The little pink puff turns 20 this year. That's somewhat amazing and scary at the same time. To celebrate the event, Nintendo has announced a re-release of several major titles for the Wii. Not bad for a franchise that was probably thought of as little more than a novelty when it first came out. The original Kirby, released in 1992 for the Game Boy, was the kind of cutesy, off-beat title HAL Labortories was known for at the time. After all, they made The Adventures of Lolo, which gets an amusing cameo in this title. Kirby, the little cream puff who inhaled more or less everything in sight, carried on that tradition. Unlike Lolo, though, Kirby has endured well into the 21st century. His best years were the early ones, but he remains a popular fixture in compilation games like Super Smash Bros. But how does the original hold up two decades later?
The original Kirby title, when you play it now, feels more like a trial run. A lot of the elements we identify Kirby with now, mainly the ability to copy enemies' abilities, was absent in the original. He inhaled enemies and spat them out at projectile speed. Several enemies like Kracko, Whispy Woods, and recurring antagonist King Dedede were all present and correct. The music, which sound tinny on that gray hunk of metal, is all there and is still kind of catchy.
Nevertheless, there are only five levels and none of them would take a gamer more than fifteen minutes. The game as a whole is an hour-long diversion, maybe more. Nothing in the game is particularly challenging. The AI is fairly basic and there aren't any real challenges apart from a few points in the final level that might give the experienced gamer some brief pause.
Kirby's Dream Land is available for the 3DS Virtual Console. Is it worth a playthrough? It's pretty cheap and you might get some fun nostalgic memories, but it doesn't have any real replay value. If you've played Spring Breeze on Kirby Super Star, you've basically played Dream Land, albeit an abbreviated version. HAL took the basic elements that worked in Dream Land and incorporated them into 1993's Kirby's Adventure, which remains the crown jewel of the franchise.
Oddly enough, even Kirby's Adventure has some fun with the original Dream Land by using some of the levels as a level at the very end of the game.
Verdict: If you're looking for nostalgia on your 3DS, it's not the worst buy in the world, though you'll get more value from another 1992 GB release in Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins. Other than that, there's no real reason to play when Kirby's Adventure got almost everything exactly right. Dream Land's claim to fame is it set the standard for what was going to come.
Score: 2.5/4
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Originally Posted by Viper
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