Jumper Shoot, Yuki, Blocky, and.... ?

Kirbys Dreamland 3 was one of the last games on the snes, and what a fantastic note to go out on, it was. Though i felt some frustration playing I still find myself thinking about this game more than most others in the series. Visually, mechanically, and emotionally, it is a very distinct game in the Kirby line that has a feeling to it i dont get from the other games. My favorite thing about Kirby in general is the sense of love despite little to no words being said. How Kirby loves his friends and his planet, the creatures around him, how a lack of that care is shown through the dark and alien-like Zero whose lonely influence corrupts things in its path. Watching the animal friends i have grown to care so much about surrounding Kirby and Gooey as they go to face off against Zero feels very powerful, and i really adore that through the underlying feeling of dread this game presents sometimes, there are also countless moments of bonding with a cast that left me feeling more attached with them than i do playing a game with dialogue.

On the subject of the animal friends, they are absolutely the life of the game. There is no greater drive to get through a level than knowing that at some point youre going to get to ride Rick around or have Nago smash your face into the ground as a rock 5000 times. Mechanically, it is a very smart idea to have these animals have their own versions of Kirby's copy abilities. Theres only around 6 or so in the game, but with your friends it feels like much more than that. Even though i have 100% completed this game twice, i know for sure that theres combinations with them i havent tried yet and things i havent seen. Everything about them is so charming, i love their spirte work and how alive they feel. I will never not feel bad for leaving Kine behind with the face he makes, really just adore these guys.

And visually, Dreamland 3 is one of the best looking games on the snes. All Kirby games have a strong sense of style, but the penciled look of this game is so unique and feels inseparable from its identity. Each area has its own theme that also functions as a gameplay mechanic, water levels and playing in the clouds and all that. What is very impressive is the side missions you have to set out on in order to beat the game proper, helping the inhabitants of planet Popstar by bringing them their friends or just simply having the courtesy to not crush them while progressing through the level. Most feel like a new way to experience the stage, and while some can be very difficult i feel like the concept in general is very sweet and fun.

For a game made in 1997 i feel as though it holds up relatively well, especially with its co-op which is very seamless for the time, but there are a few things i would change. If i could just instantly run without having to double tap the d pad, that would basically flatten out all the frustrations i had while playing. I also wish there was an easier way to gain back health than running through the first level again, but that can be managed. Difficulty wise, this is definitely the hardest game in the entire series and to be honest i probably struggled with it more than i did with most Fromsoft titles just due to the limited movement and the obscurity of the level missions. It is not a good Kirby game to start with for sure, but it is a highlight of the series that i care about a lot.

I love gooey, i love kirby, i love dedede even when hes possesed and has a weird hitbox. There is no greater joy than hopping around in Kine or bouncing on an umbrella with Nago. Even if the levels are tough i think everything else about the game makes up for that plenty, adds to its idenity even. Lots of poor opinions on this game so i thought i would show it the proper respect it deserves, a game with Rick in it cannot be bad. Have a nice day, and make sure not to step on any flowers...

Nunca pensei que daria nota 2 pra um Kirby

É.. assim, eu gostei do DL 1 e do Adventure mas o Dream land 2 e 3 realmente foram minhas maiores decepções, até cheguei a achar que o 3 melhoraria um pouco mas pra mim só piorou, o Kirby ficou muito lento e o jogo cheio de puzzle e quests chatas de se fazer pra saber o final verdadeiro (que obviamente, não fiz), as fases dele achei legal e sua trilha sonora também me encantou, mas isso não foi o suficiente pra fazer eu curtir o jogo por inteiro e me divertir pra caramba com ele

Muita gente elogia o Dream Land 3 e alguns consideram ele como masterpiece e tudo, mas pra mim ele é totalmente o contrário e espero nunca mais encostar nesse jogo novamente

Better than I remember. The game is just charming as you would expect for Kirby. It's still not anything too crazy. Not a huge fan of the heart star sidequest. A lot of them feel either tedious or way too hard to figure out. Luckily it's optionable and I would reccomend not doing it unless you have to get the good ending and true final boss. The animal buddies are fun, but the KDL2 buddies might as well have not been included (other than maybe Kine) as they have been pretty much entirely outclassed by the new ones. But regardless, they're fun to experiment with the different abilities as each buddy changes your ability. Plus, Nago the Cat holding Kirby like a yarn ball is just the cutest thing ever lol. Some of the level design feels a bit mindless but its pretty good for the most part. Overall a decent Kirby game, but nothing amazing.

