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Kirby’s Dream Land 2 (Switch): COMPLETED!

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After completing the first Kirby’s Dream Land (again) recently, Nintendo were kind enough to put the sequel up on their Switch Online service for me to play. And oh my did they add a lot to the game.

In Kirby’s Dream Land 2, Kirby now has his trademark enemy ability duplication capabilities, but there’s also an overworld, way more levels, and three “animal friends” for Kirby to ride. A fish, a hamster and an owl, who have their own abilities – the owl can fly, the hamster can (of course) walk on ice without slipping, and so on. On top of that, though, they too take on the powers of enemies in varying ways. It means there’s much, much more to the game than the original, which is great.

It’s still very, very easy though. As in, I didn’t die once. Not that it really matters. And I didn’t access all the secret areas (many of which require you gaining a friend or power from another level first), which would add some difficulty. Fun though.

Kirby’s Dream Land (Switch): COMPLETED!

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I always forget that in this, the very first Kirby game, Kirby’s well known basic power of inhaling in baddies and copying their abilities doesn’t exist. Well, he can suck them in, but he can’t gain powers from doing so.

It’s also very easy. As in, I didn’t die. You can avoid a load of things by just flying over them or sucking them up, and there’s health pickups everywhere, so it’s only really the bosses that provide any sort of challenge. Except they don’t.

Not that any of that matters though, because despite the age, lack of difficulty, and limited nature of Kirby himself, it’s still a lot of fun to play through.

Kirby’s Dream Land 3 (Switch): COMPLETED!

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After the travesty that was Kirby 64, I thought I’d play this on the SNES service on the Switch. It’s been ages since I last did (and even then it was in Japanese), and I’d forgotten – and been tainted by 64 – just how good it looked. In fact, it’s probably the best looking SNES game. How did they go from this to that? Unpossible.

I love the crayony style of the graphics. Kirby 64 just looks so empty and bland in comparison.

I haven’t collected everything on every level, and I’ve not done all of the “missions” each one presents you with. so I presume there’s a secret extra world yet to come for when you do, but I beat a final boss and got the credits.

Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards (Switch): COMPLETED!

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I had no idea there were bad Kirby games. Certainly, Kirby Air Ride and Kirby Not Smash Bros Because It’s Only Kirby in Different Colours Clash aren’t amazing, but they’re inoffensive and not really proper Kirby games. But Kirby 64 is bad. And not in a 1980s way.

Considering that it came out after Mario 64, and is a much simpler game being only 2D (well, 2.5D really), how is it that this looks terrible? It’s worse than the NES game. Hell, it’s worse than almost every game. But it was free on the Nintendo 64 thingie on the Nintendo Online doofer, so can I really complain?

Unusually for a game, it actually looks better as a static image than when moving.

It tries to make up for it by being cute and stuff and having the usual Kirby twee choons and jingles, but it’s so slow, so ugly and so impressively dull that it’s a wonder anyone can play it for more than ten minutes.

So after about three hours, I completed it. Obviously. And we shall Never Speak of This Again.

Worst boss ever.

Kirby and the Forgotten Land (Switch): COMPLETED!

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What a lovely blue skies game this was. It wasn’t the open-world, post apocalyptic Kirby the trailers and pre-release media made out though, as it sticks to the same level structure as most of the classic Kirby titles, but it looks amazing and is a lot of fun.

And is so, so easy! I completed the entire game, including the post-ending extra hard content, without dying at all. Or even coming close to dying. Or, a handful of bosses aside, even paying attention to my energy bar. But then, Kirby games have never been anything even approaching difficult so that’s not really the point.

The point, is that they’re so joyful and quirky and have unusual (to other games) mechanics. Here, you have the standard “suck up enemies to steal their powers” of previous games, but they’ve added Mouthful Mode where you try to suck up large objects like vending machines and cars but they get a bit stuck, although do provide you with some extra temporary skills. The car can smash through things, the big fan can be used to propel a boat, the cone can break through cracked floors, etc.

Your normal powers can be upgraded too. There are short challenge levels that task you with completing them in a certain time, or with a certain power, and these give you special stars which you can spend on the upgrades. It makes the powers deal more damage and so on, but also changes how they look. You don’t actually need any of these upgrades, but they’re nice to have.

In short (and the game is pretty short) it’s a bright and happy Nintendo platformer with charm and cute things and – most importantly – it’s really fun.