This is a game I owned as a kid but never ended up beating. There are a bunch of missions to complete to get the real ending, and I could never figure out all of them to be able to actually beat it. I sat down with a wiki open on my computer and finally beat this game after so many years. I have Bone to thank for me finally getting off of my butt and completing this after I read his review of Dream Land 2 a week or so ago ^^;. It's not my favorite Kirby game on the SNES, but it does have a lot of nostalgia for me, so I'm really happy that I was finally able to conquer this mountain of my childhood (even if it ultimately wasn't that difficult ^^;). It took me around 4 hours to beat the game on my Switch's Super Famicom Online service.
The story is another fairly light Kirby affair as is so standard for their games. Kirby is chilling on Pop Star (or as it's called in Japanese: "Pupupu Land") when those weird, shadowy eyeball fellas land on it and start wreaking havoc again. Kirby needs to go to all five sections of Pop Star and complete the six levels in each and then fight a boss at the end. And, if they complete the special mission in each of the six levels in a world and then beats the boss there, they'll purify that area of the shadows. Purify all five worlds and you unlock a true final boss to fight to kick those shadowy jerks back into space. It's a simple, cute story that sets up the gameplay nicely, as is so often the case with Kirby.
The gameplay is very much Kirby and an evolution on what Dream Land 2 brought to the table. Like in Dream Land 2, there are a scaled back number of powers compared to just how many there are in Kirby's Adventure or Kirby Super Star Deluxe, but they're modified by the inclusion of Kirby's animal friends. Pair up with an animal friend and the power you have gets turned into something totally new that also happens to have that power. It's a neat gimmick that is also pretty clearly what led to the power combining mechanic that we'd see a couple years later in Kirby 64.
The main issue I found is that a lot of the animals just aren't that fun/quick to go around as, and a lot of their power combos suck. A fair few of the animals feel like power-downs as compared to how you usually get around (let alone compared to other animals), and several missions require the use of certain animals. Kirby themself controls alright, despite a bit of a heavier walk than I'm used to in Super Star, but a few of the animals are paiiiinfully slow and it feels like you're trudging through levels for no real benefit other than the novelty of the animal companion. Gooey, your co-op partner, is also a really cool idea, but Gooey (as far as I can tell) can't ride animals, which is a bit of a stinker (and Gooey is nowhere near as cool as the partner system in Super Star). It's certainly a change from the normal just-Kirby stuff, but it's got a flawed enough execution that it's not surprising to me that they were dropped from future Kirby games (though my personal favorites are Rick and Kine <3 ).
The level design and overall difficulty are quite good, and lend to a game that's not dead-easy but also isn't brutally hard. I actually did die at a few points, and the game hits a nice sweet spot between not really hard enough to make you feel like you're on edge, but also not easy enough that you just stop caring. There are a few parts that require the animals' respective unique platforming abilities to complete the mission in that stage, and those are usually really good fun (if above-average in their challenge), but there are only a few of them. The mission design on the whole varies a lot in quality from a good challenge to nearly unknowable nonsense (like the one in level 2 that had me stumped for literal decades), and while their overall construction is a big improvement on how they're done in Dream Land 2 (you can always find everything you'll need to complete a mission in that level, so you don't gotta go get animals/powers and bring them to a different level to complete that mission), but they're still a fairly flawed idea.
The presentation is very strong, as is normal for a Kirby game, but has some ups and downs. The music is overall very good, and I'll leave it at that. Kirby music is something HAL has always excelled at, and this game is no exception to that. The bigger sticking point for me is the graphics. Now, for a very late SFC game, the picture-book style of the game looks really cool. The way things look drawn with crayon or pencil gives the game a really unique style that I adore. The main thing I don't like about it is the fact that Kirby doesn't change depending on the power he has like with the hats they'd get in Super Star and such. I realize this is no doubt a compromise for needing to ride on all the animals, but it's still an aesthetic of those games that I love that I missed having here.