It’s weird seeing people say that Kirby’s Dream Land 2 is better than 3 here because god damn that isn’t my experience at all. Maybe it’s that I have more nostalgic attachment to 3 due to actually having owned it as a kid, but between the increased screen real estate and the extra buddies including my actual favorites make me like this one a lot more! Sorry original three i love you guys but Pitch is my bestie, have you ever tried out the powers that let you essentially turn him into a rotating death ball circling Kirby if you launch it correctly with like fire and cutter. And parasol. Like he’s so good. You can do this with Rick and cutter too but I love the little green bird so much.

It is interesting to look at from a historical perspective, though. I feel like in the SNES era there’s kind of a neat divergence how the gameplay ideas surrounding copy abilities evolve between Super Star and Dream Lands 2 and 3. Both philosophies have a balance of combat use versus use in puzzle solving! Super Star’s definitely more weighted towards combat, with copy abilities having some use in finding secret areas but having various combat inputs that feel a little more like they’re geared towards picking your favorite character in a fighting game or beat-em-up. Meanwhile, Dream Land 2 and 3 are more about making sure you find the right combination of ability and animal buddy to solve the level’s puzzle, with the combat applications of each combo ranging from honestly kind of broken to a real pain in the ass. I don’t really blame people for preferring Super Star’s brand of things, since I too prefer Super Star’s approach, but I think it’s kind of neat to have two different styles in the same series. I think eventually the games hit a better balance between the two approaches, and I’m curious to get to Kirby 64 to see how it fits into things as the third entry of the Dark Matter trilogy, as I actually managed to 100% that one as a kid and I’m curious to see how it lives up to my memories.

I do have a soft spot for the Dark Matter games due to the presence of extremely cute little guy animal buddies and Friends Who Need Your Help In Stages in combination with the buckwild final boss (WHY IS IT FIRING BLOOD AT ME. WHY IS IT LIKE THIS. WHAT THE FUCK). The puzzles can be a little annoying and/or obtuse but I do kinda like the vibes around them, you know? You get to meet a cute little guy at the end of the stage and make them happy, and if they look sad you’re motivated to make them happy…! Or they’re a cameo from a completely different series. Of course I wanna help Samus with the Metroids! (Even though when I was a little bitty baby child I had no idea what the hell was going on there because I didn’t touch Metroid for ages). And really, the game looks absolutely gorgeous, with its soft crayon-looking graphics and its cute designs. The music is great too, of course! It’s Kirby!

With that said I do get a lot of the criticisms. Kirby’s definitely pretty slow in this one, and maaan the boss fights are just kinda bad. Copy abilities are definitely better to use in boss fights than in 2, and if you don’t bring one good luck waiting around for the boss’s RNG to use the attack that will give you ammunition to shoot at them. If you don’t hit them that time, you’ve gotta wait a real long time sometimes…

And you’re not allowed to pause during boss fights for some reason? Is that something for original hardware or an NSO emulation thing? I can’t imagine it being the latter but I absolutely cannot understand why that is something the devs would make, like, an actual game mechanic. Is it a difficulty thing? Is it because it’s not on a mobile console like the Gameboy so you should do your boss fight when you have time? Dudes this is a game for babies. What if your mom calls you down to dinner while you’re in the middle of a boss fight. Are you just supposed to take the L. Genuinely baffling. Even so, while this didn’t live up to how much I loved it as a kid, I still really liked actually getting to 100% it, so I can’t say I’m too terribly disappointed.

I like this game :^)

this is the next Kirby game directed by the mysterious Shinichi Shimomura and the second game in the Dark Matter Trilogy. he already put out an alright game with Dream Land 2 but then he decided one day “okay but if what we did that again, but Kirby’s friends with the Dragon Quest slime now?” long story short, Dream Land 3 is excellent but I can’t just end it here

let's begin with that story. Kirby is spending his time fishing with his good friend Gooey, that random blob you may or may not have seen in Dream Land 2. all of a sudden, a giant much more horrifying blob appears in Planet Popstar and begins taking control of the planet's inhabitants like George Orwell’s 1984, or End of Evangelion for all the younger readers. surprise surprise Dark Matter has made a comeback and they are PISSED. knowing the Dark Matter means bad news, Kirby and Gooey, along with animal buddies old and new, go across Planet Popstar to free everyone from their clutches.

