Kirby's Dream Land 2 (1995)

Preliminary: I like the Super Gameboy colors. I'm new to the whole concept of Super Gameboy but it's neat. I really liked the first Dream Land, it became a Favorite of mine due to its straightforward fun. Its followup, Adventure, for NES was good but disappointed me compared to what I expected. It didn't have the charm and straightforward fun of the first one.

Dream Land 2, so far, is shaping up to be closer to the original and I am grateful for that. I just got my first animal friend, which appears to be a hasmter lol. And I like its tune and the faster pace from having it. So far, really enjoying this even with the addition of the copy abilities from Adventure.

Day 1

Tbh I think I was more powerful without my animal friend. But it's fun nonetheless. And yesss the cute factor is rising again like with the first one. Angry Kirby face!

I wound up getting rid of the Hamster intentionally, but it was a cute touch. I just wish it had a better function. Oh shoot lol. I did so right before the first boss and turns out the Flame Copy Ability sans the hamster damages me when I damage the boss >.< Bad choice. But also kind of a bad mechanic to try to make the animal friend helpful. The boss was fine after giving up my Flame Copy Ability, but boo. Already on Level 2. I could've gotten through this whole game tonight! But it's about time for movie time. I like the music of the level select in Area 2 Big Forest!!

Yesss I love the music and mechanics of the Owl/bird type animal friend. Now I got another Flame Copy Ability, and the two of these mechanics combined are nice. I need to stop playing for the night for movie time but this has a hold of me. Good ol Gameboy Kirbys.

Oh nice, the boomerang Copy Ability seems even better. It's nice to finally have a game that can even compete with the hook of Mario's Picross. Interesting they are both Gameboy games. Early handheld device holding strong in mid 95 as the next gen consoles PS1 3DO and Saturn are still trying to find their place.

Day 2

Even tho I did really like the SGB colorization for this game (compared to, say, Picross), I switched back to the internal/handheld/traditional green palette of Gameboy. That's just such a nostalgic palette. And easy on the eyes.

Tho now I'm debating about switching back ll

What a neat, simple little game. Tho I will say I forgot to poause and started writing tihs and Kirby made it to the end of this water level (albeit due to jets) without me touching it and only lost my powerups, otherwise survived lol. Quite simple indeed. Great music tho.

Main complaint is a delay in your attacks after your press the button. Those need ot be instant. I think it's built in on purpose for the power ups but still. I do really like the variety of enemies tho.

The water world was a bit meh. And the collision masks in this game are pretty poor.

Day 3

Some of the level design is starting to get a bit too repetitive and too much use of the pop out enemy/obstacle mechanic. Slows down the fun pacing that I like in platformers.

I do really like the fish friend tho :-p cute

Oooo very interesting about the Rainbow Drop collectibles for the true boss/ending. Definitely adds replayability. Not sure if the gameplay and Feel are enogh for me to go back and get them all. But always nice for a platformer game to allow you to just straightforward fun play through and, if desired, go for a more in-depth, secrets-focused and/or power-up-focused collectible playthrough. Nice replayability factor there especially for a handheld. Oh wow and there's a percentage factor like with Mario's Picross. I guess 95 was the year of Gameboy completion percentage games!

I'm kinda a little burning out, but also loving each little touch . Like with the other Kirby games you can see the love. the way different animals have their tunes, but also the levels have their tunes. Or the way Kirby becomes the boomerang when on the hamster lol. And I do like how you can usually last second dodge or avoid an attack, it's very responsive (which makes the slight delay in most attacks quite interesting since it's clearly intentional/deliberate).

The delay in the attack continues to annoy me. And now we have one of those levels where the scrolling of the level results in you having to take the right route (or else you lose your animal friend gr!) I will never be a fan of that mechanic. At least it didn't result in outright death tho.

I liked the sun and moon boss. Always a fan off that guy in all the Kirby games he's appeared. Well, they've appeared.

Day 4

I stumbled upon a Rainbow thingy btu didn't have the powerup needed to access it so just moved on.

There is far too many "rails" segments in this game. Water pushing me, invisible air pushing me, so on. Never a fan of those levels in any platformer, and this one has a lot.

Really burning out from the frequency of those "rails" levels and the bad collision masks. I keep pushing through but probly best I just rate it as is. I only have 2 areas left (near the end of Cloudy Park right now). Oh wait I think only one area left . Argh. They are a lot of levels in each but I guess I should push through if I'm that close to the first ending.

