilities. Both Nintendo and Scholastic are dedicated to raising awareness about Starlight by encouraging children to help others.

Since 1992, Nintendo and Starlight have placed more than 7,000 Fun Centers in hospitals across North America. The ease with which Fun Centers roll right up to the side of young patients’ beds or anywhere in a hospital setting makes them the perfect companion for children who are nervously awaiting surgery, sitting restlessly during a long treatment or feeling lonely in their hospital room. The entertainment units include a flat-screen TV, a DVD player, a Wii system and a selection of fun video games.