“Poochy, aren’t you being really hard on an original Game Boy game?”

Yea.

I was hoping to say something about how interesting it is to go back to the first game in the series but, wait… the interesting thing about the game is how uninteresting it is! You travel through five stages mostly just moving forward and sucking up enemies sometimes, fight a few bosses, fight them again, fight Dedede, then you’re done. It feels difficult to call the game “chill” when it feels moreso like a nothing game. The movement just isn’t really fun at all, and the floating feels just finnicky enough to be a little annoying (particularly during the Lololo/Lalala boss fight).

The mid-level and before-level cutscenes are pretty cute, and clearly where most of Kirby’s appeal originates from. The game still felt like a waste of time though, ultimately. But such is life.