While lots of the level design are typical unremarkable Kirby-fare, with a really slow pace to boot, Kirby's Dream Land 3 makes up for it in style. The Yoshi Island-inspired aesthetic lacks the punchiness of Kirby Super Star, but it's undeniable that its soft, pastel, color pencil aesthetic is a perfect match for Kirby, and provides a stunning contrast to the genuinely unnerving cosmic abomination of a final battle. The music is also really good, with some tracks sounding like they could have come out of Earthbound or even Lisa.

Where Kirby's Dream Land 2 hid its final boss behind an extremely opaque and tedious secret collectathon, in 3 it is integrated really well into the game. It is almost always pretty easy to figure out the puzzles on your own, and they're all unique enough to really make it worth your while. (For instance, in one level you have to use the Ice ability to kill a bunch of metroids.)

There are also so many fun, weird little details in this one. I really love how all the animal friends get a different sad or angry expression if you pick one of the other animals. The versions of abilities you get with all the animal friends are all so funny, especially the ones where the animal basically uses Kirby's body as a blunt weapon. You will also occasionally stumble upon Batamon, this weird off-model Kirby-esque creature that you see walking around in completely inaccessible areas, who is genuinely unnerving.