Kirby's Dream Land (GB)

[Nz17]

Just completed Kirby's Dream Land for the Game Boy via the 3DS's eShop and like I suspected for all these years, it is an awesome game and a strong start to a long-lived series.

Back in the day I didn't own a Game Boy and felt abandoned by Nintendo Power when all of its coverage began to shift to the Game Boy and later the Super Nintendo. By that time it felt like Nintendo had all but surrendered interest in the console that made the company. Thankfully before it sent the NES out to sea Nintendo deemed it worthy of receiving Kirby's Adventure and I saw what made the GB game special... but of course in color and with Meta Knight and a save feature.

Like many of the Game Boy's early titles, this game is a quick game to finish and features only a small level set and no level select. However the five levels here are quite fun, fluid, and large by standards of the day, and each has many sections connected by doorways. Every one features a memorable boss fight at the end, whether you are fighting a giant tree, an eye in a lightning storm, Lolo and Lala's doppelgängers, a blimp with a cannon, or King Dedede himself. And if you want more of what's here, an Extra Game mode is available that remixes the original stages with more difficult enemies.

Unlike the later games, Kirby doesn't have his famous copy ability on display here. Instead he must utilize the rest of his abilities to stop the enemies. He can jump, he can fly, he can swim, he dive-bombs, he inhales blocks and enemies, and he spits them back at others as dangerous stars.

About the only other thing really missing is his pink color! And why you may ask? Because Nintendo of America didn't think Westerners would want to play as a pink puff ball. So NoA nixed the pink coloring on the game's cover art. But Kirby proved that though he's a little guy, he packs a mighty wallop, and we've seen his games released one after another ever since.

[old man]

HAL labs made some great games that Nintendo would later take credit for.

[kainemaxwell]

and Kirby for the NES is really fun also.

[Drixxel]

Kirby's Dream Land is a fun lil' game that's enjoyable to revisit once in awhile. Those sorts of easily digestible platformers definitely hold appeal from time to time.

HAL labs made some great games that Nintendo would later take credit for.

That sounds a little harsh, HAL may be a subsidiary of Nintendo but the HAL name has always been given proper developer credit. Aside from Kirby, is there any HAL property that Nintendo treats like 1st party?

[duo_r]

Does the 3DS allow different color shades to play in like a Super Gameboy?

[Satoshi_Matrix]

Great to hear the 3DS is bringing classic GB games to new gamers who missed out on the classic system. I highly suggest you buy either a GBC or a GBA SP and start a real GB/GBC collection.

A little while ago I wrote a top 25 list of the best games to look for on the handheld. I own well over a hundred GameBoy games and this is what I consider the cream of the crop.

http://satoshimatrix.wordpress.com/2...y-color-games/

[skaar]

Solid title, I remember I could play through this game in a single class. (<50 minutes) and still have a good time.

[Nz17]

Does the 3DS allow different color shades to play in like a Super Gameboy?

No, it just has black-and-white and green-and-dark-green (to look like a traditional Game Boy).

Great to hear the 3DS is bringing classic GB games to new gamers who missed out on the classic system. I highly suggest you buy either a GBC or a GBA SP and start a real GB/GBC collection.

(Story time, grab some popcorn.)

I've been playing Game Boy games since the beginning, but I never owned any "GB" until I got the Game Boy Advance in 2002. Reason being is that at first I really wanted a Game Boy when they were announced (Nintendo's marketing budget well at work!) but being from a poor family we couldn't get one then. Afterward my grandma took us to Germany where I was able to play Tetris and Super Mario Land on a German relative's Game Boy. This was back when the Game Boy was new and every kid wanted to play one. The German boys who owned it were already bored of the thing as those were the only games they had... though I think they owned a total of four, they had finished them or grown tired of them and couldn't find the others. Eventually they found Castlevania. But it was all new to me, so I was eager to play!

Well, I then found out why they stopped playing. The technology and games were dreadful! The thing was big and bulky and uncomfortable to hold for long with its size and the weight of the 4 AA batteries. The screen looked like blurry pea soup. The controls were too close together and hurt your hands after a while. And the games were clunky and stiff and didn't play a thing like their NES counterparts. As you might imagine, I wanted to play the Mario game most of all, but Mario Land is hardly like any other Super Mario Bros. game! It was difficult and un-fun so I stopped playing it. It's not a bad game, but it isn't like a good Miyamoto Mario. I'd compare it to the "shock" of playing JP Mario 2 after having only played the Western NES releases. I would keep going back to Mario Land after a round of Tetris, but it was just never worth it to keep playing for long. And with the dark screen and the bright summer sunshine and Tetris being Tetris, I could only play Tetris for so long.

I think I also played the first GB Castlevania at the time, and anyone who's played that knows it is nowhere near the caliber of the NES Castlevanias. It's not bad, it's just not smooth flowing and what I was expecting, particularly with the different jumping mechanic which caused a large number of unjustified deaths... I would always jump expecting the traditional Belmont movement through the air and instead get hit or miss and fall to my doom!

