Kirby’s Dream Land is the first game in the iconic Kirby series, originally released
on the Game Boy in 1992.
The game is simple, easy, and short, with the five worlds taking around 25 minutes to
beat.
According to the developers, the game was designed from the start to be something that
anyone could enjoy.
A casual game, if you will.
What makes the game so approachable is the powers afforded to Kirby.
Pressing up with allow him to inhale air, and float.
This makes falling down pits and dieing a near impossibility.
Second, nearly every enemy can be inhaled, meaning they are quickly defeated without
the need for melee or ranged attacks.
Once inhaled, Kirby can either digest the enemy, or spit it back out as a weapon.
So, Kirby is an overpowered alien, but there are other elements making this game rather
easy as well.
The enemies don’t put up much of a fight.
Many will happily follow their preset path without any concern for Kirby, at all.
Now, some will charge at the player, others have attacks, and the cannon’s are almost
indestructible, but generally speaking, there isn’t much in Kirby’s Dream Land to actually
threaten the player.
This carries through to the bosses as well.
But first, let’s talk about the structure of Kirby’s Dream Land.
There are four worlds to travel through, each broken into multiple segments, complete with
a mid-boss and an end boss.
The four worlds are Green Greens, Castle Lololo, Float Islands, and Bubbly Clouds.
Like the enemies, the mid and end bosses are usually lackluster as well.
For example, Poppy Bros. Sr is basic, just inhale the bombs and spit them back.
Lololo requires the player to inhale a box and spit it back.
Kracko Jr. is similar, inhale waddle doos, and spit them back at the boss.
The patterns are basic, avoiding damage is easy, and none of them provide an engaging
battle.
The end bosses pose a similar problem.
Wispy Woods drops fruit for the player to attack with, and doesn’t pose much of a
threat.
Lololo and Lalala are pushing boxes, which spell their demise, and Kracko drops waddle
doos, you get the idea.
Kabula is perhaps the only challenging end boss.
This boss encounter uses one of Dream Land’s power-ups, the Mint Leaf.
Now would probably be a good time to mention Kirby cannot absorb the power of a swallowed
enemy.
Instead, the power-up system is more traditional, with a few scattered about each of the stages.
The candy makes Kirby temporarily invincible, allowing him to defeat enemies with touch
damage.
The bomb will explode on impact with an enemy, complete with a nice blast radius.
The microphone is a screen clearing bomb.
The spicy food gives Kirby a temporary rapid fire flame attack.
And finally, the mint leaf offers Kirby air pellets, needed to take on Kabula.
Kabula plays like a traditional shmup boss, with the player having full freedom of movement
and the boss firing out tricky projectile attacks needing to be avoided.
With the cramped screen and erratic boss projectiles, it can be easy to lose a sense of rhythm and
start taking hits.
I’m not saying this is challenging for the right reasons, but it is a noteworthy difficulty
spike.
Rounding out the gameplay are health pickups, some which restore health completely and others
which restore a third of the life bar, and of course, extra guys.
This brings us to the final world, Mt. Dedede.
Apparently, Kirby’s Dream Land takes place in Dream Land.
King Dedede and friends raided Dream Land stealing food and sparkling stars.
Without the sparkling stars, the inhabitants of Dream Land couldn’t gather food anymore,
and they started to get hungry.
It is then up to Kirby to defeat King Dedede, gather the sparkling stars, and return the
stolen food to the populace.
Arriving at Mt. Dedede surely means the final showdown with King Dedede himself must be
right around the corner.
But before the epic battle, there is a boss rush.
This final segment plays like an abridged version of Kirby’s Dream Land.
The player makes their way through truncated versions of each of the four worlds, and then
fights the four end bosses a second time.
Once this is accomplished, the player can enter the final door and take on the bad boy
himself.
Like every boss in the game, the goal is to inhale something, and fire it back.
In this case, King Dedede will drop stars after his hammer attack, or after his stomp
attack.
While again not difficult, this final boss will likely kill first time players.
There are patterns to learn, telegraphs and timings to master, and King Dedede is far
more aggressive than anything else featured in the game.
It is a fitting, and satisfying, end to the adventure.
Kirby’s Dream Land ends with Kirby ridding Dream Land of King Dedede, restoring the sparkling
stars, and returning the food supply to the Dream Landers.
So, Kirby is overpowered, easily dispatching most enemies, and his infinite float removes
most platforming elements from the game.
The bosses are easy and pose little threat.
And the game is short, easily being beaten in a single sitting.
There are few design elements to gloat about, it would be hard to point out any engaging
elements, and I’m hard pressed to pinpoint any clever moments.
On its surface, Kirby’s Dream Land is kind of mediocre.
But it the game is so mediocre, why is it so beloved?
Well, Kirby absolutely nails the subjective elements of a game.
For example, the entire game is what I would consider… charming.
