Welcome to a new edition of Retro Corner Reviews and we continue going over the Game Boy games from NSO with Kirby’s debut title. To say the Pink Wonder started under the radar is an understatement considering he didn’t debut on a console. Instead, Kirby started simply on GB and his adventure was designed similar to Super Mario Land. Despite the Star Warrior getting a much larger game on the NES to follow up this adventure, some ideas are still present here. Funny enough, the main games are not what got me started on this series but rather the spinoffs. It started with Dream Course on Super NES and then Star Stacker on GB that somehow found a home in my collection. Then in 1997 I purchased Kirby’s Dream Land 3 for Super NES after remembering the time spent with previous releases. However, my interest in the series peaked when Kirby 64 was released followed by Nightmare in Dreamland on GBA. Then the Anime aired in 2002 at such a perfect time is what truly sold me on the little guy. Another funny thing about this is how my angst teen self didn’t see Kirby as too cute to play when similar thoughts were made towards Animal Crossing. That is why being a teenager is often a person’s weird time in their life because contradictions are made by one’s naïve young self. The theme is about the self-proclaimed King DeDeDe and his minions stealing all the food in Dream Land. Now, Kirby must take on King DeDeDe to save Dreamland from a food shortage. Gameplay When it comes to the genre, the series follows the usual formula between jumping from platforms, fending enemies off and reaching the end. However, Hal Labs used newer mechanics that makes this game completely different compared to Mario, Sonic and Mega Man. By now many are fully aware of Kirby’s abilities even if they never played any of the games. Basically, he swallows enemies and spits them out as projectiles to defeat the baddies. The first Dream Land title obviously is missing another patent trait. The Pink Wonder can’t use an enemy’s ability as this mechanic is absent for good reason. It was the first game after all and oftentimes developers don’t come up with these patent abilities at the beginning. It doesn’t break the gameplay considering the short length of five stages. We will need to play Spring Break on Kirby Superstar (basically a remake of this entry) to enjoy a variety of special attacks. Along the way Kirby is able to use temporary power ups like a microphone that has him scream enough to destroy all enemies on screen. Even an invincibility lollipop candy will give him the usual power to plow through those baddies. Now, the only feature that makes this similar to Mega Man is Kirbo has a health bar that depletes when taken damage. You can also restore health by eating fruit like the famous Max Tomato or water bottles found in various parts of the levels. Despite the copy ability being absent here there are still powerups to use through the stages. The first caption shows Kirby using the Microphone as his screams will literally destroy all enemies. Castle Lololo is the only place you will find it but even then, this is one of the staple power ups to appear here. The next caption shows the boss battle with Kaboola who is a souped up cannon that shoots cannonballs at Kirby. As mentioned already this battle was interesting due to playing nearly like the shooting stages in Mario Land. The studio would eventually go back to this gameplay style in Superstar and to an extent in Kirby 64. On a side note, the first caption is me playing this on the Super Game Boy. The second image is from recording the gameplay on the Game Boy Player for GameCube. It’s no surprise that the GBC/GBA systems were able to replicate the color of Kirby and his world better than SGB. Where is on SGB, the shades of purple and pink colors still do a good job representing the theme for its time. The next wave of systems takes this further by using proper hues for the visuals with coloring Kirby pink and using yellow for shading. The first four stages each have a boss to contend with and once defeated moves the player to the next one. Another thing that holds up is how each boss has unique challenges to the other. Lololo and Lalala push blocks in a horizontal way forcing the player to wait until they pass to hit them from behind. Whispy Woods has the same usual offensive of using apples to drop from his branches while Kirbo utilizing them as projectiles to attack the tree. Now, Kracko the spiked cloud with an eye has two phases where you face the thing as a mid-boss and then later in its full form. The third boss of Floating Islands probably had a unique challenge out of the five—To say this felt like those vehicle stages from the first Mario Land was the biggest achievement of the game. It is a fast shooting cannon that flies in the sky and Kirby has to blast him. That is quite a shame the gameplay style used here is for one area only instead for a couple of stages. The last level is DeDeDe’s Castle which acts as a gauntlet to fight four previous bosses before facing the actual King. Rating: 9.0/10 Graphics/Presentation By 1992, the developers were starting getting used to the hardware when compared to early releases that showed simplistic visuals. While the graphics at that point weren’t at the system’s peak yet, KDL along with Metroid II and Mario Land 2 showed absolute promise. The series always used a lighthearted cartoon design to illustrate the silliness of this world. Kirby's simple but quite effective design is what separates him from your typical hero. Unlike later entries that gave the little guy some personality — using goggles when swimming — here his only trait is inhaling and blowing himself up to float. Of course, we can’t forget his happy dance when clearing a level. The enemies also got a bit of personal traits like Waddle Dees and Does floating and skipping. There is your standard canon folder of normal creatures of Cappies, animals and Poppy Brothers throwing bombs. Then we move on to the strange enemies since you can’t have a Nintendo game without them. Now, the bosses saw the best designs here when a massive tree named Whispy Woods and Kracko, a spiked cloud stands out. Not only did they have interesting concepts, but each one matched the location of the themed stages. Of course, we come to DeDeDe who is literally a large arrogant penguin type character. It was always enjoyable to see him attack the