you remember Kirby's Dream Land 2? well the game kinda plays like that, but better. you got the same Copy Abilities from before, the same "collect special items to get the true ending", and the same animal buddies that change up your moves, though now you have another three of them to help out. Rick, Coo, and Kine are joined by Nago the Cat, Pitch the Bird, and Chuchu the Octopus. Nago has a really cool and fun double jump as well as some cute animations with Kirby, Pitch's flying is slower than Coo's but he can run on the ground to make up for it, and Chuchu does weird things to Kirby's head, guess which is my favorite of the three. that said, you'll need to use all the animal buddies if you want to get all the collectibles for this game. instead of finding a singular Rainbow Drop in each world, you'll instead have to obtain a Heart Star in each level of the game. while this does mean more work, the Heart Stars are nowhere near as difficult to obtain as the hardest Rainbow Drops in Dream Land 2. if you complete the objective for each level, you're given the Heart Star from someone at the end. this can range from new Kirby characters that get Thanos-snapped after this game, rejected Mario powerups, and even special Nintendo guest stars that’ll make you go “oh I remember them!” or “the heck are you supposed to be” anyway when you get all the Heart Stars, you get access to the true final boss at the end, just like Dream Land 2. trust me you want to get all of them to see the final boss, it’s a very fun and kid friendly final boss just believe me guys I am 100% honest :^))))

this is probably the best looking game on the console, the only game that I'd say is on par with it is Trials of Mana. this game's crayon aesthetic is very dreamlike, which fits considering what franchise this is right here. I wish that we got to see more of this art style in other Kirby games, but it does help give this game its unique identity so I guess I'm cool with that. while Super Star has bombastic music, Dream Land 3's soundtrack goes the opposite direction by focusing on more relaxing and chill tunes. compare both of the intro tracks from Super Star and Dream Land 3 and you'll see that both games are going for different vibes. though I must be honest, I think I may prefer this game's soundtrack more. it just has that really comfy vibe that makes you feel good, you're sure to get a smile on your face when you start listening to these music tracks. I like every track from this game, but I guess my favorites would have to be Grass Land 2, Grass Land 4, Ripple Field 1, Ripple Field 2, Sand Canyon 1, and The Last Iceberg. oh yeah that Staff Roll theme is absolutely amazing, it’s right up there with Super Star’s staff roll theme and that’s a huge compliment since the latter is one of my favorite Kirby tracks in general.

so what is this game lacking? well, if you've already played Kirby Super Star before this, you are not getting that same experience. while this game does have sliding and running, Dream Land 3 is focusing on improving on Dream Land 2 rather than improving on Super Star. unfortunately this means that Abilities are very limited in their movepool outside of animal buddies. while that sounds bad, the big thing you should be worrying about is that Kirby doesn't wear funny hats in this game. that should have been enough to drop this game down to zero stars but I'm a merciful person so I will let this slide. Kirby's momentum is also a little bit off here, his speed kinda goes to a halt right when you stop floating or get hit by an attack. there's a fan patch to fix this but it's weird that this decision was deliberately made. basically this game's biggest problem is that it isn't Super Star. personally though I'm fine with that even though a majority would have preferred this game to play like that one.

so judging from the high score I gave it, you can probably tell I have a little bit of bias for this game. do I have bad taste? maybe, I don't really mind though. I've 100% this game a couple of times before and I always enjoy the ride.

anyway great game, play it now, it has Gooey in it you have no excuse

It's pretty!
It has one of my favorite SNES soundtracks!
Gooey's in it for co-op!
There's 6 unique animal friends!

And its levels are lame, with physics that feel loose as hell even just compared to Adventure. These negatives unfortunately outweigh the positives. Sad.

I still like it, but.... man. The game actually just feels like doodoo to play and Super Star is right there on the same platform

Aesthetically wonderful with its colored pencil artstyle and great OST. Gameplaywise it is a definite slower vibe than something like superstar, but it still has its own unique flow that can be exciting. I think the level objectives to get the heart stars make the levels more memorable and keep this from falling into the dreaded forgettable kirby game hole. Animal buddies are back and there are even new ones this time around! There's also multiplayer but only one person can ride an animal at a time which is lame. I think a lot of people like to be harsh on this game because it's not as good as super star but this games great in its own ways.

I think I like this more than most people on here do. Kirby really isn't fun to control here, and there's chores you have to do in order to get the good ending. But it looks and sounds really good, and there's something nice about how progressing through the game means you have to do nice things for the people of dream land because you care about them. I mean, they're not secrets if you're using a walkthrough, right? In that case I don't consider it a spoiler, so much as a checklist to refer to for helping out my friends.

Also I really like how the animal friends bicker and argue over who gets to keep Kirby at the start of each new world.

