Apologies for a sort of petty write-up (if you already couldn't tell by the score), but this is more a standing warning for it being on the top reviewed alongside Ao no Kiseki, although what I have to say applies vastly more for this one.

The Trails community is a very insular niche group, and not to remark against their enjoyment but I'd keep in mind that this game is largely untranslated with the only translation jobs for it so far are a butchered machine-writing version that certainly doesn't attest to any good writing and a single "loose" stream translation of which I imagine most people came to 'play' this game from. So I would be highly skeptical of the validity of whether or not this is worth getting into! And being at the complete tail end (or most recent one) of a very long series that's required to go through first, that makes the asking price a lot bigger.

So, buyers beware... haha.

That level with dead ends is quite the unexpected surprise! Keep it expected next time 🗣️ 🗣️ that fish mad chill tho I didn't know he was chill like that damn 🚬 and there's Coo who... honestly he cheesed the game for me, him and the cutter ability? Damn we are witnessing a genocide my friends. Then, we have Rick... yeah big hamster, pet hamsters can die if you fart too loud so this one was doomed from the beginning. Still that makes 28 unique moves for Kirby, we are truly gaming. I still know how to count, too. Is it really the "power" of friendship if you're limiting your movements ? No, no... think of waiting with your friends at the bus stop to keep them company. I am flabbergasted by this star shit though wtf is this shit? They're still here until Kirby 64? It feels like Mandela effect that I never knew about Kirby thinking he's Mario without shame.

This is more fitting as baby's first platformer compared to Dream Land and Adventure, you're not an useless pack of meat when you float for starters! And yeah it's a spring breeze. Get your acquaintances hooked on Kirby with this one simple trick (they won't)! Playing the DL2 DX pack, this is as beautiful as it gets! But do not forget my brother in christ, the fog is coming. When you get the ending and the game would rather credit its critters before its developers, thats the typa shit that tells you something malicious is brewing. That Dark Matter fella is sweet stuff compared to DL3 and 64, still you'll have to "avada kedavra!!" his ass like your star rod is a semi-auto.

With all this commotion, did you notice this game lacked the invincibility candy? I want to complain even if I didnt notice it. Grrrrrrr!! Well I tried. Why complain about things that actually need complaining? Give that man a [TRUE...]! Will the homies hop on Dream Land 2 if they knew it was peak and had soul? This makes excellent bait for the average Backloggdian. Unfortunately, the level design seems to have suffered from having to compete with Dream Land. It's in the dictionary next to the definition of "short term memory loss". But it doesn't mean they're not fun! (except the aforementioned dead ends segment) because, see, it's got a good rating here. My stamp of approval should tell you enough, too bad I'm mentally unwell and cannot be trusted as such.

The first time I ever beat this game was back in 2022. After playing Forgotten Land when it launched, and really enjoying that, I was still in a Kirby mood and decided to beat one of the few mainline games I haven't already. While not bad overall, I found this notably weaker than Dreamland 1 for several reasons. I was a bit generous back then tho and gave it a 6 like I did Dreamland 1. Well coming back to it again, yeah It's still weaker than Dreamland 1 and I'm dropping it to a 5 now.

That's not to say there aren't some things this game improved on compared to 1. Overall, Kirby feels better to control in this one which is nice. While I'm nostalgic for the first game's ost, this game might have it beat overall. Sure it reuses a lot of tracks from Dreamland 1 and Adventure, however it's original tracks are actually really damn good. Coo's Theme is the real standout here, goddamn is that some good shit. Visually it also looks nicer than Dreamland 1 I'd say, though still doesn't look that great overall since it's still a Gameboy game.

The main thing this game added though were the animal friends. The aforementioned Koo the owl, Kine the fish and Rick the hamster are the three buddies in this game. They're a fun addition and change the gameplay up. Since copy abilities are back, each animal friend actually has their own version of each one. They greatly vary in usage though. Koo with parasol is amazing while Rick with needle is most of the time awful. It's a cool idea, that gets expanded on way more in Dreamland 3, however the execution here is very hit and miss.

Something you can use these animal friends abilities on are copy ability specific blocks. These usually block the main collectable in this game, the rainbow drops. To get 100% in this game, and fight the true final boss, you must get them all. Let me tell you, some of them are a huge pain to get. Not only are the later ones cryptic, the one where you have to use Kine + electric is just straight BS sometimes because of what you have to do to get it. If you know you know, but either way you most likely won't be getting these without a guide.

Other than that, the game just goes on for way too long I feel. To beat Dreamland 1, it takes around and hour or less (most likely a half hour) which is perfect for the type of game this is. Dreamland 2 might improve on 1's controls a bit, but it's still a Gameboy game and it's around 4 hours long to full complete everything. That's way longer and as such it just drags on near the end. That, plus the level design can be very hit or miss. Most of the levels are passable I'd say, however the game really loves its auto scrolling levels and these can be a bitch sometimes with it being a Gameboy game. And of course there's the infamous auto-scroller with the instakill dead ends that is pure trial and error and yeah that one is pure dogshit.

