Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

For the longest time, this was in my top 5 Kirby games. I got this on the Wii U virtual console back in the day, and remember enjoying it a lot. I also remember that I used save states on certain parts and was annoyed at other parts of the game but I generally loved the game's aesthetic and vibe, I guess those aspects overshadowed the bad parts in my mind. What do I think of the game now though? It's not bad at all, but it does have some really annoying issues that nowadays do hamper my experience.

Let's talk about the gameplay first and foremost. Compared to Superstar, it's a big downgrade. Kirby's running speed is very fast, but his walking speed is incredibly slow. This wouldn't usually be an issue however, a lot of them the camera won't pan at the start of a new area until you've gotten until the edge of the screen. Unless you're as careful as can be, if an enemy is there it will hit you. This never happened at all in Superstar. When Kirby floats and gets out of a float, he loses all momentum he's gained and will basically stop in place. Maybe this is so you don't spam the float but it ruins the flow of the gameplay a bit and is an annoyance since Superstar also never did this. It's also incredibly easy to get hit in this game, not only because or the whole screen having to catch up with Kirby, but because the invincibility frames last like a second or less so it's so easy to just get comboed if you're unlucky. This is something I noticed even back in the day, you get hit A LOT in this game and it's quite annoying. One last thing this game downgraded from Superstar, and this one isn't as bad as the other things I mentioned (at least for me) is Kirby's moveset. Kirby goes back to only having one basic move per copy ability. While this is naturally a downgrade compared to Superstar, the animal friends return from Dreamland 2 and do make up for this a bit I think.

Not only are Rick, Kine and Coo back from Dreamland 2, this game adds three new animal friends as well. Nago the cat, Pitch the bird and ChuChu the octopus are the new additions and they're all very solid. Nago is actually my favorite of the six, cuz he feels the best to control but also because he has a very helpful triple jump. Pitch doesn't really have any abilities but he is a cute little guy. ChuChu can only float a couple of times at once but she has the ability to hang from ceilings (it only really gets used once tho lol). Anyways, like Dreamland 2, Dreamland 3 gives each animal friend their own specific take on the copy abilities. With six animal friends now, and 8 copy abilities, that's 48 unique animal friend abilities. There are way less copy abilities in this game compared to Superstar, however with this many animal friend abilities, I feel like it never gets boring since you're more than likely always discovering new ones throughout the game which is fun.

Going into the level's themselves, they aren't great tbh. A good chunk of them are very simple with enemies littered throughout. The level design is way too basic and can get boring some of the time (mostly some of world 3 and 4). They try to combat this with the game's main collectable, the heart-stars, but this can also be a mixed bag. Early on they aren't bad. Each world has six stages, and each of the six stages use the same heart-star conventions. The first always deals with flowers. The second always has you bringing a specific copy ability or animal friend to some part of the stage and interacting with whatever. The third has you playing a minigame a way into the stage. The fourth has you collecting a single object in the stage and bringing it to the end. The fifth has you bringing a specific animal friend to the end of the stage so they can be with their girlfriend/boyfriend. And the 6th has you collecting several objects in the level and bringing them to the end character. Yeah, you get a heart-star from a character at the end of the stage..and they can be pretty fun to see. Mostly because this game cross overed with other Nintendo properties like ROB the Robot and Metroid. Anyways, heart-stars aren't usually too bad to get but the endgame has some really annoying ones. The last couple minigames are like annoying as balls to do without save stating, otherwise you have to redo the stage each time you lose, so I decided to just save state again like I did all the way back in the day. That plus others can just be plain cryptic, and yeah..the collectables aren't super fun to get some of the time.

I know I've spent most of this review complaining so far, and yeah, the gameplay probably is the weakest part of this game, but some of the other aspects are fantastic and make up for the gameplay a bit. The visuals for example are amazing in this game. I still think Yoshi's Island is the best-looking Super Nintendo game, however this is right next to that. This game is a coloring book come to life and it's so nice to look at. It fits Kirby perfectly too and I really wish the modern games tried to do something like this again. Besides the amazing art style, this game is just really charming in general. Whether it's all the animal friend's reactions to Kirby picking other friends instead of them, or the bosses of each world standing idle not fighting you after you purified them by getting every heart-star in the world. Gameplay be damned, it's clear the Kirby3 team were passionate about the actual world and characters. I also always loved the atmosphere in this game. Idk if it's because of the cutesy art style combined with Dark Matter as an antagonist, but this game always felt a bit off in a way I really liked. I don't know how to describe it, but Dreamland 3 fans will probably understand what I mean.

The bosses in general are solid. You have the usual Wispy Woods and some other cool ones. Besides the introduction of Ado (who is basically just Adeline before Adeline), Dark Matter and Zero are great final bosses to the Dreamland trilogy. Dark Matter is cool ofc but Zero is very creepy especially for a Kirby game. The fact it's a giant white sphere that bleeds as you attack it, and the fact its last final form is its eyeball ripped out of the sphere, all bloody and everything, it's so unlike Kirby and just gives the game this eerie feeling I love.

The music in this game is also super good and drives the atmosphere home even more. My favorite songs were probably Grass Land 1, Grass Land 4 and Ripple Field 1. The entire soundtrack is really solid though and like I said, really helps with game feeling atmospheric.

I'm sad this isn't in my top 5 Kirby's anymore. This game has a lot of charm and heart to it but on the gameplay side, it just has too many issues for me to rate it super high. My judgement was clouded back then by the art style and atmosphere, and while those are still great now, I can't deny this game isn't as good as I once thought. I still like it overall, but I will kneel to all the Superstar fans despite not loving that game's structure...that is the superior Kirby game. If they took the gameplay from Superstar and the art style, atmosphere and single campaign structure from this game...I may have gotten my perfect Kirby game. Ah well, a man can dream. I will say tho, I do like this more than Dreamland 2. There isn't a level as bullshit as that trial and error in 2 and this game visually just looks so much better of course. That and I have more nostalgia for it haha. Anyways, next is Donkey Kong Country 3 so look forward to that!

6.5/10