I like games that feel fun to move around in, usually. There's a reason why Super Mario 64 and Odyssey are some of my favorite games of all time; why I have a small soft spot for racing games; and I can't often stand turn-based RPGs for too long.

Kirby's Dream Land 3 gets so many things right... but movement is not one of them.

It's a fun game to look at, but not so much to play. Kirby's air momentum when jumping is instantly halted when he puffs up, and his float speed is roughly as slow and aggravating as his walking speed is.

The camera often takes time to catch up when Kirby starts running, resulting in Kirby running to the right side of the screen and being more prone to getting blind-sided from enemies.
At least half of Kirby's animal buddies' default movement are not fun (Kine, Pitch, Chuchu), to add insult to injury.

It's a shame, because this is one of the Kirby games with the best, most unique art, Jun Ishikawa near his absolute compositional prime, and this almost melancholic undertone that really sells this game - and its entire trilogy - in terms of atmosphere, and makes its overarching antagonist easily one of the franchise's most interesting ones.

But it's just not as pure fun to play as Super Star or the Kumazaki-directed modern Kirby games. The missions within each stage are poorly explained, even if once you understand their general structure; the minigames get almost impossible without save states, and the boss rush is one of the series' worsts.

But it's really, really pretty. This game gives me mixed messages.

First and foremost, this game looks fantastic. Got no idea how you pull off a drawing style on the SNES but this is how you do it. Kirby's speed here is nice as well, he's fast in this game which keeps the pace high (for the most part). Most of the worlds are pretty solid as well. Neutral on the new and old animal buddies, never been super fond of them but I don't dislike them either. Just preferred using Kirby most of the time. The issues come with the puzzles being unfathomably cryptic sometimes, making a guide to them basically required if you want to get anywhere near the true final boss. I really try to avoid comparing this to Superstar as well, but I really really wish there was more depth to the copy abilities like there was in that game in this one, it would make it so much more fun! Despite all that though Kirby's Dream Land 3 is mostly pretty fun, despite the rough patches. Got no idea what to rate this since its pretty on the borderline between 7 and 8 in my mind, so I'll rate it the one I'm leaning toward atm.

*Note: The Japanese version was played for this review, Japanese names for stuff like Kirby game titles will be used.

You ever play something and just enjoy it but it has enough problems that you sometimes feel iffy about replaying it? Hoshi no Kirby 3 is one of those games. I always saw it as a good game but I always found it to be one of the weaker Kirby games. Though I like to try to think clearly and see what I can find in games. I wanna see if my feelings with them can change. I thought about giving it a try with this title and see if it’s a great game or still just a game with too many flaws.

Hoshi no Kirby 3 is about saving the residents of Dream Land from their struggles all while clearing 5 worlds (yes I know they’re called levels, it sounds dumb saying levels) with 6 stages and a boss in each one. Kirby can do about what he could also do in Super Deluxe except guarding since health bars aren’t a thing in this. It’s back to health points but now each one holds 2 meaning you can take up to 10 hits on a full bar which is nice. You can also press A to take two off to summon Gooey who is basically a clone of Kirby for the 2nd player. Just don’t use him for the AI as he’s atrocious.

Speed in this game is rather odd. You actually move really fast on the ground during a dash. It can actually make the camera have to force you further back if Kirby almost starts outpacing the screen. His flying however is bad, it’s probably the one bad area about his controls because it just feels stiff and you fall like a rock when you shoot out an air puff. I honestly find it more satisfying to just run and jump for platforming. Kirby can also slide still which isn’t a bad option because it’s easily spammable and while it won’t kill enemies in one hit, it’s still a good movement option to get past them. One tech I also wanna give out is what I call dash jump attack tech. Some abilities can benefit where you run and then press jump and attack immediately after giving you a good leap forward and can give some moves good potential if you experiment.

Level design in this game is quite the interesting one. There’s a lot of gimmicks here with a wide variety of new enemies. One thing I noticed a lot with it is I swear the game loves to put rooms where you go back and forth in them. IDK if that makes sense but there’s a lot of left and right turning. Some levels have horizontal design in mind while some like to have you going vertically. I wouldn’t really say there’s levels I ever dread going to but I do think the 2nd world is a little too focused on water giving you a lot of time to Kine. There’s also stuff like sand that will slow you down and even avalanches that will try to cover your vision in the autoscroller. Oh yeah that’s something brought back from the 2nd game, autoscrollers. Honestly not a fan of them but those are never really my favorite kinds of levels anyway. There’s a lot of neat moments I remember like enemies looking like drawings and coming to life, an enemy that breaks blocks to let you progress, moments that’ll have you using multiple abilities in a room, and using some nice terrain like trees to get through the levels. Levels aren’t perfect but it’s still pretty fun.

