An improvement from Dream Land 2, but still underwhelming for what I would expect from a Kirby game. The level design is a bit clunky sometimes and the controls can feel strange on occasion. The camera caused a lot of problems since it didn't center the player on the middle of the screen.

And something about the graphics made me feel uncomfortable. Idk if it's the color palette used or the fact that it looked like it was made using crayons, but I feel like it could have been better, despite me knowing that the pixel art is very well-done.

The allies all have their pros and cons, but I will not argue the fact that the cat is objectively the best option most of the time.

This was quite a pleasant surprise. Unlike Adventure & Superstar, I never really got far in DL3 as a kid because I thought it was just kinda boring. I was originally going to do DL2 before 3 since it came first, but I saw a video on my YT feed about DL3 (His other videos are pretty great too btw), so I took the creative liberty of skipping DL2 for DL3. Yes, I know DL2, 3, and 64 are a trilogy of games but as far as I'm aware you don't need to play them all back to back to understand the lore lol.

The first thing that really wowed me about the game was the graphics. I've always been AWARE of the games style but never really took in how damn good this game looks. 7 years of the Super Famicom lead up to its peak in terms of graphics, and it's not even close. I think playing this game on either a CRT or with a good CRT filter (like the one that comes with bsnes classic) really hammers in how good this game looks and with the methods used to help the games visuals, CRT is the way to go.

Audibly I thought this game's soundtrack was even BETTER than Superstar, which surprised me quite a bit. The soundtrack goes hand in hand with the games visuals and it all leads to one cozy experience that stuck with me more than Superstar. Sure, superstar's soundtrack is def more iconic, but DL3 really hammers in the mood better.

For the gameplay itself, I was kinda surprised on how different it was from superstar. I just assumed they'd just carry over all or most of the abilities from Superstar and go from there, but no, it's more in line with Dream Land 2's copy abilities, bringing back all the ones from DL2 (minus the final boss weapon) and adding the new Cleaning ability. I was pretty disappointed by this at first. Like c'mon, no Wing? No sword? No yoyo? It wasn't until I realized that which ever animal you have WITH a copy ability can change how the ability is performed, which adds some depth & strategy on what copy ability you wanna use or which animal you wanna use. This isn't always the case, however, but it bothered me less and less. I still would've liked more copy abilities, but unlike Adventure or Superstar, there's no real duds here. All the base copy abilities are pretty solid and get the job done. They can get better or worse depending on your animal buddy, but it's not really hard to find a different copy ability.

Speaking of animal buddies, the new animal buddies here are solid. I think some are 100% better than others usually, and Chuchu & Nago were by far my favorite ones to use.

The level design I think is kind of a regression from the other Kirby games a bit? I don't think they're bad by any means, I just found them to be way more simple & and straightforward compared to the steps that Superstar took (BTW yes I'm aware they were directed by separate people). With that being said, I did find 3 to actually be more challenging than Superstar. Might be because you have less abilities to work with, but some of those levels gave me a tough time I won't lie.

I think the biggest thing I'm torn on is the game having multiple endings. The dark matter trilogy are the only games to have multiple endings and I really do not know how I feel about them. On one hand, it adds more depth to the game, on the other, it can lead to genuinely confusing "What am I supposed to do" moments. Each level has an objective you need to complete to get a heart star. You need all of these to access the true final boss and get the good ending. World 1 establishes what to expect out of each level & every subsequent world kinda just expands upon it, for better or for worse (I.E every level 1 involves flowers). I think the most annoying of these are the guessing mini game ones since if you fuck up you can't retry them and you gotta leave the level and do it again. Others like bring X friend to the end or use X copy ability combo with X friend are fine though, some levels make it obvious what you're supposed to do, and others you're not really sure what to do. Probably the worst level was the R.O.B level, I hated that shit so much. It all leads up to the final boss which....I wasn't a fan of. The fight with Dedede is pathetically easy & the fight with dark matter/zero just drags for too long. Plus it's not even that different from what DL2 did or hell even Adventure.

Overall, I enjoyed this one a lot more than I expected. The game just oozes so much soul from beginning to end and it's def going to be one of my go-to "Cozy games". I know a lot of people aren't huge on this one, but I thought it was pretty freakin' sweet. One of my favorites on the Super Famicom for sure.

this one is great. the graphics are pretty. the music is pleasant. i like the animal buddies a lot more in this one than in dream land 2. simply the ability to hop off of them without losing them makes it 100 times better. and i like the new ones too, especially pitch, he’s my favorite. the heart stars are neat. nothing too crazy to really go and grab (except some of the minigames take a couple of tries) but they’re a nice extra goal for the levels. speaking of the levels, i really like them in this one. nothing really too challenging but they’re still pretty memorable. the bosses are pretty good too. the ado fight especially is really cool. i really liked this one, it was such a lovely little game.

Phenomenal presentation, Dreamland 3's pastel look is so memorable and pleasant. Between that and the soundtrack, it's gotta be one of the most relaxing platformers I've ever played. Sure, it has some occasionally clunky level design but what can I say, I love playing this game and chilling out with it. The level objectives are such a nice little addition, it's just a charming thing to go through and make the various characters happy... some of them are a bit difficult to figure out without a guide but I think most of them are pretty manageable without help. The new animal buddies are all a lot of fun to play with too, Pitch in particular stands out to me as having some really fun takes on abilities. Beyond that, it's a great co-op experience and brings us playable Gooey, so I can't not love it.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

For the longest time, this was in my top 5 Kirby games. I got this on the Wii U virtual console back in the day, and remember enjoying it a lot. I also remember that I used save states on certain parts and was annoyed at other parts of the game but I generally loved the game's aesthetic and vibe, I guess those aspects overshadowed the bad parts in my mind. What do I think of the game now though? It's not bad at all, but it does have some really annoying issues that nowadays do hamper my experience.

