Kirby's Dream Land

""It's Mega-Maid! She's gone from suck to blow!""

Kirby sucks.

Of course I mean that in the most literal sense of the word. Kirby is an inhaling machine. While it's true that his first quest may have been easy as pie, that doesn't mean that it wasn't a great game. I received this game as a birthday present back when it came out. I was at first thinking, ''What on earth is this?'' Then I figured out that Nintendo was directly involved and I was good at it and it all went uphill from there. Kirby is not one of the first franchises that most people name first when asked to list their favorites, but is still a great game in its own right. Pick up the original Kirby adventure and I promise, it shan't disappoint.

You figured out that by ''suck'' I mean that Kirby does not reek of heavy piles of dung, but that he inhales oxygen profusely, right? Well, that's what the Kirby gameplay experience is all about. Kirby is trying to retrieve the Dream Stars from the evil King Dedede, who has stolen them and consequently is stealing what is essentially the life force from Kirby's people. Determined to save them, he's going to go through five different worlds in search of them, facing the obligatory boss at the end of each level in an epic battle to retrieve one of the five. Kirby's special power is that, despite looking the long-lost relative of some marshmallow somewhere, he can inhale enemies with a mighty sucking force and spit them out as stars to be used on the offensive. (Copying abilities hadn't been conceived yet.) It is with this singular ability and a few other minor ones that you're going to go out and beat King Dedede into the ground. Aside from a few drawbacks, this is one everybody should play at least once.

For the old grandpa Game Boy, KDL features some very lush environments. Games like this always have the required grassland surroundings as the first level, and this game does a good job with this one as well as a castle setting, some tropical islands, and a cloud world. All the sprites move around nicely with minimal slowdown, which I like. It tends to flicker a lot if you have too many on there at once, but this is never really a problem because the action moves at a steady pace that doesn't make the game very hard at all. I like the backgrounds and transition effects, even if they come off as cutesy (especially when coupled with the sparkly and shimmering sound effects). Overall, Kirby displays nice graphics in his debut. The bosses don't look threatening at all, just like things in his way that are more powerful than the other things in his way. HAL devotees will notice that the level 2 bosses are Lolo and Lala, each from those great puzzle games of the 1980s (Adventures of Lolo 1-3). Inside jokes like this and a few other graphical elements allow Kirby to take in enough energy to lift off the ground - literally and aesthetically speaking.

I've also always been impressed by KDL's control. Floating through the air is an easy task. You're not asked to perform it too terribly often, but when you are, hovering and sucking in air is easy and becomes second nature. It becomes entertaining to use this ability to float around, cheeks puffed out, looking for potential secrets. It gets a little sketchier when it comes to aiming stars at people, but that's an aspect you'll have to get used to since it's your only line of defense against Dedede's army. Jumping is a bit wonky whether your mouth is occupied with an enemy or not. Getting accustomed to things should take up the space of about five or ten minutes, maybe twenty if you're a bit slow upstairs or just plain dumb. It runs about normal for a platformer of this ilk and it gets the job done. I can't say that it's anything special, but at least it handles well.

As for the music and the sound, we've all been humming the Green Greens theme forever, and it still shows up predominantly wherever Kirby is seen today. You can think of almost any tune from the game, and I could hum at least a few bars of it. And I've owned this game since its release. It gets you pumped because of the several sixteenth-note runs and the fast moves the instruments make. The squeaks and the shimmers reinforce the fact that this game is supposed to look cute, and in fact, thanks to its gaping hole in the area of difficulty, these are two great reasons to target the game at kids. They'll get a kick out of it, and so will anyone who enjoys a reasonable platforming experience. Don't be surprised if you find yourself whistling the tunes the Game Boy puts out. They're very addicting, and you'll still be thinking about them years after you plug in the cartridge.

There's only one major hitch to Kirby's Dream Land, and that is that it is far too easy for anyone, including when my brother was six and he was able to beat it. He couldn't beat anything when he was six, so that shows you what a colossal yawn this game is in terms of difficulty. It gives one great satisfaction to beat any game. Fortunately, it comes with an Extra Game mode that is a lot harder and where the enemies move a lot faster, but still, you can't compare that to a game like Contra, which is still fifty thousand times harder on its own than KDL is with the Extra Game in place. If you want to own a classic, I'd suggest adding this to the carrying case. Curious folks not wanting to make a cash investment could probably borrow it from a buddy and be satisfied with it in a good thirty minutes or so. True, the replay value likely dips into the negatives, meaning there's nothing meaningful to discover even before the game's been beaten. So, I can't really recommend this game as a purchase, but if you received it as a gift, it won't be seeing the exchange counter for sure. Borrow it from someone if you don't own it, and remember that Kirby's a classic, and there's no denying that. He is one cool marshmallow.

Tickled Pink
--Great graphics for a relatively early Game Boy release
--Addicting sound
--Offers solid gameplay throughout

It Sucks
--Control can be a chore when jumping without floating
--Cutesy look might turn off some
--Not much to offer other than what you could gather from giving it one glance

Score: 9

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 08/07/02, Updated 08/07/02