5th February 2012, 9:57 AM
I picked up Kirby's Return to Dreamland for Wii recently, as well as Kirby's Adventure 3D on the 3DS eShop. Kirby's Adventure is great fun. I played it as a kid but never owned it. Seems Dedede's role as "anti-hero" was in place even then. He stole the dream rod to prevent an evil nightmare from controlling it. Return to Dreamland is great fun, and yet another awesome display of multiplayer "cool" like Super Mario Bros. Wii.
Someone was selling these 4 games in one bundle for $10, so I picked it up even though I only had real interest in two.
All Gameboy games...
Kirby's Dreamland (Plus manual)
Kirby's Pinball Land (Plus manual)
Kirby's Block Ball (Plus manual
Kirby's Star Stacker (No manual)
Dreamland's the first in the series, so I always wanted to own it. It's actually pretty easy. It wasn't until the second game that Kirby got his "copy" abilities, so his chief ability is eating enemies and spitting them back out in this one. As such, it's really a sort of "casual" platformer. Kinda fun if that's what you're in the mood for, and great for kids just starting video games.
Kirby's Pinball Land is Nintendo's first foray into "let's take one of our beloved characters and turn them into a pinball". (Next one will be Zelda Pinball, or Master Shake's pinball.) Unlike all the others, with the possible exception of Metroid Pinball (the tone is just confusing with that one), this one actually makes sense since Kirby IS a ball. It's a very fun game I remember playing on a cool display case Nintendo used to have for their Gameboy games in stores (it had a custom "brick" style GB wired into a black and white TV display). It has a save feature, unlike Dreamland, but it's one of those "pause" saves that erases itself when you "continue" later on.
Block Ball is Arkanoid with Kirby. It's fun in it's own right, and has some interesting boss battles and mechanics like bounce panels on the "roof" and "walls". This one is also a Super Gameboy game, and the coloring is done fairly well.
Star Stacker is a Kirby based puzzle game (I get the impression that Nintendo was basically sticking Kirby in any genre they could come up with at the time). It's a standard block matching game, with the twist that you need to put "star" blocks between the shapes you're matching to eliminate them and progress. It's also a Super Gameboy game, and it REALLY does a great job using coloring. It's one of the best examples of good SGB design I've seen, up there with Gameboy Donkey Kong. It also uses the SNES for higher quality sound effects and music at certain parts (like a wind rushing sound during the opening). It's just a shame the gameplay is rather blah.
Hmm, I think I need more Kirby... I'm going to try finding Dreamlands 2 and 3 now. I understand Dreamland 3 for SNES is considered one of the best Kirby games, and Dreamland 2 is another great example of SGB design.
Someone was selling these 4 games in one bundle for $10, so I picked it up even though I only had real interest in two.
All Gameboy games...
Kirby's Dreamland (Plus manual)
Kirby's Pinball Land (Plus manual)
Kirby's Block Ball (Plus manual
Kirby's Star Stacker (No manual)
Dreamland's the first in the series, so I always wanted to own it. It's actually pretty easy. It wasn't until the second game that Kirby got his "copy" abilities, so his chief ability is eating enemies and spitting them back out in this one. As such, it's really a sort of "casual" platformer. Kinda fun if that's what you're in the mood for, and great for kids just starting video games.
Kirby's Pinball Land is Nintendo's first foray into "let's take one of our beloved characters and turn them into a pinball". (Next one will be Zelda Pinball, or Master Shake's pinball.) Unlike all the others, with the possible exception of Metroid Pinball (the tone is just confusing with that one), this one actually makes sense since Kirby IS a ball. It's a very fun game I remember playing on a cool display case Nintendo used to have for their Gameboy games in stores (it had a custom "brick" style GB wired into a black and white TV display). It has a save feature, unlike Dreamland, but it's one of those "pause" saves that erases itself when you "continue" later on.
Block Ball is Arkanoid with Kirby. It's fun in it's own right, and has some interesting boss battles and mechanics like bounce panels on the "roof" and "walls". This one is also a Super Gameboy game, and the coloring is done fairly well.
Star Stacker is a Kirby based puzzle game (I get the impression that Nintendo was basically sticking Kirby in any genre they could come up with at the time). It's a standard block matching game, with the twist that you need to put "star" blocks between the shapes you're matching to eliminate them and progress. It's also a Super Gameboy game, and it REALLY does a great job using coloring. It's one of the best examples of good SGB design I've seen, up there with Gameboy Donkey Kong. It also uses the SNES for higher quality sound effects and music at certain parts (like a wind rushing sound during the opening). It's just a shame the gameplay is rather blah.
Hmm, I think I need more Kirby... I'm going to try finding Dreamlands 2 and 3 now. I understand Dreamland 3 for SNES is considered one of the best Kirby games, and Dreamland 2 is another great example of SGB design.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)