Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land

"How could they do such a thing to Kirby?"

A lot of you will probably be upset when you see this review. Well, I know how you feel. I'm very upset to be writing this review. I LOVE Kirby, and I tried as hard as I could to like this game, but sadly... I just couldn't accept the fact that this broken pink puffball was the same awesome pink hero that starred in good Kirby games like Kirby Super Star. However, I must be honest and say that I really hate this game and believe that it's a disgrace to Kirby.

PRESENTATION: 8/10
All right! It's the same Kirby that we all know and love... and now he has a new game on the gameboy advance! Oh, wait, did I say new? It's actually a port of Kirby's Adventure on the NES. The whole "port" thing doesn't bother me personally, but I'm sure it disappointed a lot of people at this game's initial release. It turns out the latest Kirby game is actually just a remake of an old Kirby game.

What else can I say about this game? Well, you'll definitely be seeing Kirby, King DeDeDe, and Meta Knight in this game. It's Kirby. You gotta love him.

GRAPHICS: 10/10
This game is beautiful. The environments are pretty and colorful, the enemies are interesting, and I've never seen Kirby himself look so good! Kirby is very well-animated, and he performs each and every one of his moves with flare. However, this particular aspect of the game leads to one HUGE problem in the gameplay department, but I'll wait until later to talk about it. Anyway, I don't know what else to say other than Kirby games can't look much better than this!

MUSIC: 8/10
If you're a fan of Kirby, you should enjoy the music. All of the music in this game is very upbeat and happy, and there are even some remixes of old Kirby tunes in there for the retro fans. If there's anything bad about the music, I'd say that it's a little TOO upbeat and happy at times... even for a Kirby game.

SOUND: 9/10
I love the sound effects in this game. Where do I begin? Everything is great! Each sound effect fits the situation, even though none of the sound effects are realistic at all. Perhaps my favorite sound in the game is when an enemy dies. It explodes and makes a "SMACK!" sound. So, yeah, the sound effects are very good.

GAMEPLAY: 3/10
Why, Kirby? Why does your game have to be so... broken? That's what this game is. It's broken. Where do I begin? Are there any good points to speak of? Well, I guess I'll go over the basic scheme of the game... even though you should be familiar with it if you've played the NES version.

It's very straightforward, you pretty much just go through level after level with barely a break in between. There is an overworld, but there's really nothing to do in the overworld besides go through doors, play mini games that are scattered around, and grab some extra copy abilities.

About the copy abilities, you will find plenty of them in this game. Sword, wheel, fire, freeze, spark, cutter, etc. All your favorite Kirby abilities are in this game... well, except for Ninja... and Mirror... and Yo-Yo... but that's okay, we don't really need those abilities because every enemy in this game dies in one hit! That's right, just one hit.

Now onto the more negative parts of the game. This game is WAY too easy. I breezed through this game in under an hour and I didn't even get a chance to get good at it... if that's possible. Anyway, yeah, I went flying through this game and beat the whole thing without even trying. The bosses are especially laughable. I took every possible hit I could've taken from most of them and still won. As for others... they barely even attacked. Most bosses in this game will just sit around and let you hit them in the face. What's really funny is that the minibosses in this game are tougher than the actual bosses themselves.

I made the game sound like fun so far, but there is one aspect of this game that just ruins the entire thing by making it almost unplayable. So, what ruins this game? The CONTROLS!!! This game has the most slippery and unresponsive control scheme I've ever had to deal with.

The controls have several problems. Where do I begin? Well, Kirby is MUCH more slippery than he used to be. It seems like he's lost weight since his previous adventures, and that's not a good thing. After you let go of the control pad, Kirby will walk two full steps forward. He goes the same distance while in the air if you let go of the control pad. This is bad if you have to carefully maneuver through spiky tunnels or steep areas with lots of pits.