Flash forward to 1993, and I finally get a handheld game console that isn't a black-and-white Tiger LCD! But it's... the Game Gear? That was unexpected, as I had asked for a Game Boy. But the Target store clerk had talked my grandma into buying this instead, and from a technology standpoint it was hard to argue with. After the initial shock, I got over it and realized how cool this was. Could it be... that it was even cooler than a Game Boy? Yes it was! This was during SEGA's prime, and this was the brand-new, color, and hot off the line Game Gear that could play... Sonic The Hedgehog! OK, so I'd have to get that later as the Game Gear was packaged with Columns, and the other games I got that Christmas were Shinobi and Dragon Crystal and I believe Psychic World. But Columns, Physic World, and Shinobi were awesome, and Dragon Crystal kept me playing for hours. And the screen was as bright as a television. And you could watch television on the thing! Awesome! So no need for Game Boy then.

Several years of Game Gear joy go by, and sadly that chapter in SEGA's history ends. So the supply of games dries up and there's nothing new to play. But then in 1997 I get the Sony PlayStation and a whole new world of gaming opens for me!

However that's not the end of my tale of portable gaming. During the interim while I'm enjoying the PlayStation I help other people with their Game Boy purchases. My sister gets a Game Boy Color (Pikachu version) for Christmas alongside Pokemon Red, Blue, and Yellow from my aunt and uncle. Relatives want game recommendations for her new console and I recommend Mario Land 2, Zelda DX, Harvest Moon, and Metal Gear Solid: Ghost Babel. Predictably, she only really likes Pokemon and Harvest Moon. Zelda is "too difficult," MGS has "too much reading and is too confusing," and Mario Land 2 is good but "the bosses and last stages are too much."

So I end up playing the final stages and bosses of the game for her so she can see the game's ending and I realize how much better than Mario Land 1 this game is. I made a mental note to get the game for myself later as she wanted the GBC back to play Pokemon.

Skip ahead to 2002 and SEGA goes belly-up, abandoning the hardware biz and going third-party developer. And it is announced that Sonic's first new game on non-SEGA hardware is to be Sonic Advance. So having waited until now to get a GBA I buy a platinum one and get Sonic Advance for this momentous occasion.

Knowing that there were plenty of past GB and GBC games which I missed out on, I go and try to find out which ones I should buy. But my small town's meager selection of remaining game stock for those handheld consoles consists of only a small group of titles. Therefore I buy a copy of Shantae and a used, cart-only copy of R-Type DX.

These are great fun (and R-Type as always is greatly difficult), but they can't hold a candle to the graphic prowess and audio fidelity of the GBA games. So I don't spend too much time seeking out classic GB/GBC games at this time.

Then the time arrives to upgrade to a lighted GBA. But my mom, who loved playing puzzle games years ago on the Game Gear, has nothing to play anymore as the Game Gear's power inlet got too finicky to play years back. So I decided that instead, as she deserved a new game to play, to get her a used GBA SP from the pawn shop along with some great puzzlers and ports of her old favorites.

Still later I have to pass up on the Micro. Then the DS. Finally the DS Lite is released and I buy a white one. But there's no compatibility with GB and GBC games. And now, I have a 3DS that's limited to what Nintendo approves for re-release. But without the ability to play the original classics on these newer pieces of hardware nor a lighted GBA, I have never had a large window of time, comfortable hardware, or the availability of a large lot of used games to choose from to build up a sizable collection. So thus I usually skip purchasing any of those games and my classic Game Boy collection stays small.

But last year at Anime Banzai I did pick up a copy of Donkey Kong Country returns for the Game Boy Color, and that counts for something, right?

[Drath]

I recently played through this as well. Even though it was quite easy, it was still enjoyable. I love how on the box cover he was white (instead of pink) because they didn't think it would sell in America/Europe if he was pink. There's also lots of glitches in the game as I later found out when researching for my site:
http://www.glitchgamer.com/kirbys-dream-land-gb

[ccovell]

Aside from Kirby, is there any HAL property that Nintendo treats like 1st party?

Very minor, but 3-D Hot Rally on the FDS was originally promoted (, programmed?) and planned to be released by HAL, but then Mario characters were added and the game was released by Nintendo instead.

[skaar]

A huge part of the game for me was actually the upbeat catchy music. The gameplay was almost secondary.

[A Black Falcon]

Yeah, Kirby 1's a good game for sure. And yes, it's very short. However, for everyone saying it's easy... um, did you not wait through the credits or something? Use the code shown at the end of the game (or look it up online) and play the game again in Extra mode, which could have been called Hard Mode, and just try to easily beat it again... Kirby 1 in Hard Mode is one of the tougher Kirby games, really.

Plus, after you beat THAT (it'll take longer!), wait through the credits again and you're given a second code, for a special options menu with some neat stuff on it.


Still though, as good as it is I do think Kirby 2 is the better game, it's a much longer game and does have some challenge too, in that case from trying to get all of the Crystal Shards. Plus powers are fun. The first game's just so short, and Kirby doesn't really have powers either. Still, it's got good graphics, solid level designs, and is fun, and is a classic, so sure, it's a good game. But I do like the sequels even more.

[OldSkoolBrian]

I loved Kirbys Dreamland.. I don't play it much anymore but every once in awhile my 5 year old plays it.