Pink Puffball to the point he was even trying to copy his rival’s sucking ability. Then when we factor him throwing a tantrum after credits from defeat gave this upper tier villain all the personality needed. One of the best areas to capture the enchantment of Dream Land was Bubbly clouds. The first image has Kirby using his float ability to reach a door to the next part of the level. Here it shows floating platforms that have designed pillars and star filled backgrounds as the crescent moon looms in the sky. It doesn’t get any more magical than that which is why the series has you keep coming back. Here is a hint and the moon is actually a doorway to a secret area that has several healing items to use. The second image shows Kracko (Bubbly Clouds’ boss), which is a spiked one eyed cloud that shoots lightning. Its design has the most uniqueness because it fits the area and Kracko is downright weird straight out of a fever dream. When one thinks of a bad guy, it’s not a concept that a person taking psychedelics would construct in their minds. That is the reason Hal Labs and Nintendo are geniuses since only they could design the weirdest ideas possible and make them work. Despite the limited stages even compared to Mario Land 2, Hal Labs was able to keep up with R&D1’s detailed environments. It truly looked great to see a fantasy world come to life that felt like you entered a dreamy place. There are the usual places like Green Greens and Castle Lololo that would appear in the Mario series. Now, the areas that really bring out the theme of this world even more, are Float Islands and Bubbly Clouds. Float Islands represents a dream where you retreat to something anyone wishes they could do most of the time. Bubbly Clouds brings that enchantment out of Pop Star in many ways. It starts out above the clouds but as the player progresses floating pillars and space filled skies with stars and a crescent moon appears in the background. The OST does add to the stages’ themes by the music sounding charming and magical. My personal favorites were Castle Lololo, Float Islands and Bubbly Clouds due to providing those enchanted tones. While the space and tropical songs were replicated through the series in various remixes, Castle Lololo never received much attention. Aside from that one version from the anime is the only time a remix appeared. We can’t forget the battle theme when Kirby faces DeDeDe that truly felt like two titans were going class. For such a short list of tracks present does a fantastic job hitting on all notes. Rating: 9.0/10 Features/Content Following the standard R&D1 set with the first Mario Land, Hal Labs also gives this release extra content. However, this studio takes it further by allowing the players to unlock a harder mode akin to a second quest. By pressing A, Up and Select on the title screen will enable a hard mode without beating the game first. That shows they learned how to take things a step farther from a previous studio’s work. The difficulty simply changes enemies around while at the same time they move much faster. Having this mode does help out for us Golden Age Gamers considering the game is quite easy. Of course, there is also a debug to unlock that is enabled by pressing B, Down and Start on the title screen. It lets us enable how many health points Kirby has in his energy bar and to access the sound test to hear the OST—That’s right kiddies this is how us Golden Age Gamers use to listen to our game music because we didn’t have your fancy YouTube or Spotify. We even wasted our four double AA batteries if it meant playing our games and listening to their music. Thankfully the Super Game Boy came out a few years later which nullified wasting our batteries. I mean, not only did we get to play the game on TV in color but to listen to the soundtracks on a loop. Despite the number of levels not being of the same caliber as in Kirby’s Adventure, the extra hard mode does make up for this. Rating: 8.5/10 Similar to the ideas EAD did in Mario and Zelda; Kirby having a second quest follows the blueprint to a T. The left image depicts enemies of Koozers and Flotzos replacing Brunt Burts and Squishies on Float Islands from the normal mode. Hal Labs took this concept further by changing the placements rather than putting simple enemies that moved faster. The original SMB on NES simply replaced Goombas with Buzzy Beetles that moved fast while Dream Land changed the baddies around. Another feature unlocked using a code is the debug menu that has you alter the stats of Kirby. Want to rev up the challenge even more well this factor allows the player to have the little guy start in low health and less lives. I also love how they included a sound test mode by that point Nintendo wasn’t doing such a feature in the other releases. Final Rating It is like Golden Age characters always seem to have great debuts as Kirby continued the traditions. The gameplay might be simple, but the mechanics used separate from the usual platforming we see from others. You are not stomping, spin dashing or blasting enemies through the levels but rather sucking them up and spitting the baddies out. The level design does follow a similar format to Mario when considering the Plumber started it all. However, this all comes down to how the character uses their gameplay mechanics. Visually Hal Labs knocks this out of the park by providing cartoon graphics to present the wacky world of Dream Land. Despite the lack of color, the enemies being weirdly designed with the intention and enchanted like environments gave it much personality—That is the very reason why it takes more than color to make a portable system good which is based on how great the lineup is. Unlike Metroid II, Dream Land follows the trend EAD (R&D1) set in giving the gamers extra content. Between a Normal and unlockable hard mode, sound test and debug to change stats is enough to get around the short length. Kirby’s debut title would send him into superstardom and later releases through the decade would only prove that. Gameplay: 9.0/10 Graphics/Presentation: 9.0/10 Features/Content: 8.5/10 Final Rating: 8.8/10 Great
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Retro Gamer has over 25 years of gaming experience and played many classics since the Golden Age. She has been an avid fan since the day the NES graced her life and changed it forever.
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