Animal friends are back and now there’s three more. First I should talk about Rick’s changes. Rick is once again given the best mobility on ground terrain but was given a nerf to inhale by making complete garbage. Seriously, why is it not just the one from 2? But that’s okay because he can now do wall kicks on walls which is pretty neat. If you’re wondering why only talk about Rick well it’s because Coo and Kine play about the same excelling at air and ocean respectively. Nago, Chuchu, and Pitch are the new ones in town. Nago is a great jumper with a triple jump in tow and since some Animal Friends can jump on enemies, he’s good for speedy times. Chuchu can grab things with her tentacles including the ceiling to climb on. She can also jump lots but they get weaker and weaker until you gain 0 height from them. Kirby seems to like her a lot too so they’ll make a great duo for fighting enemies. Pitch is very similar to Kirby in movement just without a slide and air puff projectile. What he excels in is his good variety of abilities that can be very helpful for Kirby. (at least that’s what some sources say.) This game does a pretty good job of balancing them for the most part even if I’ll forever like Nago the most you can’t stop me! With them all here, it gives you more opportunities to experiment with abilities and how you’ll go through levels. Speaking of abilities…

All of the abilities from Hoshi no Kirby 2 are back along with a whole new ability named Clean. Clean uses a variety of cleaning appliances depending on the character being used. Once again using different Animal friends will give you different results so try to experiment with them all if possible! While it’s not all balanced, it’s impressive just how many combinations there are and some are pretty fun to use like Spark Coo, Ice Chuchu, Cutter Pitch, and many more. It should be noted abilities are also divided into three different damage values. Abilities can do either 16, 32, 48, or 64 damage so do some research if you need to. They also really hated Kine because they nerfed a couple of his abilities from 2 like Ice and Spark. Why must you do this to my boy? Personally I always like abilities that can keep the pace going. Here’s a fun fact for you, did you know Parasol Kirby can guard by holding down. Use that knowledge along with dash jump attack tech and it’s a pretty fun time. Also Needle Rick still is atrocious like what the hell HAL? What were you thinking with this??

Heart Stars are the new collectibles and they are found in every stage. Different objectives vary on the stage you are. The first ones require you to help flowers whether they involve not stepping on them, getting dust off of them, or killing them because the mushrooms are awful people!! The second ones require doing a unique objective stuff like using Parasol Kine next to the resident to cheer them up, helping a baby chick off a balloon, or freezing metroids to help Samus. The third ones will have you go into a room to play a minigame with the resident and you must win at it three times to get the Heart Star. The fourth ones have a mini boss you’ll need to fight and usually you’ll find a character that needs help and all you need to do is touch them. The fifth ones require you to bring a specific Animal Friend with you and it should be obvious which one you’ll need if you look at their portrait. The last ones are interesting. The odd number worlds require you to find items for the person in need. The even number worlds require you to help Picross puzzles form blocks that resemble their shape. Also yes they are a Picross reference, I had to double check. You’ll collect the Heart Star at the end of each stage before you do your jumping bonus game to get stars, health, or 1-ups by timing. Overall these are fun and are a nice way to vary the challenge and they are loads better than collecting the Rainbow Drops from 2. Though it should be noted this will always vary from person to person as there can be frustrations. I always hated the Kawasaki one because if you fail it, you have to keep doing a slow boring autoscroller to get back. I also know many who despise 3-6 but personally it isn’t too bad for me nowadays now I know how to get all of the Robot parts.

Now we have the bosses which are actually pretty nice in this game. The first two Whispy Woods and Acro try to change things up by having a 2nd phase in their fights. Pon and Con are like the Nruff and Nelly fight but are slightly more challenging due to stuff like bombs being in the way. My favorite fight has to be against the human painter Ado because you get to refight all of the bosses from Hoshi no Kirby 2 that aren’t bosses here but as weaker drawings. It’s a really cool fight and I love Ado’s attempt at a fight only to be defeated in one hit. Finally there’s Dedede and he’s once again corrupted by Dark Matter but without enough persistence he will be down and then the game ends here if you fail to get every Heart Star. It feels kind of bitter as you’ll not only lack to see who worked on the game but you never made everyone happy and Dark Matter will continue to take over…how sad. Though if you did get them all, all of the happy residents and guests you helped will give you a new ability called the Love Love Stick and you got one more job. Go fight Dark Matter in the Hyper Zone! The fight is in his territory and it plays very similar to the Nightmare Orb fight in the Famicom game. It’ll be tough but it’s fun. Once he’s down, it’s not over! That’s right you now need to fight Zero, the real final boss. He’s big, he’s scary and he means business. He has the most health out of any boss and he even shoots…blood? Is it blood? IDK. Once you beat him, his eye pops out of his body and out of huge desperation you’ll have to shoot him or whack him as he chases you. After enough hits, he’s down and Popstar is saved. Kirby and some of the residents celebrate with Ado drawing cute pictures of everyone including the planet Popstar which has new rings thanks to the defeat of Zero, you can actually see them before his explosive death. Sadly they retconned this in 64 so that’s unfortunate. At least you made everyone happy and saved the day which is always lovely.

