I can’t quite remember if my first experience with Kirby was with the N64 Smash or if it was Kirby 64 The Crystal Shards.
Crystal Shards was definitely the first purely Kirby game I played. At the time I had no idea who any of these characters were. Color me surprised when I learned that folks like Ribbon and Adeline weren’t consistently recurring characters in the franchise.
I still haven’t played that many Kirby games, but I’ve got a nice number under my belt. Crystal Shards, Nightmare in Dreamland, Super Star Ultra, and Planet Robobot is I think the full list that I’ve played. (Also any game that was in that anniversary collection that was on the Wii.) I wanted to get Squeak Squad, but that ended up never happening.