Now, at first I thought it was just my imagination that Kirby's controls are slippery, but no, it's true. I did a side-by-side comparison between this game and Kirby Super Star on the SNES. In Kirby Superstar, Kirby stops as soon as you let go of the control pad, but in Kirby: Nightmare in Dreamland, he stops a second after you let go of the control pad. This small flaw will seriously mess you up if you're used to the old-school Kirby games. Why did they do this to Kirby? His control scheme was fine before. Why did they have to make his controls so slippery? Oh, and there are ice stages in this game. They might as well be called unplayable because of how slippery the controls already are. You'll slide through the level, hit stuff along the way, and mysteriously make it to the end in one piece.

Another problem is a small one, but it has gotten me killed before. In old Kirby games, if Kirby falls for a long time and hits the ground, he lands on his hands and gets right back up. However, in this game, if Kirby lands from a long drop, he BOUNCES upon impact with the ground. And this bounce isn't a small one, it is quite significant. You'll often find yourself landing from a long drop and while Kirby would've just stuck to the ground in older games, in this one he will bounce forward or up and right into an enemy or other hazard. Once I had Kirby land like this and he bounced into some spikes on the ceiling and got killed! No joke.

Another small complaint I have with this game is that you can push up on the control pad to make Kirby fill his face with air and start to float. I seriously could've done without this... in fact, I'd much rather not have this option in the game. This has often gotten me hurt, killed, and annoyed. There were several moments in the game where I'd land in front of a door from a long drop. Of course as soon as I would land, I'd try to go through the door by pressing up, but whoops! Kirby did his little "bounce" move when he landed and while he was in the air above the door, I pushed up and caused him to float upwards. Most of the time it's just a minor annoyance, but just think what would happen if there were enemies or spikes above! The "up to float" option is also annoying when climbing ladders because if you're still holding up when you get to the top of a ladder, Kirby will float upwards.

Perhaps the worst problem with the controls (other than Kirby being slippery) is how unresponsive most of the moves are. This is due to how well-animated Kirby is. Yes, it got him a perfect 10 in the Graphics department, but graphics don't mean anything when a game plays this badly! Whenever Kirby performs certain moves, he has a little animation for doing so. The worst one is when he has the fire ability. Instead of just opening his mouth and letting the fire out, he first has to lean back and THEN lean forward and let the fire out. In short, he over-dramatizes his copy abilities.

This over-dramatization has gotten me hurt and killed many times. In older Kirby games where I could make Kirby breathe fire as soon as I pushed the button, I could easily get rid of enemies as soon as I saw them. Video games are all about having good reflexes, right? Well, in this game, if you see an enemy appear right in front of you and you push the button to breathe fire, Kirby won't do it until a second later... and by then it will be too late. I can't even tell you how many times I've been killed by enemies purely because I pushed the button but Kirby was still performing his "getting ready" animation.

I'd say that the enemies in this game are too cheap because of the way they just fly right at you before you can react... but notice that I used the word "react." There's no such thing as reacting in this game. You can push the button as soon as you see an enemy flying at you, but Kirby will always take too long to attack and end up getting killed during his little animation for attacking.

The small problem of Kirby over-dramatizing his moves has caused most of the copy abilities in this game to be practically useless. My favorite copy abilities in this game by far are Spark and Freeze. And what do those copy abilities have in common? The actual attack happens as soon as you push the button! Meaning that you can effectively defend yourself against enemies as soon as you see them.

OVERALL: 3/10
I apologize to fans of this game and to Kirby himself, but I just have to be honest. This game is horrible. Every time I play it, I cry because this game is such a disgrace to Kirby. I refuse to believe that the little pink imposter in this game is Kirby because the Kirby I know and love doesn't have such slippery and unresponsive controls... and he isn't so small in comparison to King DeDeDe and the minibosses. Anyway, if you like this game, then I just have to tell you one thing. Play Kirby Super Star on the SNES (NOT the remake! Play it on the SNES.) If you do that, then you'll see that Kirby: Nightmare in Dreamland is a slippery, broken, unresponsive disgrace of a game that makes Kirby look bad. I'd also suggest playing Kirby's Adventure on the NES, but I haven't played that one myself. Either way, I think it's safe to say that it's better than this shoddy remake.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 08/03/09

Game Release: Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land (US, 12/02/02)