There’s some small bonus modes you can do to get true 100%. The first one is just doing all the minigames in a row. The second one has you doing the bonus game and having to make sure you keep collecting smileys and wow it’s really hard. Finally there’s the Boss Butch mode where you have to fight every boss in a row in one life, no health refills, no abilities or Animal Friends, and not even Gooey! This can be pretty tough so do your best!!

My god that presentation. It’s such a beauty. There’s so many cool effects and tricks done to make things look good it’s incredible. The style too is just drop dead gorgeous. This is a top 10 Super Famicom game for me graphically. I can’t think of a single thing wrong with the graphics.
There’s so many awesome views, I love the fuzzy like movement on stuff like the game’s logo, All of the environments just fit perfectly. This also fits in line with the excellent sprite art. I always loved how the Famicom guest characters are colored like they’re from their actual games. I always liked the reference to Nintendo 64 on the Boss Butch screen. I could go on and on about just how much the game gets it right. Truly a grand achievement for the Super Famicom. The OST is also filled with many excellent tracks and even stuff like the sound effects sound really good and memorable. I know that sounds weird but it just works perfectly for me. While Super Deluxe had a better OST, this one isn’t a slouch and shouldn’t be slept on. Really this whole section I just wanna gush more about the game here. But I’ll refrain so I’m not here all night.

In the end, Hoshi no Kirby 3 is a very good game. There’s a lot to love about the game and for such a late release, it’s impressive just how well crafted the game is. I think I appreciate the game more now than I used to, while it has issues and there are many Kirby games I’d rather play, this is still a very fun game. I understand why this game is one of the weaker games reception wise, I think just analyzing the game through and through, there’s a lot here that just makes me smile. HAL really just nailed it and made a much better sequel compared to 2 having some questionable design choices. Nowadays the game can be played on NSO if you have one of those for your Switch. Sadly the US version of this game is hard to find a copy for your SNES due to its poor sales. The game used to be on Wii and Wii U VC but has sadly gone down before this review was made which hurts to see. It should be noted it was also featured in the Kirby Collection on the Wii. I also wanna point out a couple of graphics were changed in later releases to prevent seizures like the Dark Matter fight in the Boss Butch mode. If you have yet to play this wonderful game then give it a shot! You might like it but it also might take a couple of playthroughs to get you coming back for more. The game’s legacy may have never shined but its brilliance will always shine on as an almost closing farewell to the Super Famicom. Thank you HAL for this lovely game. I’m glad I could walk out enjoying the game more even if it’s not perfect. Time to go lie down out at night and enjoy the starry sky outside.

END

Kids deserve good art. I enjoy experiencing kids media even as an adult. Kirby 64 was my favorite game as a kid. In 2022, Kirby's Dream Land 3 is kind of insulting.

As an art project, Kirby's Dream Land 3 is technically impressive for its time. There's extreme dedication to its crayon aesthetic, with every environment and texture filled with craftsmanship, and special effects like layered semi-transparent parallaxing. However, this is one of many elements that suggest poor prioritization of how to make this project playable and fun as a video game for kids.

With such high uniformity in its aesthetic, there is a notable lack of contrast between characters, foreground, and background. All that detail to the environmental elements comes with a cost, which is fewer unique elements per level. The result is multiple nondescript, impossible to remember level layouts with textures repeated so often per section as to render the richness of their detail meaningless.

Make no mistake, separate from visuals, the level design is bad. But the level design is bad as a compromise to two fatal flaws at the heart of this game - the game's movement options and the animal friend system.

First, Kirby's movement is awful. Kirby has slow flight speed, running that can outspeed the camera's ability to track him, and zero conservation of momentum when doing any attack animation. Every attack is slow with a small hurtbox, and every copy ability only has one or two attacks.