In my opinion, charming is a terrible way to defend a game.
It is ultimately subjective and doesn’t speak to the quality of a title.
Rather, it’s a way to say one likes a game.
And I do like Kirby’s Dream Land, the game oozes charm.
Kirby is a likeable character.
He is just a chubby puffball with undersized arms and feet attached directly to his round
body.
The giant head and small features give him the appeal of just about any baby animal like
a kitten or puppy, which are almost always cute as hell.
The game’s lack of difficulty might also lead to its appeal.
As the designers intended, just about anyone should be able to beat Kirby’s Dream Land.
At the time of this video’s release, I have just marathoned the first four Zelda titles.
It was a grueling gauntlet which wiped me out mentally.
The games are longer and at times challenging.
And I have to admit there is an appeal to playing something more casual, something which
doesn’t induce stress or anxiety, and can be defeated in less than half an hour.
This too is subjective and doesn’t speak to the quality of Kirby’s Dream Land’s
design, but there is something to be said about the extreme playability of Kirby’s
first outing.
Lastly, the presentation is terrific.
This is a fantastic looking Game Boy game.
By 1992 developers seemed to have a firmer grasp on the hardware and what worked.
Rather than making everything small in attempt to offer a similar game field size as a traditional
television, designers seemed to accept the fact there was a lower resolution and create
titles and sprites that were normal sized, rather than tiny.
The result is detailed background tiles matching that of NES games, and large sprites filled
with details likes faces.
I especially appreciate how there is rarely large swaths of a plain color, but instead
subtle patterns are used to make the backgrounds feel detailed, but never cluttered.
Even better, the Super Game Boy has a built in color pallette for Kirby’s Dream Land,
displaying a light pink, peach, blue and purple rather than the default colors.
This allows Kirby to appear in his proper pink form, and the colors chosen work well
enough with the adventure’s overall tone, with the gentle colors matching the game’s
laid back nature.
This does mean foliage isn’t green, but as this is Dream Land, and not Earth, I don’t
find it detracts from the overall aesthetic, at all.
And then there is the soundtrack.
The opening tune in Green Greens is absolutely fantastic.
It is rhythmic and catchy and easy to hum, and the hook repeats with new instruments
allowing the tune to progress into an epic chorus.
All of the tunes follow this basic premise with super upbeat melodies, lengthy enough
tracks preventing fatigue, and an overall level of depth you’d expect from a Nintendo
published platformer.
Another charming aspect of Kirby’s Dream Land are the cutscenes.
Before each level is an animation with Kirby getting into mischief.
It isn’t much, but adds to the lore of Kirby being somewhat carefree and a little aloof,
maybe even harmless in a way, greatly adding to his appeal.
Kirby’s Dream Land also features a lot of little cutscenes showing how Kirby gets from
place to place.
I certainly would NOT call this a story by any stretch, but the little scenes most certainly
help the game feel more complete and greatly add to the overall polish the game possesses.
Still, charming characters, great graphics, an amazing soundtrack, and high degree of
polish don’t make Kirby’s Dream Land a good game, but it makes it likable for sure.
Kirby’s Dream Land does have an ace up its sleeve however.
Upon beating the game, an end screen reveals pressing up, A, and select on the title screen
will reveal a new adventure.
Doing this will unlock extra mode.
And extra mode addresses many of Kirby’s shortcomings.
This really should be called hard mode, because the difficulty is increased exponentially.
New enemies are introduced, old enemies have new patterns, some magic food is replaced
with pep brews meaning less vitality is available to the player.
Areas void of enemies now have enemies.
This coconut drops from a different spot in this vertical shaft.
But most importantly, depth is adding to the game play.
It is much more difficult to simply float through levels.
The player is now required to actually learn enemy behavior and not just press right and
suck everything up.
A brief pause to assess upcoming danger is needed, planning is needed to figure out how
to dispatch upcoming threats, and sloppy play is thankfully punished, forcing competent
play.
And best of all, the boss fights are actually challenging and engaging.
Poppy Bros. Sr. cannot be defeated, or hit, by standing still.
The player now has to use what has been criminally under utilized up to this point, the jump
button.
That right, Kirby can jump.
It is a seemingly pointless function for a character which can freely float about however
they choose.
However, Kirby’s vertical speed is vastly superior when jumping, compared to just pressing
up.
And the boss encounters actually utilize this mechanic.
The hard version of Kracko is awesome.
Kracko has three patterns.
A lightning attack, a charge attack, and a bomb attack.
What makes the boss great are the telegraphs.
The player is offered just enough time to determine what is about to happen, and then
react accordingly.
And the jump is just high enough, and just floaty enough, to avoid the charge attack
without taking damage.
Additionally, when Kirby inhales air, he can’t then inhale enemies.
So the player will need to jump to be sure they are ready to inhale a bomb quickly, as
they explode.
