The Cosmic Horror Of Kirby Star Allies

Cosmic horror can appear in very unexpected places and in atypical guises.  Prior to the last stage of the game, Kirby Star Allies is a side-scrolling platforming/puzzle game about how Kirby collaborates with various enemies to progress, focusing on friendship (very minimalistic friendships.  For the last boss, the game mostly shifts: a group of individuals devoted to reviving a sort of archetypal dark lord succeeds, summoning a being called Void Termina that is fought mostly in a third-person shooter format.  Void Termina is certainly eldritch in the scope of its power, as a being that allegedly seeks to destroy the cosmos, functionally similar to the likes of Cthulhu in more conventional, overt cosmic horror of the Lovecraftian variety.

It is not even that the colorful visual style, the character design for Kirby and friends, and the music keep the game from delving into cosmic horror at the most literal level, because this is untrue.  Only the presentation and atmosphere of standard cosmic horror is absent.  At a conceptual level, this is a cosmic horror setup complete with an apocalyptic cult, a confined, hidden, or slumbering eldritch entity, and the threat of supernatural destruction if this being is released/awakened.  If the tone was different, along with any resulting adjustments to the game's presentation, and Cthulhu or some other such being was substituted for Void Termina, it would be very difficult to miss the cosmic horror elements.

The cute aesthetic and the theme about friendship literally helping Kirby and his companions overcome an enemy like Void Termina change none of these elements.  They are present!  But Kirby Star Allies is a game primarily focused on an animation style presented as adorable and on collaborative friendships, even between former opponents, delivering the universe from danger.  Only closer to the end do the cosmic horror aspects become fairly apparent.  Still, they would be easy to miss if someone is not already aware of/exposed to this subgenre of horror, precisely because of the aesthetic and the almost frivolously nonspecific exploration of friendship.

No one would be irrational for not noticing this, since recognizing the parallels requires familiarity with the fundamental concepts of cosmic horror (at least Lovecraft's brand of it) and not just with logic and the individual game itself.  But no matter how easy it would be for some to never notice anything more than a grand boss at the end of a lighthearted game, Void Termina absolutely has the role of a Lovecraftian-type entity that only makes its appearance in the grand finale after the right conditions are brought about in part by the efforts of a powerful group set on introducing chaos or annihilation.

While cosmic horror is not necessarily Lovecraftian in particular, the finale of Kirby Star Allies does indeed feature subtle Lovecraftian cosmic horror.  Cosmic horror certainly does not have to include tentacles, underwater cities, or other more conventional visual trappings of Lovecraft's own components as emphasized in media inspired by his works.  Kirby Star Allies has none of these exact trappings, but its final fight showcases how versatile the subgenre is.  A pink, spherical character that can befriend enemies by throwing hearts at them does not exclude the manifestation and defeat of an eldritch horror!