Kind of a mixed bag for me, which is disappointing to say. For most of the game, I was enjoying myself a lot, but it got really soured towards the end.
I'll start positively by saying that I think this game is a great deal better than the first Kirby's Dream Land, though the bar was kinda low on that one. Hard to do worse than a game with no copy abilities. The abilities in Dream Land 2 are pretty basic, but they really shine with the addition of the animal partners. Rick, Kine, and especially Coo are really fun to use, and I love that they all have their own interactions with each power. Moving around with Kirby alone isn't anything special so it's great that they all provide a different mode of mobility too.
The first couple worlds are kind of a breeze, and I don't really mind that, it was a good time. Later on things got a lot less fun. Every world has a rainbow drop that you have to collect in order to unlock the true final boss, and the way some of these are hidden is nightmarish. Most of them require you to bring in a partner/ability from another level which is just annoying, and actually being able to hold on to both until you reach where you need to be is way easier said than done. And they're hidden behind such specific routes that I don't know how you're ever supposed to find some of them without a guide. The ones for worlds 4 and 6 were easily the worst.
And then you get to the endgame. World 7 is mostly just quick levels with a boss at the end, but 7-6 is unbelievably bullshit. Autoscroller with branching paths where you have to blindly choose the right one or else you die, it's seriously awful. And for your troubles getting through everything else, you get to fight Dedede and Dark Matter which are two of the slowest boss fights I've ever experienced. It's not too hard to catch on to their patterns after a bit of trial and error, but the issue is that the sword you get for Dark Matter does almost no damage. The only way to actually consistently hurt him is to wait until he uses a specific attack to hit back at him, and it can take ages to actually finish him off. And you'll probably die a lot, so it only gets worse.
I'm sad that this game ended so badly because I really did like the beginning and a lot of what it was going for. It's still pretty good for GameBoy standards, but I think it can comfortably be skipped.
I'll start positively by saying that I think this game is a great deal better than the first Kirby's Dream Land, though the bar was kinda low on that one. Hard to do worse than a game with no copy abilities. The abilities in Dream Land 2 are pretty basic, but they really shine with the addition of the animal partners. Rick, Kine, and especially Coo are really fun to use, and I love that they all have their own interactions with each power. Moving around with Kirby alone isn't anything special so it's great that they all provide a different mode of mobility too.
The first couple worlds are kind of a breeze, and I don't really mind that, it was a good time. Later on things got a lot less fun. Every world has a rainbow drop that you have to collect in order to unlock the true final boss, and the way some of these are hidden is nightmarish. Most of them require you to bring in a partner/ability from another level which is just annoying, and actually being able to hold on to both until you reach where you need to be is way easier said than done. And they're hidden behind such specific routes that I don't know how you're ever supposed to find some of them without a guide. The ones for worlds 4 and 6 were easily the worst.
And then you get to the endgame. World 7 is mostly just quick levels with a boss at the end, but 7-6 is unbelievably bullshit. Autoscroller with branching paths where you have to blindly choose the right one or else you die, it's seriously awful. And for your troubles getting through everything else, you get to fight Dedede and Dark Matter which are two of the slowest boss fights I've ever experienced. It's not too hard to catch on to their patterns after a bit of trial and error, but the issue is that the sword you get for Dark Matter does almost no damage. The only way to actually consistently hurt him is to wait until he uses a specific attack to hit back at him, and it can take ages to actually finish him off. And you'll probably die a lot, so it only gets worse.
I'm sad that this game ended so badly because I really did like the beginning and a lot of what it was going for. It's still pretty good for GameBoy standards, but I think it can comfortably be skipped.