Nope nevermind, not a fan of Cloudy Park 5 (welp nevermind, I tried again and got through it. Oh me and my drive to finish platformers)

Welp after Cloudy Park 6 decided to give me a rails segment and then a maze type situation, I'm calling it quits. Good handheld platformer, love the Kirby cuteness, love that you can tell the creators put in their all, it's just not my type of level design for mid to late game.

Look: 8/10 Cute Kirby isms

Sound: 8/10 Nice variety, all good tunes

Play: 7.5/10 Not my favorite kind of platformer level designs, but I love the animal friends, teh different powerups, and the classic Kirby controls despite some Copy Abilities deliberately having a delay. I also really like the replayability factor

Feel: 8/10

Attachment: 7.5/10 Sadly, as much as I respect this and wanted it to get a 4, seems it'll be a 3 star and I will just replay the first one. I really respect if though, and think people who like it have every reason to. I just like to have complete control of my platformer character, not rails so often :-p

Overall: 7.8/10

Completion: Cloudy Park 6

Playtime: 2 hours

I loved it when I played the first 2 worlds, even when they're on the easy side. I gave up however when a huge "difficulty" spike was introduced. Yet again this is a reminder why I'm not a huge fan of and even hate knockback (especially near a pit or in an autoscroll section), minibosses spamming the same moves with no pattern and sometimes relentlessly attacking without the player being able to do anything about it (in other words, poorly designed Simon Says bosses), and creatures in certain levels where they are not of much help anyways.

The latter one I have most issues with. Rick was useless in areas where you need to defeat enemies and platform at the same time. Especially that partial underwater level where you might as well just use Kirby (Level 5-2, in case you're wondering).

I make it sound like a bad game. Far from it. It's the game that introduced Kirby's friends after all and it refined the gameplay on the Game Boy. I just don't like cheap difficulty and that prevented me from fully enjoying the game.

I feel like the title of this review sums it up. Kirby can actually copy enemies in this Game Boy game, but the abilities themselves aren't particularly great to use except Cutter. Some of the abilities are improved by Kirby's three animal companions which are a welcome addition (they provide an extra health bar and unique uses of the enemy powers).

There are additional secrets in this game like finding the Rainbow Drops in each level. This unlocks the true final boss which is quite a difficulty spike. Speaking of difficulty spike, the last few levels get kind of annoying especially with an auto-scrolling maze that punishes you with instant death for going the wrong way.

I liked the experience of playing this well enough, but Kirby's Adventure on NES is still better. This might just be a case of the Game Boy's hardware being more limited, but there were welcome changes here like battery backup saves and animal companions. While I would still rather play the original Dream Land over this, I acknowledge that this is the better made game.

Kirby's Dream Land 2 is technically the third Kirby game, following Kirby's Adventure on the NES. Played through it on a bit of a whim, since I played the first Dream Land a few years ago. Dream Land 2 brings Kirby's copy ability to the Game Boy, and also introduces new animal friends that Kirby can ride throughout the adventure.

The added mechanics definitely make this a step up from the first Dream Land, which was a pretty simplistic game by comparison. I'm pretty familiar with Kirby's post-GBA outings, and this game at least feels pretty feature-complete. However, Dream Land 2 has a bit of a hard difficulty curve, with the last two worlds being particularly hard. The last few bosses were a little frustrating, as Kirby's controls aren't really tight enough to justify encounters that take such high precision to beat. It all felt a little cheap to me by the end, and the level design is certainly nothing to write home about.

Much like the first game, this is an endearing little romp, but it doesn't really hold up very well when compared to the future Kirby games I've played.

At first I thought the Kirby series was lukewarm, but in playing Forgotton Land with my friend's son I can see that the series did improve over time. This is a perfect length, game boy game that looks and sounds great! the controls are excellent and work well for this platformer and its not that slippery. What makes this Kirby a fun Kirby, is you get these ridable pets such as a hamster. There are three in total and you can also use your gobbled-down-monster's powers with them for a variety of different effects. That's quite a bit of variation in gameplay, and the powers themselves arent that numerous but they all work well and have their purpose and I liked them all.

There are a variety of level design approaches and some are moving/scrolling background that forces you to dodge spikes, pits, dead ends, etc.

I completed the main part of the game but did not 100% hunting down the rainbow drops to unlock the final boss battle/secret ending.

