It’s weird seeing people say that Kirby’s Dream Land 2 is better than 3 here because god damn that isn’t my experience at all. Maybe it’s that I have more nostalgic attachment to 3 due to actually having owned it as a kid, but between the increased screen real estate and the extra buddies including my actual favorites make me like this one a lot more! Sorry original three i love you guys but Pitch is my bestie, have you ever tried out the powers that let you essentially turn him into a rotating death ball circling Kirby if you launch it correctly with like fire and cutter. And parasol. Like he’s so good. You can do this with Rick and cutter too but I love the little green bird so much.
It is interesting to look at from a historical perspective, though. I feel like in the SNES era there’s kind of a neat divergence how the gameplay ideas surrounding copy abilities evolve between Super Star and Dream Lands 2 and 3. Both philosophies have a balance of combat use versus use in puzzle solving! Super Star’s definitely more weighted towards combat, with copy abilities having some use in finding secret areas but having various combat inputs that feel a little more like they’re geared towards picking your favorite character in a fighting game or beat-em-up. Meanwhile, Dream Land 2 and 3 are more about making sure you find the right combination of ability and animal buddy to solve the level’s puzzle, with the combat applications of each combo ranging from honestly kind of broken to a real pain in the ass. I don’t really blame people for preferring Super Star’s brand of things, since I too prefer Super Star’s approach, but I think it’s kind of neat to have two different styles in the same series. I think eventually the games hit a better balance between the two approaches, and I’m curious to get to Kirby 64 to see how it fits into things as the third entry of the Dark Matter trilogy, as I actually managed to 100% that one as a kid and I’m curious to see how it lives up to my memories.
I do have a soft spot for the Dark Matter games due to the presence of extremely cute little guy animal buddies and Friends Who Need Your Help In Stages in combination with the buckwild final boss (WHY IS IT FIRING BLOOD AT ME. WHY IS IT LIKE THIS. WHAT THE FUCK). The puzzles can be a little annoying and/or obtuse but I do kinda like the vibes around them, you know? You get to meet a cute little guy at the end of the stage and make them happy, and if they look sad you’re motivated to make them happy…! Or they’re a cameo from a completely different series. Of course I wanna help Samus with the Metroids! (Even though when I was a little bitty baby child I had no idea what the hell was going on there because I didn’t touch Metroid for ages). And really, the game looks absolutely gorgeous, with its soft crayon-looking graphics and its cute designs. The music is great too, of course! It’s Kirby!
With that said I do get a lot of the criticisms. Kirby’s definitely pretty slow in this one, and maaan the boss fights are just kinda bad. Copy abilities are definitely better to use in boss fights than in 2, and if you don’t bring one good luck waiting around for the boss’s RNG to use the attack that will give you ammunition to shoot at them. If you don’t hit them that time, you’ve gotta wait a real long time sometimes…
And you’re not allowed to pause during boss fights for some reason? Is that something for original hardware or an NSO emulation thing? I can’t imagine it being the latter but I absolutely cannot understand why that is something the devs would make, like, an actual game mechanic. Is it a difficulty thing? Is it because it’s not on a mobile console like the Gameboy so you should do your boss fight when you have time? Dudes this is a game for babies. What if your mom calls you down to dinner while you’re in the middle of a boss fight. Are you just supposed to take the L. Genuinely baffling. Even so, while this didn’t live up to how much I loved it as a kid, I still really liked actually getting to 100% it, so I can’t say I’m too terribly disappointed.
It is interesting to look at from a historical perspective, though. I feel like in the SNES era there’s kind of a neat divergence how the gameplay ideas surrounding copy abilities evolve between Super Star and Dream Lands 2 and 3. Both philosophies have a balance of combat use versus use in puzzle solving! Super Star’s definitely more weighted towards combat, with copy abilities having some use in finding secret areas but having various combat inputs that feel a little more like they’re geared towards picking your favorite character in a fighting game or beat-em-up. Meanwhile, Dream Land 2 and 3 are more about making sure you find the right combination of ability and animal buddy to solve the level’s puzzle, with the combat applications of each combo ranging from honestly kind of broken to a real pain in the ass. I don’t really blame people for preferring Super Star’s brand of things, since I too prefer Super Star’s approach, but I think it’s kind of neat to have two different styles in the same series. I think eventually the games hit a better balance between the two approaches, and I’m curious to get to Kirby 64 to see how it fits into things as the third entry of the Dark Matter trilogy, as I actually managed to 100% that one as a kid and I’m curious to see how it lives up to my memories.
I do have a soft spot for the Dark Matter games due to the presence of extremely cute little guy animal buddies and Friends Who Need Your Help In Stages in combination with the buckwild final boss (WHY IS IT FIRING BLOOD AT ME. WHY IS IT LIKE THIS. WHAT THE FUCK). The puzzles can be a little annoying and/or obtuse but I do kinda like the vibes around them, you know? You get to meet a cute little guy at the end of the stage and make them happy, and if they look sad you’re motivated to make them happy…! Or they’re a cameo from a completely different series. Of course I wanna help Samus with the Metroids! (Even though when I was a little bitty baby child I had no idea what the hell was going on there because I didn’t touch Metroid for ages). And really, the game looks absolutely gorgeous, with its soft crayon-looking graphics and its cute designs. The music is great too, of course! It’s Kirby!
With that said I do get a lot of the criticisms. Kirby’s definitely pretty slow in this one, and maaan the boss fights are just kinda bad. Copy abilities are definitely better to use in boss fights than in 2, and if you don’t bring one good luck waiting around for the boss’s RNG to use the attack that will give you ammunition to shoot at them. If you don’t hit them that time, you’ve gotta wait a real long time sometimes…
And you’re not allowed to pause during boss fights for some reason? Is that something for original hardware or an NSO emulation thing? I can’t imagine it being the latter but I absolutely cannot understand why that is something the devs would make, like, an actual game mechanic. Is it a difficulty thing? Is it because it’s not on a mobile console like the Gameboy so you should do your boss fight when you have time? Dudes this is a game for babies. What if your mom calls you down to dinner while you’re in the middle of a boss fight. Are you just supposed to take the L. Genuinely baffling. Even so, while this didn’t live up to how much I loved it as a kid, I still really liked actually getting to 100% it, so I can’t say I’m too terribly disappointed.