Kirby's Dreamland is a great start to the legacy of consistently fun and simple Kirby games. This game gets some flak for being too short and simple, but in my opinion, that is a strength of the game.

Unlike the rest of Kirby's games, there are no copy abilities in Kirby's Dreamland. This means that all of the combat revolves around inhaling and spitting out enemies, and I'm all here for it. This combat system makes Kirby's Dreamland feel like the combination of a platformer and a shoot-em-up. You can float, but you're relatively slow and defenseless while doing so. If you have something in your mouth, your platforming abilities are limited, since you can no longer float. The core gameplay is all about constantly switching between fleeing with superior platforming ability, and giving up your platforming ability for self defense, and it works very well.

This constantly shifting gameplay is put to extra good use in the boss fights. Every boss has a few attacks that create something for you to inhale, and once you inhale it, it becomes a tense game of waiting for an opportunity to spit it back at the boss and gain your superior movement back.

Kirby's Dreamland is a very short game, much to it's benefit. If it were too long, the extremely basic mechanics would get boring. This length also makes the game very easy to recommend; who doesn't have a little under an hour to see where the Kirby series originated? Kirby's Dreamland is a solid, fun game that I can see myself impulsively replaying for the heck of it in the near future.