You wouldn't think it, but under that cynical shell, our pal Wanderer is actually a man who really likes him a Kirby game. The result: within 24 hours of finding out Kirby's Dreamland 3 is on Virtual Console, Wanderer is back with one of his longest reviews ever.
Apparently, it's "Games That Time Forgot" Month or Quarter or something over at Nintendo's Virtual Console division. After bringing us StarTropics II last week, one of the last NES games, they're going for Kriby's Dream Land 3, the last first-party SNES game.
You could be forgiven for not realizing this game exists. Kirby himself only really became a household name due to the original Smash Brothers. Before that point, he existed in console limbo, only appearing on systems when no one was paying any attention to them at the time. The original Kirby game, the first Dream Land, appeared in 1992 on the Game Boy as a very, very basic platformer, one of several thousand that came out for the system, and got mediocre reviews.
Kirby's Adventure on the NES was the first game where Kirby began using his now-standard gimmick of inhaling and swallowing enemies to gain their powers, but it was also one of the last NES games. The SNES stole its thunder, and surprisingly few people played it. The next game, Kirby Dream Land 2, came out in 1995 on the Game Boy, which places it squarely in the middle of the nebulous period of time where no one cared about the Game Boy and the system was drowning in crap, before Pokemon arrived and subsequently took over the planet.
Dream Land 3, on the other hand, may be the only Kirby game to get overshadowed and thusly almost ignored because of another Kirby game. Kirby Super Star came out in 1996 and sold very well in Japan, despite the beginnings of gaming's CD-ROM era. When Dream Land 3 came out a year later, it was a more traditional sort of platformer, as opposed to Super Star's minigame collection, and some reviewers raked it over the coals for it. At the same time, Dream Land 3 came out in November of 1997, ten months after Final Fantasy VII conquered the world for the PlayStation. It's a wonder anyone knows it exists.
Once Kirby appeared in Smash Brothers (and I can only figure this happened because Smash designer Masahiro Sakurai is also Kirby's creator), gamers rediscovered the character and dug his games back up. They all tend to follow a similar formula: they're bright, colorful platformers that are great for kids or new gamers, with buckets of charm, and you'd have to be some kind of heartless bastard to say anything truly bad about them. At the same time, though, they're beginners' games, designed for children, and just about anyone older than six can blow through them in a weekend.
Dream Land 3 is not an exception to the rule. Like Kirby Super Star, the general hook of Dream Land 3 is just how many ways you can avoid playing as Kirby himself. Kirby can ride on friendly animals' backs, which gives you a variety of new powers depending on which enemy power Kirby himself has at the time, or cash in two health points to summon Gooey the blob, a companion that can be controlled by the AI or by a second player, and who looks like a drunken Dragon Warrior slime.
If all you want to do is blaze straight through to the end of any given level in Dream Land 3, nothing can really stop you. Between the abilities you get from enemies and the fact that you can fly, there's almost nothing in Dream Land 3 that's traditionally challenging.
The trick, though, is that every stage has a hidden requirement of some kind. Fulfill that requirement and you get a heart; get all the hearts, and you'll be able to fight the game's final boss. Some of these are much trickier than you'd think they'd be, since the game gives you very little in the way of actual hints about what to do, and some require you to use various animal companions. Figuring out what you're supposed to do or not do in any given stage is what gives Dream Land 3 what legs it has.
It's still not going to take you very long to beat, though. Further, the game requires the Classic Controller to play, which may be a deal-breaker for some people. Just the same, Kirby Dream Land 3 is charming, fun, and perfect for the audience it's intended for.