This jumping necessity carries over to Wispy Woods too.
Instead of just sucking up fruit, the giant tree also drops Gordos.
Again, the player is forced to jump over the spikes, not float over them, as one will need
to still inhale the fruit.
The patterns are absolutely brutal but the fight is intense and engaging, and a dramatic
improvement over the first incarnation.
Lololo and Lalala are made more difficult with their speed.
They move dramatically faster in extra mode, adding an element of timing.
The player has a brief window where they can exhale the boxes and hit the bosses before
they vanish.
Even King Dedede is improved, with his stomping attack now doing a much better job homing
in on Kirby, again requiring a much higher degree of skill and precision from the player,
making this final fight feel truly epic and a proper proper conclusion to Kirby’s Dream
Land.
Not everything is perfect though.
Kracko Jr. is chaotic and I’m not certain how the developers intended this to be defeated.
Similar to Zelda II, I did find sitting on the edge of the screen and taking advantage
of invincibility frames the only way to reliable defeat this guy.
Basically, if the player hits Kracko Jr. just before he collides into Kirby, Kirby won’t
take damage.
Perhaps this is what the designers intended, I can’t be certain, but learning the trick
took quite a bit of trial and error.
And then there is Kabula, that flying shmup boss.
The harder version of this boss, sucks.
The bullet patterns are far too erratic and fast for Kirby’s slow speed and this mostly
felt like a battle of attrition each and every time I attempted to defeat it.
It feels cheap and unfair.
This also altered how I approached the boss rush at Mt. Dedede.
Instead of doing it in order, I would fight Kabula first.
There was no sense in defeating the other bosses first, and then get a game over on
Kabula, only to repeat the process.
Thankfully, Kirby’s Dream Land has unlimited continues.
While this may not seem like a necessity on a game with just 5 levels, as there is a bit
of trial and error when it comes to learning some bosses, I do find it’s inclusion to
be necessary.
Even better, if a player does defeat the four bosses in the boss rush and receives a game
over, they won’t have to start over, they can continue on with King Dedede, again a
thoughtful addition.
Of course once one masters extra mode the continues don’t really matter, but it made
practicing for a recorded playthrough far less tedious.
In addition to continues Kirby does a few others things well, too.
While most enemies can be defeated by inhaling them, some must be defeated with a projectile
attack, adding some much needed variety to the basic combat.
The swimming is also thankfully normal, meaning the player can use the d-pad to navigate the
water rather than relying on pressing and releasing the action button to ascend and
descend, something which is common place now, but still not standard back in 1992.
I also like how there is verticality to some of the stages, helping this not be a straight
forward left to right affair.
Despite being a short game, the developers were still trying to pack different levels
types into the adventure and it shouldn’t go unnoticed.
There are plenty of secrets to find as well, some being obvious, and others being far more
vague or downright obtuse.
It makes replaying Kirby’s Dream Land a worthwhile endeavor.
Finally, beating the game on extra mode offers a couple of additional rewards too.
The ending credits are expanded with an enemy scroll, and there is another title screen
code for config mode.
Config mode lets the player make the game even more insane, and there is a sound test,
if one is into that sort of thing.
It might not seem like much, but even AAA titles like Sonic offered virtually nothing
for going out of one’s way to complete the game.
And it’s thanks to these additions that Kirby’s Dream Land feels like a complete
and worthwhile title.
I do feel like the designers did an admirable job making a game that could be enjoyed by
everyone, while still offering an experience that could appeal to a veteran crowd.
Extra mode really is Dream Land’s saving grace.
I don’t want to oversell Kirby’s Dream Land though, some enemy patterns are far too
dense, Kabula is a bad boss, and the enemy placement can occasionally be suspect.
The power-ups also feel underwhelming and extremely situational.
They just sort of exist as a one-off for a particular segment and don’t add any depth
to the gameplay.
There is no way to strategically use them, they are just sort of… there.
But the extra mode bosses are an absolute treat, offering tough patterns to learn and
requiring quick reaction times to defeat, something often missing in even the beloved
Mario franchise.
They really are the high point in the adventure and if one has never experienced extra mode
before, I seriously recommend giving it a try, I think one might be surprised at just
how much more challenging and engaging the game becomes.
And that challenge and added engagement really pushes Kirby’s Dream Land over the top,
from mediocre and charming, to legitimately good.
Combined with the excellent presentation, in terms of the visuals, soundtrack, and high
degree of polish, it is no wonder the game continues to receive high critical acclaim
from critics and gamers alike.
Add in some responsive controls, a delightful soundtrack, excellent sprite and tile work,
a surprisingly good Super Game Boy color pallette and Kirby’s Dream Land is a worthwhile title
for fans of Kirby or even side scrolling platformers at large.
While not a great game, it is most definitely, a good one.