The reason why the game has so few (8) copy abilities - Kirby can ride on any of 6 animal friends, which all have their own animations for Kirby using a copy ability while riding them. Together, this brings the total number of unique attacks closer to 50. Although interesting in concept, this presents multiple problems in execution.

For one, you can only ride one animal friend at a time, and only get the chance to change animal friends once, maybe twice per level. If you lose a life, your animal friend is gone. In practice, you will not see a majority of the game's moveset most of the time. Worse, each individual move has limited utility because of the effort spent creating the full set. So for a majority of the player experience, you will see a fraction of the total on repeat.

Even discounting moveset variety, the animal friend system is broken in that they change Kirby's movement systems, and they are all worse. (And remember, Kirby does not feel great in this game.) Without a friend, Kirby can fly infinitely, attack underwater, and run consistently. Some animal friends control worse in the air, or cannot jump infinitely, or otherwise direct his attacks in unintuitive, non-forward facing directions.

All this is a problem because the animal friend system is 100% completely optional, meaning no level is designed to take advantage of their unique mechanics without it also being possible to play as Kirby. It is also possible to take animal friends between levels, which means every level is not designed to be impossible to beat with any animal friend, either. In essence, there is no reason to use them, and their inclusion tanked the variety in level design to a series of bland hallways that try to discourage the player from playing as Kirby and just flying over everything.

So the whole gimmick of the game is balanced around making it less fun to play... as Kirby.

Bland, slow, devoid of personality, you'd think I'm being overly critical on an old game, until you remember it was the last SNES title to release in the United States. Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island had already done a coloring book aesthetic with sharp contrast that made it easy to read character placement and level design. Fire up Kirby Super Star, and it feels like it was made yesterday - fast and fluid animations that are punchy and funny, and a helper / co-op play system lightyears ahead of whatever Gooey is in Dream Land 3. With levels that, while kind of eyebleeding in their relentless color, are bursting with personality and designed around Kirby's incredible moveset (multiple attacks for every copy ability!), encouraging experimentation to find secrets and shortcuts.

In my rating system, 2 stars represent an average, C grade game. I award Kirby's Dream Land 3 a single star as a D rank game. Its not unplayable, but there's no reason to do so after the release of Kirby 64. The director of both releases, Shinichi Shimomura, reused character designs, enemy designs, and level concepts, resulting in a game that sits at the pinnacle of the franchise. Instead of the animal friend system, he adapted the concept into the power combo system, letting the player access that game's 35 powers with much more regularity. Every level is handcrafted and unique in theme, while also encouraging gathering powers in one level to find secrets in another. It elegantly solves every problem in Dream Land 3 with a Kirby that is satisfying to control in a game that is engaging to play. I could only recommend Dream Land 3 as a curio for seeing how this series' misstep influenced other games going forward.

- Poyo!!! -
Por fin tuve la chance de jugarlo y terminarlo, y siento que es muy mal juego de Kirby, artisticamente es super bello y tiene muy lindas mascotas.
Pero del otro lado sus niveles son muy X y los poderes se siente muy malos, en cuanto al movimiento es raro y medio tosco.
Se me hizo muy aburrido conseguir todos los corazones para lograr el final, que a mi punto de vista no debía de estar encerrado detrás de esa mecánica de conseguir el 100% de algo xd.
Amo a Kirby pero este juego de plano no lo volvería a jugar o lo recomendaría a nadie xd

The platforming mascots many of us grew up with are an undeniably odd bunch and Kirby might just be the weirdest of the lot. The bizarre stuff you'll encounter in the titular "Dream Land" makes even the Mushroom Kingdom seem sane by comparison. Maybe it's just that this is one of the later entries in a series I'm basically completely unfamiliar with, but so much of what I came across, while certainly not lacking in imagination, often left me questioning its purpose (i.e. the animal allies). Then there's the pink, pudgy protagonist to consider who's main method of self-defense is to devour or spit at whatever gets in his way. All of this certainly leads to a memorably unhinged experience, but unfortunately some gameplay deficiencies keep it from being the kind of eccentric craziness I can fully get behind despite appreciating quite a few aspects of it.

For a game so centered around eating your foes in order to inherit their abilities, you'd think there'd be more powers for you to gain access to. In fact, only a handful of enemy types will grant you anything at all, and of the small stock available a portion of them are useless outside of very specific puzzles anyways. They most often tend to tie into a unique feature where in each level there's a friend of Kirby's who you can help out by completing an optional task in the stage. Assisting all of them will unlock a secret final boss that upon defeat reveals the true ending. A cool idea, but I was very rarely able to actually find these other characters throughout my journey and even when I did the requirements for solving their problems were usually too vague to decipher. How gamers figured it out back in the day without a guide I can't say for sure. I, however, was not engaged enough to put in the necessary effort to do the same.