Along with the rainbow drops, to get 100% you have to also do these star collecting minigames and also find the female Gooey once. Gooey is this blobby guy that replaces an animal buddy if it gives you the one you already have. He just gives you some health back if you collect him. However there's a 1/8 chance it'll be a female Gooey instead and finding her actually contributes to 100% which is weird but easy to do in a certain level luckily. The star minigames you can do after going into the boss door again after you've beaten them. You have to collect every star and get a perfect in every world because this contributes to 100%. The minigames themselves are fine enough, however if you get hit or miss a star, you can't play it again until you go and beat a stage. I get why they do this as it's easy to grind lives if this wasn't in place, however the fact you have to do this for 100% just means it wastes time if you lose which isn't fun.

This is the first in the Dark Matter trilogy and so after we defeat Dedede at the end, we get to fight Dark Matter for the first time. Get used to doing that as he's a regular throughout the trilogy ofc. I remember the fight being more frustrating back in 2022, but here it wasn't too bad. Decent introduction to them as a main antagonist of the trilogy.

While I quite like Dreamland 1 and 3, I don't have much of a connection to 2 at all and I personally think it's a lot more flawed compared to those two games. It improves on some things from 1 but is also way longer and drags on because of that. Not to mention it's annoying to 100%. It's not a terrible sequel but I personally think it's a downgrade compared to 1 even if the animal friends and copy abilities being here are nice. I'll take 1 any day of the week over this.

This isnt no Dream Land 2. This punk ass pink punk got himself a highschool clique. This time, I wasn't deadset on abusing the same ability throughout, although like an addict relapsing it happened again in 64. If you were wondering why small gatherings of minors were forbidden at certain malls, well this is because Kirby has been there! This is certainly logical. We have watched his career with great interest and he's still finding more and more people to help him suck. One of his friends is a bit more independant than the others, his name is Gooey and he keeps me from sucking! That is why I avoided using him because I'm not about that life, but it was easy to press the wrong input and summon the fool. Go to bed already!

Eating crayons is good but how about using them for a good artstyle? Now thats making a killing! I'm kidding this absolutely FLOPPED every american was playing Ocarina of Time by then. But still, there are particles, visual feedback, the...flying Touhou witches, moving backgrounds. I'd drink to that, but I must stay sharp, for the fog is still coming. Once again you have to grind out if you wanna book a meeting with the eldritch abomination of a final boss during lunch hours. I suggest looking up some of the ways you can finish levels properly if you do not want to experience the walk of shame upon your way back to the world map. As there aren't many worlds, the darker side of this truth is that levels can take quite some time to finish, but it's reasonably okay. So I guess you can shamewalk a bit.

This guy Dedede is not doing no Ramadan, even his belly is in on the feast. I know he didn't brush his teeth down there. This and the spiders with them freakishly long legs make this the scariest entry in the mascot horror genre. I love spiders too, but maybe not legs. Everybody gangsta when Whispy Woods got a pair of his own and starts chasing you! top cinco rumpscaré yup and then there was a tanuki wow and the world watches in horror as I put him 6 feet under.

I know Kirby was starting to get stale for some people and they wanted another Super Star, but to me that is a better game. I am fine with this. This is definitely one of the games I like. If it wasn't absurd with the invulnerability frames I wouldn't be passed around like a blunt but I guess it'd be less funny. What was Meta Knight doing during all this though like naaaah fuck that harbinger of evil shit I'm hitting my Zzzs.

I know I'm still in the middle of another marathon (Kirby) but I've decided to also go through every Zelda game I own and can emulate because I've been in a big Zelda mood lately. Not only that, some other Backloggd members have also decided to join this marathon as well. Namely QuentTheSlayer, Ptcremisi,Steinco,Phantasm and a couple others. The four I mentioned plan on playing pretty much every game like I am, while the others plan on picking and choosing games they want to play. Either way, be sure to check out their accounts because they plan on putting out reviews for all the games too!

Anyways, The Legend of Zelda. I first played this game years ago on my brother's 3DS XL. He randomly bought this off the eShop and when he wasn't using his 3DS, I decided to actually try the first Zelda game out. I don't think I got far, and I didn't love it but it was neat finally trying this game out. Fast forward to 2020, I was trying to beat some games I started but never finished. Since I still had NSO, and I knew this game was on it, I decided to finally beat it once and for all. I did, and yeah I didn't like it all too much. I think I had to use save states, and definitely had to use a guide for most of it and that hampered my experience a lot. Coming back to it today tho, I say I still don't really like it all too much but it has its merits.

