Now, for those of you who don’t know, Kirby’s Dreamland was the first Kirby game,( but it was not until Kirby’s Adventure did we see where the series would become as we know it today. What do I mean by this? Well, Kirby does not have the ability to copy to powers of his enemies. While looking back this may seem completely bizarre, don’t let this game fool you as Kirby’s Dreamland still has some punch…or suck. Yes, Kirby can still absorb and shoot his enemies and he can still float in the air. Kirby games have always have had responsive controls and this game is no slouch in this category. There is never any slowdown, even when character sprites litter the tiny screen and Kirby himself seems to glide with the ease due to what would be the start of line of simplistic control systems. In addition, Kirby can still find power-ups which allude to certain abilities that Kirby will get in Kirby’s Adventure: the microphone which kills all enemies on stage, the mint leaf which allows him to fly faster and shoot puffs out of his mouth without complete deflation, spicy food which causes Kirby to spew fireballs and a lollipop which makes Kirby invincible. Still, these powers are short-lived as none last for more than thirty seconds. But despite the lack of powers, Kirby’s Dreamland is still a full-fledged Kirby game.
The stages in this game are classic Kirby: enemies hobble towards you, jumping, flying and squirming into you, and try to knock you out. There are giant gaps to fly over, walls of blocks you must break through, and inventive mini- and regular bosses which have predictable patterns that are easily exploited to win. At the end you find yourself fighting King Dedede, who has stolen all the food from the denizens of Dreamland, and beating him means you heave completed the game. Maybe short and easy, but think of game as a tech demo for what would later become Kirby’s Adventure.
The entire game has that stenciled look that all 2D Kirby games have, which at the time seemed really original against the other titles on the platform. The enemy sprites were varied, each with their own unique design and mannerisms. Contrary to later games in the series (like Kirby Crystal Shards), these enemies were not so cute that you felt bad for killing them, nor ugly enough so that they didn’t fit in with the level design (I guess black and white 8 bit graphics aren’t as cute as there color/hi definition counterparts). Kirby didn’t have much personality at this point, beyond the cut scenes at the beginning of each level; still, the vacuum of air and the puff of exhaled wind gave him a sort of charm as their sounds resonated clearly even with the now dwarfed hardware capabilities of the Gameboy. It is the first game we experienced Wispy Woods with its now well-known tree boss, the familiar enemies such as Waddle Dee are present, King Dedede is still as laughably silly and yet slightly menacing and the stages are all whimsical, what a dreamland should really be. The music was composed by now longtime Kirby composer Ishikawa Jun and it was here were Ishikawa presented the delightfully, but not annoyingly, catchy tunes that we would associate with Kirby for years to come.
The game is only five levels, allowing even the youngest and most inexperienced players to breeze though this title in under two hours, but that is what Kirby is: a true game for beginners (even my grandparents have played and beaten Kirby’s Dreamland). (Sweet.) Kirby games have always had a simplistic control scheme that is almost instantly embedded into the heads of those who play his games. There is never a point in any Kirby game when you have to memorize a code or pull off an unbelievably complicated move to progress. Instead, it’s the sheer ease of getting Kirby from A to B coupled with the games’ adorable design that has kept them in our hearts for years. That is the exact idea when Sakurai Masahiro created Kirby (although Kirby wasn’t his first idea).
Kirby was originally a fill-in sprite to be removed later for another character model, but as the development of the game continued, Sakurai had become so enamored with his original design that he decided to keep the marshmallowy munchkin. In addition, the white Kirby box art for both the cartridge and box for the American version were due to an argument between Sakurai and Miyamoto as Sakurai wanted Kirby to be as we know now (Pink), while Miyamoto desired him to be yellow.
I have always believed that people defend what is familiar to them, so we all are naturally biased when we look at these pictures of Kirby. Still, I don’t think you could go wrong with either one.
As you might know (or it have been pointed out to you by numerous people on the internet), most games that have the E rating now are cakewalks compared to the games of older generations (specifically NES, SNES and Genesis). The Kirby series, for most, has been a way to ease younger players into videogames, and why wouldn’t you want your kids to be playing with the adorable plush ball of happy? (wow…that was a sentence a friend once used to describe Kirby, it is so bad)However, Kirby’s Dreamland had added a slight incentive to those who wanted an extra challenge. Once you beat King Dedede for the first time you were given a code (Press Up, Select and B) and were treated to a harder difficulty. The levels are the same but now you must play with half your health, and a different array of harder enemies on top of an already increased number of them. These new enemies had a more aggressive programming and were harder to beat, giving what was a fairly easy romp through the game into a more intense one. Now, to tell you the truth, when I first unlocked this stage it was by accident. I had beaten the game before but always restarted the Gameboy rather than wadding through the credits. I was, like a child, mashing the buttons and excited by another game of Kirby. When the game began I was puzzled that I only had half my health bar, and later on in the level when I got my ass handed to me I began to get insanely frustrated. I wondered why a game I had beaten by that time ten times before was now insanely hard. Still even after I learned about the code for the game I continued to play it. Honestly, I considered this game to be my Mega Man or Contra: a game I constantly played until I mastered it. Looking back and playing it now, the game, while slightly irritating in this mode, is not very hard compared to the aforementioned games (but it is still fun).
I know most of you have played a Kirby game but the reason I wrote this review is just to tell you of a game that is near and dear to my heart (wow I am tearing up as I type this). It really reminds me of my childhood and although I am not the oldest nail on the board (I am not the best at allusions) I still feel a need to look back, to know what I have done, so that I know where I have come from, feel proud of my accomplishments and make the road ahead a little easier. Maybe I am too much of a softy, and maybe there can something to be said about being passionate about something, but I love playing videogames, and there is something to be said about that some other time (wow that last sentence has some baaaaaaad grammar and was extremely cheesy).
As always I hope this was a good read.
-AceofOpus