That's because the design constantly fluctuates between being either too easy or just plain tedious with never enough time spent in the comfortable middle ground at the center of those two extremes. Yet, I can't deny the creativity and resulting originality. It doesn't always shine through in the most consistent of ways. Something that can be seen in the graphics, which take on a hand-drawn, coloring book like art style that inadvertently gives the title a dated look that comes off as more NES than SNES. Playing through this cooperatively though I had quite a bit of fun as my sibling and I found ways to cheese the game while laughing at its numerous peculiarities. It's not something I personally view as worth seeking out, but Dream Land 3 is far from the worst time should you happen to have access to it.

7.5/10

Kirby's Dreamland 3 is the second game in what's known as the Dark Matter Trilogy of the Kirby franchise, and one that's really not like any game before or after it.

I think Dreamland 3 does improve on a fair bit from Dreamland 2, but also introduces its new fair share of problems that weren't even present before. KDL3 lacks that tightness KDL2 had in its level design, even if there is more at play here. Nearly every level in KDL2 felt as long as it needed to be; rarely ever was it a game that wasted your time. KDL3 opts to increase the level length; sometimes it works out.. sometimes it doesn't, and levels end up dragging on far longer than they need to. This is a problem that starts to really rear its ugly head in the game's final world, Iceberg, where the later levels have me wondering whether or not the next door I enter is the last.
KDL3 also changes up Kirby's physics quite a bit compared to previous games. He feels more sluggish, with more momentum in his movement (and just the tiniest bit of input lag? Might just be me). Thankfully, most of KDL3 is built very well around his new sense of movement, and you get used to it. Again, though, as late into the game as Iceberg, the level design starts to fall off as I was left to fight with the physics more often than I did before, dying to shit I don't even think was entirely my fault. I refrain from calling these physics bad, but something about Adventure, Super Star and Nu-Kirby feel much better to play around with.

One of my biggest issues with Dreamland 2 was how occasionally, the RNG that dictates which Animal Friend it throws at you will sometimes decide it really hates you, and not give you the required one needed to obtain the level's Rainbow Drop, forcing you to backtrack. KDL3 has no backtracking of this nature to speak of (with the exception of one level in Iceberg), but at the cost of a handful of missions being bizarrely cryptic to figure out, specifically in the back half of the game, to the point where I had to bust out a walkthrough in order to get by. Yeah, game, I should've known to use Coo/Clean against the hue-shifted flower, of course. I think a lot of missions in this game are far, far less esoteric than people make them out to be (and if you had trouble with the minigames with the exception of the one in Take-A-Fucking-Guess-World, you suck), but there's no defending that bad batch.

All of this, however, to say that I can't stay mad at Kirby's Dreamland 3. Where it kind of flops around like a fish in terms of quality, it makes up for it by the good not only outweighing the bad, but its unprecedented atmosphere and aesthetic compared to.. really, anything in the franchise. Dreamland 3 has this childlike sense of wonder in its crudely-drawn crayon aesthetic akin to something like the first Yoshi's Island, which really suits Kirby. The soundtrack is also such a pleasure on the ears, making for one of my favorite OSTs in the franchise with its soothing instrumentation and slight tinge of nostalgia found in various tracks, even adding a slight sense of something I can't describe better than "something feels off" in some of its music.

Kirby's Dreamland 3 is a game respect just that tiny bit more than I like. There's a lot that doesn't work, but a lot that also very much does. And for me personally, it's such a breath of deviation before an era where Kirby found a formula and stuck to it for dear life for over a decade, causing games to blend in even if they were still good. It's a topic I'd like to get into, but until I finish Crystal Shards and the Dark Matter Trilogy, it's a topic I think is better saved for another time.

o primeiro jogo "mid" do kirby até agora
não sou muito fã do estilo desse diretor ngl, muita fase autoscroller, amigos animais e dedede possuído pelo capeta pela SEGUNDA VEZ SEGUIDA na qual só fazendo 100% pra lutar com o Dark Matter (DE NOVO).

Mas eu seria maluco de chamar esse jogo de ruim, os gráficos são PERFEITOS, a estética de giz de cera é muito boa, a música é awesome, e em geral é divertido sim.
E principalmente, muito menos arrastado que o Dream Land 2.