Verdict: Recommended. It's got some issues as far as Kirby games go, but it's still a really solid game. It's gotten to be quite the rare physical release, so it's pretty darn hard to recommend it that way, but if you already have Switch Online, I'd say there's no reason not to give this a go if you're in the mood to kill an afternoon with a fun platformer. There's certainly better Kirby to be found on the SNES, but this is definitely not a choice either.
The story is another fairly light Kirby affair as is so standard for their games. Kirby is chilling on Pop Star (or as it's called in Japanese: "Pupupu Land") when those weird, shadowy eyeball fellas land on it and start wreaking havoc again. Kirby needs to go to all five sections of Pop Star and complete the six levels in each and then fight a boss at the end. And, if they complete the special mission in each of the six levels in a world and then beats the boss there, they'll purify that area of the shadows. Purify all five worlds and you unlock a true final boss to fight to kick those shadowy jerks back into space. It's a simple, cute story that sets up the gameplay nicely, as is so often the case with Kirby.
The gameplay is very much Kirby and an evolution on what Dream Land 2 brought to the table. Like in Dream Land 2, there are a scaled back number of powers compared to just how many there are in Kirby's Adventure or Kirby Super Star Deluxe, but they're modified by the inclusion of Kirby's animal friends. Pair up with an animal friend and the power you have gets turned into something totally new that also happens to have that power. It's a neat gimmick that is also pretty clearly what led to the power combining mechanic that we'd see a couple years later in Kirby 64.
The main issue I found is that a lot of the animals just aren't that fun/quick to go around as, and a lot of their power combos suck. A fair few of the animals feel like power-downs as compared to how you usually get around (let alone compared to other animals), and several missions require the use of certain animals. Kirby themself controls alright, despite a bit of a heavier walk than I'm used to in Super Star, but a few of the animals are paiiiinfully slow and it feels like you're trudging through levels for no real benefit other than the novelty of the animal companion. Gooey, your co-op partner, is also a really cool idea, but Gooey (as far as I can tell) can't ride animals, which is a bit of a stinker (and Gooey is nowhere near as cool as the partner system in Super Star). It's certainly a change from the normal just-Kirby stuff, but it's got a flawed enough execution that it's not surprising to me that they were dropped from future Kirby games (though my personal favorites are Rick and Kine <3 ).
The level design and overall difficulty are quite good, and lend to a game that's not dead-easy but also isn't brutally hard. I actually did die at a few points, and the game hits a nice sweet spot between not really hard enough to make you feel like you're on edge, but also not easy enough that you just stop caring. There are a few parts that require the animals' respective unique platforming abilities to complete the mission in that stage, and those are usually really good fun (if above-average in their challenge), but there are only a few of them. The mission design on the whole varies a lot in quality from a good challenge to nearly unknowable nonsense (like the one in level 2 that had me stumped for literal decades), and while their overall construction is a big improvement on how they're done in Dream Land 2 (you can always find everything you'll need to complete a mission in that level, so you don't gotta go get animals/powers and bring them to a different level to complete that mission), but they're still a fairly flawed idea.
The presentation is very strong, as is normal for a Kirby game, but has some ups and downs. The music is overall very good, and I'll leave it at that. Kirby music is something HAL has always excelled at, and this game is no exception to that. The bigger sticking point for me is the graphics. Now, for a very late SFC game, the picture-book style of the game looks really cool. The way things look drawn with crayon or pencil gives the game a really unique style that I adore. The main thing I don't like about it is the fact that Kirby doesn't change depending on the power he has like with the hats they'd get in Super Star and such. I realize this is no doubt a compromise for needing to ride on all the animals, but it's still an aesthetic of those games that I love that I missed having here.
Verdict: Recommended. It's got some issues as far as Kirby games go, but it's still a really solid game. It's gotten to be quite the rare physical release, so it's pretty darn hard to recommend it that way, but if you already have Switch Online, I'd say there's no reason not to give this a go if you're in the mood to kill an afternoon with a fun platformer. There's certainly better Kirby to be found on the SNES, but this is definitely not a choice either.