Kirby's Dream Land

"Pretty good platformer but way too short"

Following on from the original NES game,Kirby came to the GameBoy with high hopes among his gathering of fans.What Nintendo came out with was a fun adventure but one that was quite possibly,the shortest Platformer ever!

Kirby,the pink pudgeball,is out on a quest to try and defeat King Dedede and recover the stolen Twinkle Stars.Without them,Dream Land would really be in trouble and even starve (why,I have no idea!).One thing that made this Platformer stand out from the rest at the time,was that Kirby could inhale his enemies and spit them out with great force at other creatures in order to kill them.Unlike the NES game,you can not gain any special powers from the enemies which is a big disappointment but was luckily corrected in the sequel.Each level is made up of several different areas which Kirby can access by either going through a door or using a Warp Star.There is also a mini-boss and a main boss in every level which you have to defeat to get a Twinkle Star.

The visuals in Kirby's Dream Land are great!They have that cute and cuddly feel to them-even the enemies!Some of the backgrounds are quite nice and the animation on Kirby is really cool espescially when he inhales an enemy as you see his body suddenly get very fat!

The sound is classic Kirby stuff.You'll grow to love the tunes very quickly and (maybe) even start humming them to yourself if you're that type of person.The music is generally very cheerful and bouncy as this game has obviously been designed with children in mind.However,this can lead to some problems...

Because this is essentially a kids game,Nintendo made the horrible mistake of making the game too easy!Now I'm not just saying it would be easy for an older gamer,no,even a 4 year old would have no trouble completing this.I first played Kirby's Dream Land when I was 9 and I beat it on my first go within half an hour!Did Nintendo completely forget the concept of making a game 'challenging' when they released this?Oh well,at least it's fun.You'll come back to it whenever you're bored as I sometimes do because it is a very fun and enjoyable game to play.There is a secret 'harder' mode as well so I guess it's not all bad.

Overall,I'd say Kirby's Dream Land is a fun Platformer but with no challenge whatsoever (You'll get through it with 1 life for God's sake!).It's got nice visuals and music but all the effort that has gone into these areas seems wasted when you consider how short the game is.A few more levels would have done no harm.Thankfully,Nintendo did release a sequel on the GameBoy containing everything that made this game great so I suppose this was at least a stepping stone for Nintendo.

Score
Gameplay: 9/10
Graphics: 8
Sound: 8/10
Lastability: 3/10
Overall: 7/10

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 07/01/01, Updated 07/01/01