Kirby's Dream Land

Tumbleweeds? #

Hello! Yes, I’m still alive. Um, maybe I played this game uhh… almost a year ago. And then I played it again, and forgot to review it, so I played it a few months later so that I’d still have a recent opinion of it instead of trying to go from memory. And then I forgot to review it again, and then just kind of neglected this game review blog. I guess I had a realisation that like everything else in my entire life, I’m overthinking it. Not all games even deserve more than a few paragrphs.

But this one does deserve quite a few paragraphs. It’s a game that’s completable in under an hour, so might as well just play it one more time.

Overview #

So that’s the first thing about Kirby’s Dream Land. It is short. Also very simple. Back then, the idea of having different abilities just wasn’t invented yet. It just wasn’t a thing in the sociopolitical climate at the time. Humanity had not advanced that far. Also, none of that was probably the reason, it’s just that they hadn’t worked out that was a really good idea yet. You also don’t have a slide attack, which is… well I guess that doesn’t matter unless an enemy is already right next to you and you’re too close for the inhale to start up in time but if you’re thinking of Kirby like a fighting game and worrying about frame data, well I dunno what to tell you. Maybe it’s just me and that tells me I’ve accidentally lost my ability to play games properly.

Um, anyway. Short is fine. Nothing wrong with being short. I’ll have you know I’ve talked to a short person in real life before. Also I’ve played a few shorter games, because it’s not like this is actually when the game was released and I have to pay $80 for it. Just has to be fun while it lasts.

Kirby’s Dream Land is also deliberately easy, by design. I guess I’d agree with that? I mean, it’s not like the game basically plays itself or anything, but I guess for the time, sure. I’d actually consider it kind of annoying/frustrating at times, because there’s no save feature because batteries cost money back in 1992, but if you do run out of lives and continue, it doesn’t make you start the whole game again. So that’s good.

But can’t you just fly over the top of the screen? How do you lose lives? #

No, you fucking memelord. Please play more than just the first level of a video game. This is like a level beyond thinking you can beat Sonic games by just holding right. Flying is just one thing you do. Look, I’ll give you a screenshot here. See that? How are you going to fly over that? It’s not precise enough to allow you to fly over the Scarfy and not activate it just like that. You do have to actually play the game.

Also, boss fights exist. I actually think Kracko is a lot easier in this game than any other, but maybe I was just doing great last night when I tried playing again. I still do think this game is easy overall but you still have to think about what you’re doing. I guess I dunno how else to compare/evaluate difficulty levels, from my perspective, I will maintain that 2/5 rating as above (note to self: Did I remember to put all that information above?). So it’s not one of those games that compensates for being short by being difficult, like some short people do. It is just what it is.

Dedede can still eat my entire balls. Fuck the goddamn Dedede fight. Even if you don’t get hit, which is actually not an unreasonable feat to accomplish and probably will be the outcome of trying more than once, you’re still just waiting around for him to actually use an attack that gives you a star that you’re in a position to actually inhale. It’s just annoying.

Ehhh… #

But that is the problem. There is just not much to it. You play the game, you beat the 5 stages, badaboom. It’s just a feeling of emptiness, like there was supposed to be a game there once you get past a tutorial, and then there wasn’t. Or maybe that’s just how I’ve been feeling lately.

It’s certainly not a terrible game. It’s functional. It looks nice enough, the GBC will automatically give it a colour palette that works well enough, it sounds nice, it… has framedrops a lot, like when you have the mint leaf, and I feel like that’s not an inherent limitation of the platform and I want to see how Dream Land 2 handles, but it’s not unplayable and it’s just how a lot of games are.

It’s just like… eh. What should I feel from this? It’s not like I can say I do not feel anything at all. There’s something there. Just not enough. I can’t even call it a waste of time either because it hardly takes any time. It’s just there. Honestly, this could be a game that you just play for the sake of playing a game, so that’s a plus.

No, the Extra Game does not help. It just seems like it’s the design of the game and adding more enemies to it doesn’t help. Having Whispy throw Gordos at you constantly also doesn’t help. It’s like they got offended by someone saying the game was too easily, took it personally, and said “alright well how about you go fuck yourself?” and put that in there and also I didn’t beat that whoops

Just what were they cooking? #

But one of the other nice things about this game is that it is made by a YouTuber by the name of Masahiro Sakurai. He must be a nice person, because he has a cat. I believe he’s known for some fighting game series these days that is a bit silly and should not be taken seriously, but that’s not important. What is important is that he’s made videos about the games. Also, it’s not illegal for me to link to stuff, so there you go. Let’s go through some of these points and see if he’s full of shit.

• “I just thought it would be fun if the player could use enemies. Why is that so fun, you ask?”
  No I did not ask that. Nobody questions that. Of course using enemies is fun. It’s just an inherent part of fun.

• “At first, I wanted Kirby to use his tongue to grab foes”
  Thank you for the horrifying mental image. I never want to read that combination of words again.

• Kirby can fly because it’s too harsh to lose a life for missing a jump
  On to the actual stuff about the design of the game. Yeah, I guess that’s fair enough. Could just not have pits to fall into, though? I dunno. I don’t recall that was something that happened to me.

• But also you can use this to fly over enemies, and it’s okay for it to be a bit easier, because the Game Boy screen is so small
  Now hold on a minute. You can just say it’s fine to make it easier, and that people have the option of defeating the enemies as normal if they don’t want to make it too easy. But leave the Game Boy’s screen out of it! It’s not that bad! Things fit on the screen just fine. That’s only really a problem if you’re moving too fast and can’t react to things that suddenly come into view, but Kirby doesn’t go that fast. That was not an issue I had.

• Accessible as possible to new players
  I guess? One of the many many downsides of being someone who enjoys gaming is that I do simply not have the perspective of someone new to games. I cannot have that perspective. I can’t un-play games. I can only imagine that like… yeah, maybe? Assuming they read the manual first, because we have the privilege as gamers of inbuilt knowledge that pressing A jumps and pressing B does some kind of attack in every 2D platformer, that sort of thing.

• Those who played it kept going back for more
  Welp.

I don’t think I would. I don’t think it counts that I’ve played this game 3 times now, as every time it’s just like… okay, let’s play it again. Maybe I don’t actually dislike it. Maybe I’m just being a bitch. Surely it’s actually a fun game, right? And then each time it’s just like… ehhhhh…

Sorry, kids. That’s all I really have for it. Again, I cannot un-play a game, so who knows if it’s just being spoiled by every other Kirby game, which are all good so far. Just can’t bring myself to like this one particularly.

The DX hack #

There is a DX hack available. Yep that sure does make the game appear in colour. Sure, why not.