Kirby 64 feels like a much improved successor to Kirby's Dream Land 3 for the SNES (which I did not enjoy that much), but most of the issues I had with that game are addressed here.

First wanna point out the super charming 3D graphics. I'm a sucker for low poly 3D and it works so well here for Kirby, even taking the advantage of the 3D and making it a 2.5D game. The visuals shine the most during the intro and outro cutscenes of each world with the cast doing silly little things.

In terms of gameplay, it's a Kirby game with the twist that instead of mixing and matching copy abilities with animal buddies like in KDL3, Kirby can just mix those abilities himself, which is such an improvement. But also, the new abilities you get in this game from mixing are some of the best in the whole series. Like a flaming greatsword?? A double-bladed ligjtsaber? Don't get me started with how fun the fireworks ability is to use.

Only big flaw with the gameplay is how Kirby feels to control. In KDL3, Kirby was at his most sluggish and felt terrible to play. In K64, he feels much more responsive but is a little too floaty, even for a floating puffball like Kirby. Still it's a major improvement, but not the best feeling.

The worst thing about KDL3 was the barren level design and how you basically had to go for the optional missions to make any of these levels feel fun. But the optional missions were mostly cryptic and not that fun anyway.
In K64 we how have both excellent level design and a great side objective. Meaning, if you don't play for the 100% you will still have a lot of fun playing through the levels. But now it's even more fun going for the 100% because the side objective is to find all 3 crystal shards in a stage, and they're not that hard to find. It's similar to trying to find the 3 green stars in Mario 3D world. There are a couple of shards that can be annoying to get by needing very specific requirements, but those are only like 4 shards of the 60ish in the game.

Bosses are a lot of fun and quite challenging for a Kirby game. Most of the bosses have 2 stages including the mvfucking tree this time around.

Great Kirby game, while not my favourite, I like it more than some of it's predecessors. If movement was a little less floaty and closer to Kirby's Adventure or Super Star, and some of the few shards weren't a pain to get, I would've liked it a little more.