I guess I'll first go into the story of this game. Most future Zelda games also go by this same story structure as well, so get used to what I'm about to say. You play as Link, a young boy from the kingdom of Hyrule. You must rescue the princess of Hyrule, Zelda, from the big bad of this series, Ganon. You must collect the pieces of Triforce, which are used to stop Ganon, and they are split into 8 shards and are all found at the end of dungeons. The three pieces are the Triforce of Courage, Wisdom and Power. The specific pieces don't really come into play until later games, because that's if. That's the entire story of the first Zelda game. It's incredibly simple but it works, and these story details are the backbone of the entire Zelda series.

When you first start the actual game, the first thing you see on the first screen you're on, is an empty cave. You meet an old man, and he utters the now famous dialogue "It's dangerous to go alone, take this!". He hands you a sword and with that, you're free to explore the world of Hyrule. Exploring Hyrule can be pretty fun and frustrating on your first playthrough. On one hand, you'll be exploring everywhere trying to find each dungeon and trying to find any secrets you can. That can be very fun for people that just love to explore with almost zero direction, this is a game from 1986 so the best direction you'd get back then were vague hints or using an issue of Nintendo Power for help. This is 2024 tho, and you've been able to just look up a guide online for a while now, so that's what most players will do. And honestly, that's what I did and it's the best way to get through the overworld portions at least. See, this game's overworld relies on you finding random secrets you would only find by randomly guessing their locations or by using a guide. This game loves random bombable walls or random bushes you can burn, and while this only affects actually dungeons near the end, this is used for required items and also several rupee locations (that you WILL need) and so I think this is an unfun part of the overworld. If there was any indication the walls or bushes had secrets, it would be fine, but there isn't unless you find some very vague dialogue in game. That, plus just bombing a wall or burning a bush isn't really puzzle-like, which I would prefer in my Zelda overworlds. This is something future Zelda games improved on, but here, you might as well just use a guide to get most of the overworld stuff done first and then move onto the dungeons (that's what I did). I can see why some other people might find it more fun to constantly replay this game and actually memorize all the secrets, however I just don't think that's good game design and so I decided to do the whole overworld with a guide.

The dungeons themselves, while not great, are definitely the best part of this game. They are way less cryptic than the overworld, and thus are more fun. They can get pretty brutal near the end of the game, and also more confusing (they start to rely on bombable walls too) so I had to use a guide for the last couple as well. But in general, despite the simplicity, the dungeons are pretty fun. The bosses at the end of each dungeon are pretty easy but with this type of game, I'm fine with that since the bulk of the game is exploration. Something I didn't like, and I'm mentioning it here because it happens mostly in dungeons, is the fact you start with 3 health when you die. No matter how many heart containers you have, you'll always just start the game with 3 health and it's my biggest issue in the game because it's tedious having to get more health to have a fighting chance (since it's so easy to get hit in this game). Luckily, there are a couple fairy fountains that restore your health fully throughout the world, and there are caves that give you potions (believe me you will need these) so they make that whole health system a bit more tolerable. Going back to "since it's so easy to get hit in this game" whenever you get hid, there enemy pushes you back a bunch and because the invincibility frames are relatively short, it's not hard to get comboed by enemies and die. Now this didn't happen too much in my playthrough, but it can still be annoying. Outside of getting hit tho, Link plays well otherwise.

Inside the dungeons, and also outside in caves, you can collect different items that aid you in your adventure. You have some iconic items like the boomerang, bombs, a bow and arrows and ofc the iconic Rupees. You also have heart containers in this game, that you will want to find in all the caves and after each dungeon boss. There aren't heart pieces in this game, only containers, so each of them is super valuable. I won't get into all the main dungeon items, just know they're all pretty solid, but I will get into the clock. Sometimes when you kill an enemy, it drops a clock. When you pick up the clock, it stops every enemy in place if they're on the same screen you collected it on. This can be SO helpful in later encounters if you somehow are able to get one, it's very random tho so you better hope you get lucky. I also will say, one time during my playthrough, I killed three of these boomerang enemies and got three fairies at once from them. Idk how lucky that is but it seemed pretty insane.

The music in this game is simply iconic. The Title Theme(yes I shared the Famicom version, it's the best version) is probably my favorite song in the game and is the main theme of the entire franchise which makes sense since it's amazing. The overworld also uses a version of these theme and it's also very good. Picking up items and finding secrets also play jingles and they've been in pretty much every Zelda game since this one as well. If this game does anything super well, it's the sound design. There's a reason so much of it was reused for future titles lol.

While I don't care for the first Legend of Zelda all too much, due to the exploration secrets not being great and the 3 heart after death thing, I can't deny it's an iconic game and was very important in the grand scheme of things for the Zelda series. I don't love playing it, but I can certainly appreciate it for what it is.

Now that Zelda 1 is done, Zelda 2 is next. I actually have never played that one, and I haven't heard great things, so I'm worried I won't like it much but I guess we'll see. Look forward to that next.

Also, when I get to the 3D Zelda titles, I'll try to sprinkle in some smaller games in between but more importantly, I'll try to mix some Kirby games in between. Basically, I'll be doing a mix of Kirby and Zelda eventually. Just letting you know now since you'll eventually notice, I'm sure.