Kirby’s Dream Course is like a mini-golf or putt-putt sim from an isometric viewpoint. Kirby is the ball and the goal is to knock out the enemies bowling style, the last enemy becomes the hole.

There’s some abilities to play around with and obstacles to keep it fresh, the later courses are real puzzling - finding the right shot to make a hole in one is liberating and genuinely feels great.

My general tips are using the right and left buttons to align Kirby’s shooting angle, pressing down opens up a stronger shot as an option. Curve shots are your friend. Like any golf game it’s a matter of practice and intuition to tackle the game.

I played just the base game, maybe I’ll talk my partner into the multiplayer courses and I can try for Silver… I’m very doubtful that I can get Gold and play through the expert courses but I’m sure I’ll come back to Kirby’s Dream Course for a muck around every now and then.

So I knew the next Kirby game I had to play, Kirby's Dream Course, had a two player mode. I only ever played the single player for a bit years ago but never the multiplayer. I always heard it was more fun to play it that way, so I was excited to find out the NSO version supported online multiplayer. Me and my friend wheatie decided to play together.

This is essentially Kirby golf. Okay it's not quite that simple, it's a little more complex than that. The goal is the same as golf where you have to get it in the hole, and it tracks the amount of moves you do (at least in the single player) but you can change the angle of your shot in many more ways than golf, not to mention Kirby's copy abilities from Adventure are here. In the multiplayer mode, your goal is to have the most stars by the end of all 8 courses. You get a star by killing an enemy, two by getting in the hole at the end, AND you can steal the other persons stars if you're feeling devious. Me and wheatie played all 4 courses (except we sadly could not finish the final one because we disconnected at the very end) and I'd say we were pretty much tied in terms of how good we were at the game. It was chaotic, frustrating and a lot of fun and definitely the best way to play the game.

Going into the single-player though, while fun it definitely got a bit old after a while in comparison. Some of those later courses can have some really rough stages, especially since it's a bit different compared to the two-player mode. Instead of going for the most stars, you go for low par and survival. See, every time you kill an enemy, you get a tomato. You have 4 tomatoes from the start, and each time you make a move, it uses one. If you fall off the stage, automatic death. This can get quite frustrating since if you game over, it sends you back to the beginning of that course. It can be quite annoying if you get stuck on a particular level, but it could easily have been less forgiving and send you back to very beginning. Also that final boss, there's only one boss in the entire game and it feels so undercooked lol. You just spam the A button and Dedede's done. Either way, the single player is still fun, it's just not as fun as multiplayer.

Quick thing on the visuals and ost, they're both alright? Visuals are nice for the most part but the isometric angle can really make some of the stages look awkward. Especially with your line that shows where you're going to make the shot. If you played the game you'll now what I mean. The OST has some nice remixes but I found a chunk of it kinda forgettable which is a shame.

In the end though, I had a fun time (mostly cuz I played with wheatie), and it's definitely a better spinoff than Pinball Land. Next is the last spinoff before another mainline game, Kirby's Avalanche. Knowing it's a Puyo Puyo reskin, just like Mean Bean Machine, has me not looking forward to it because I got filtered hard by Mean Bean Machine lol. Ah well, look forward to that soon!

6.5/10