Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land

"A great buy for travelers"

Fun Factor: 9
Kirby games are fun. This is no different. There are 7 worlds, each with 6 levels and a boss at the end. There is an added boss rush mode for people who liked the bosses the best, and more importantly, there is a ton of abilities to absorb. For the obsessive gamer, there are secret switches in most of the levels for you to find and hit to reach 100% completion. It pretty much caters to everyone.

Music: 8
The music on GBA's is usually pretty annoying, but you almost always have to have it off because of outside circumstance. Kirby is different. Despite the outside circumstances, check out the sound test every once in a while to hear some really great tunes (some of them, anyway). The sound quality is still bad, though, so it isn't THAT great.

Replayability/Extras: High
There are loads of extras, which is the reason to replay. Of course, there is reason enough to play it again just for fun, but there is a boss rush mode, a new extra mode, where you have half health, and the ability to play as Meta-Knight. It's pretty cool. There are also three addictive, yet highly simple reaction/timing games.

Link Play: Enabled/Good
You can link up for EVERYTHING, including extra mode play and meta knight play. Unfortunately, the game doesn't really lend itself to link play. It's primarily for playing alongside your little brother, who isn't good at the game, or helping each other out with boss rush mode. You could also play the little mini games, which can be fun.

Tilt: Kirby is cool
Kirby is a cool guy. Who else can fly FOREVER (not some cruddy two or three jumps), suck up enemies and absorb their abilities, or even spit enemies at each other?! It's like what eating contest champions always wanted to be when they grew up, and he can fly. On the other hand, he's pink. But you must shrug these things off.

Remake?: You tell me
I've heard it was a remake of some NES game, but I can't remember which one or why. I never played it. Therefore, this game added 50 new levels, 89 bosses, and 32,768 new enemies (8000 in hex!). Great.

Buy or Rent?:
Buy. I don't even think you can rent GBA games - in any case, you'll want to rent it for car trips.

Difficulty: Easy
It's not hard. But then, when you're passing the time on a road trip, or a school assembly, or something, you usually don't want hard games. Kirby isn't. It's easy enough to prevent real frustration, but for the hard core fans out there, a boss rush feature is added that is 10x (maybe more) harder than the real game, and an extra ode where you play like normal, but with half health. That's for those who just find the game too easy, I suppose.

Length: Appropriate (5 or 6 hours, [plus replays)
This game has helped me through many a car/plane ride, and isn't that what the GBA is for? YES. Although the game itself is short (it took me 5 hours to beat it the first time), it's long enough to last a car ride enjoyably.

Average Cost: 20 bucks. As far as I know.

Overall: 9
I can't think of a reason to give this game a bad grade, or even a mediocre grade, with the way it's treated me so far. It's never done me wrong. Of course, I can't give it a 10, it didn't touch me. A very good game, none the less, and a worthwhile buy.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 04/13/03, Updated 04/13/03