Let's talk about the gameplay first and foremost. Compared to Superstar, it's a big downgrade. Kirby's running speed is very fast, but his walking speed is incredibly slow. This wouldn't usually be an issue however, a lot of them the camera won't pan at the start of a new area until you've gotten until the edge of the screen. Unless you're as careful as can be, if an enemy is there it will hit you. This never happened at all in Superstar. When Kirby floats and gets out of a float, he loses all momentum he's gained and will basically stop in place. Maybe this is so you don't spam the float but it ruins the flow of the gameplay a bit and is an annoyance since Superstar also never did this. It's also incredibly easy to get hit in this game, not only because or the whole screen having to catch up with Kirby, but because the invincibility frames last like a second or less so it's so easy to just get comboed if you're unlucky. This is something I noticed even back in the day, you get hit A LOT in this game and it's quite annoying. One last thing this game downgraded from Superstar, and this one isn't as bad as the other things I mentioned (at least for me) is Kirby's moveset. Kirby goes back to only having one basic move per copy ability. While this is naturally a downgrade compared to Superstar, the animal friends return from Dreamland 2 and do make up for this a bit I think.

Not only are Rick, Kine and Coo back from Dreamland 2, this game adds three new animal friends as well. Nago the cat, Pitch the bird and ChuChu the octopus are the new additions and they're all very solid. Nago is actually my favorite of the six, cuz he feels the best to control but also because he has a very helpful triple jump. Pitch doesn't really have any abilities but he is a cute little guy. ChuChu can only float a couple of times at once but she has the ability to hang from ceilings (it only really gets used once tho lol). Anyways, like Dreamland 2, Dreamland 3 gives each animal friend their own specific take on the copy abilities. With six animal friends now, and 8 copy abilities, that's 48 unique animal friend abilities. There are way less copy abilities in this game compared to Superstar, however with this many animal friend abilities, I feel like it never gets boring since you're more than likely always discovering new ones throughout the game which is fun.

Going into the level's themselves, they aren't great tbh. A good chunk of them are very simple with enemies littered throughout. The level design is way too basic and can get boring some of the time (mostly some of world 3 and 4). They try to combat this with the game's main collectable, the heart-stars, but this can also be a mixed bag. Early on they aren't bad. Each world has six stages, and each of the six stages use the same heart-star conventions. The first always deals with flowers. The second always has you bringing a specific copy ability or animal friend to some part of the stage and interacting with whatever. The third has you playing a minigame a way into the stage. The fourth has you collecting a single object in the stage and bringing it to the end. The fifth has you bringing a specific animal friend to the end of the stage so they can be with their girlfriend/boyfriend. And the 6th has you collecting several objects in the level and bringing them to the end character. Yeah, you get a heart-star from a character at the end of the stage..and they can be pretty fun to see. Mostly because this game cross overed with other Nintendo properties like ROB the Robot and Metroid. Anyways, heart-stars aren't usually too bad to get but the endgame has some really annoying ones. The last couple minigames are like annoying as balls to do without save stating, otherwise you have to redo the stage each time you lose, so I decided to just save state again like I did all the way back in the day. That plus others can just be plain cryptic, and yeah..the collectables aren't super fun to get some of the time.

I know I've spent most of this review complaining so far, and yeah, the gameplay probably is the weakest part of this game, but some of the other aspects are fantastic and make up for the gameplay a bit. The visuals for example are amazing in this game. I still think Yoshi's Island is the best-looking Super Nintendo game, however this is right next to that. This game is a coloring book come to life and it's so nice to look at. It fits Kirby perfectly too and I really wish the modern games tried to do something like this again. Besides the amazing art style, this game is just really charming in general. Whether it's all the animal friend's reactions to Kirby picking other friends instead of them, or the bosses of each world standing idle not fighting you after you purified them by getting every heart-star in the world. Gameplay be damned, it's clear the Kirby3 team were passionate about the actual world and characters. I also always loved the atmosphere in this game. Idk if it's because of the cutesy art style combined with Dark Matter as an antagonist, but this game always felt a bit off in a way I really liked. I don't know how to describe it, but Dreamland 3 fans will probably understand what I mean.

The bosses in general are solid. You have the usual Wispy Woods and some other cool ones. Besides the introduction of Ado (who is basically just Adeline before Adeline), Dark Matter and Zero are great final bosses to the Dreamland trilogy. Dark Matter is cool ofc but Zero is very creepy especially for a Kirby game. The fact it's a giant white sphere that bleeds as you attack it, and the fact its last final form is its eyeball ripped out of the sphere, all bloody and everything, it's so unlike Kirby and just gives the game this eerie feeling I love.

The music in this game is also super good and drives the atmosphere home even more. My favorite songs were probably Grass Land 1, Grass Land 4 and Ripple Field 1. The entire soundtrack is really solid though and like I said, really helps with game feeling atmospheric.

I'm sad this isn't in my top 5 Kirby's anymore. This game has a lot of charm and heart to it but on the gameplay side, it just has too many issues for me to rate it super high. My judgement was clouded back then by the art style and atmosphere, and while those are still great now, I can't deny this game isn't as good as I once thought. I still like it overall, but I will kneel to all the Superstar fans despite not loving that game's structure...that is the superior Kirby game. If they took the gameplay from Superstar and the art style, atmosphere and single campaign structure from this game...I may have gotten my perfect Kirby game. Ah well, a man can dream. I will say tho, I do like this more than Dreamland 2. There isn't a level as bullshit as that trial and error in 2 and this game visually just looks so much better of course. That and I have more nostalgia for it haha. Anyways, next is Donkey Kong Country 3 so look forward to that!

6.5/10