All in all an enjoyable platformer for Game Boy and one of the better ones i've played for it probably

Glad Nintendo added the GB and GBA to switch online and added all of those Kirby games. Now I don’t have to buy the Kirby Dream Collection on Wii. This game was really impressive. The first Dream Land was only 5 levels, this game has more levels in Worlds 6 and 7 separately than DL1 did in its entirety. Bringing the Copy mechanic from Adventure over to the Gameboy would’ve been enough, but they also included the Animal Buddies for ability combos on top of that. The animal buddies feel pretty powerful for general stage traversal when compared to DL3. Outside of Coo, they generally have worse traversal than Kirby, but most of the levels feel pretty accommodating to their weaker movement. Even though it came out earlier and on inferior hardware, I found this game more fun in general than DL3.

My main issues

• Controls. It’s a bit annoying floating with up instead of jump and having the same button to both get rid of a copy ability and to get rid of an animal buddy. There were times where I wish I could just dismount a buddy instead of getting rid of them completely.
• Bosses are super tanky. I feel like I didn’t get to fully enjoy the animal buddies because using abilities did next to no damage to bosses when compared to just blowing stars into them. In a way, it felt like you were punished for having copy abilities so I felt discouraged from playing with more ability + buddy combos
• Getting 100% is obscure. I didn’t get a single collectible playing through the entire game normally, so if I didn’t have a guide, i wouldn’t have known what I was supposed to do to get 100% let alone how to do it. After playing all of these Kirby games, I’m convinced the older entries were super obscure compared to the newer ones.

i started playing this for the first time a day ago. i love simple, cute, but still clever little games like this. i really enjoy figuring out how each animal friend behaves with each of kirby's (respectably few) powerups. it's honestly a pretty refreshing experience from the commonality of today's bloated standards of content. looking forward to beating this to give myself the excuse to play dream land 3 :)

i love the noticeable difficulty spike with world 4's secret. that took me almost an hour to find, figure out, and get

The sixth Kirby game ever released, but just the third in the mainline series. After three spin-offs (two of them being reskins of other games), we return to the original Gameboy, a pretty interesting choice, considering the last two games were in the SNES.

Being a Gameboy game, this is considerably shorter than Kirby Adventure, but it's still a lot longer than the first Dream Land, having a total of 38 levels, a collectible that you need in order to unlock the true final boss, and a bonus mode where you can get extra lives, and that you need to do perfectly if you want to get the 100% completion. For a Gameboy game, there is a lot to do, and while it's possible to finish the game in just a day, it's a better experience if you just play in small dosis, and there is even an autosave feature that works exactly like in Kirby Adventure, so there's no pressure at all.

Talking about the gameplay, it plays more or less like Kirby Adventure, but you have less power-ups and instead you have the support of your animal friends: A hamster called Rick, a fish called Kine, and a owl called Coo. They have their own abilities and depending of the enemy you absorb and the animal friend you have at the moment, the way the power-ups work. However, as Kirby can fly by its own, you don't really need the animal friends to complete any level, and they actually make the game harder, but just floating over the screen all the time isn't that fun, so while using them doesn't make the game easier, it definitely makes it more entertaining.

You also need them to do puzzles and get the rainbow drops, a collectible needed to unlock the final boss, and here's where the real challenge is: At the start you just need a power-up that you can get in the same level, but later on you have to backtrack and get to hidden doors that are only accessible with an specific animal friend and power up in order to get another animal friend and so on, which can be complex and confusing without guide. There are also levels with autoscroll where you need to pick the correct path or you die, but there isn't any kind of hint to know where to go, so, unless you're lucky, you'll die and die until you memorize the way. The final boss also has a lot of HP, so while the rest of the game is pretty relaxing and well done, I found the final stretch disappointing, not because it was hard, but because the level design and difficulty was more tedious than challenging.

But even then, the game is fun for the most part, and I found it more entertaining and consistent than Kirby Adventure. In conclusion, maybe this isn't the best Kirby game, and it has some questionable design choices, but it's still an amazing experience and a must play if you want to try Gameboy games that aren't Pokémon Red/Blue/Yellow or Super Mario Land.

Kirby's Dream Land 2 is the type of game you wished had more challenge and design to its levels to accommodate its gameplay, but given that it's a Gameboy game with as much polish and variety as it has, it's almost understandable to how the game feels a bit limited.

An evil force has possessed King Dedede, and Rainbow Bridges that connect the Rainbow Islands have been broken! It's up to Kirby to save the day, but he has the help of three animal friends, a new mechanic to the already existing copy abilities.

The copy abilities are creative as they are from Kirby's Adventure (though not as many), but it's the animals that really make these abilities stick out. Whether it's Rick the Hamster, Coo the Owl, or Kine the Sunfish, each animal mixes with the copy ability, creating things like fiery divebombs with the owl or beams from sparking with the hamster. It's amazing how many different things you can do with each animal.

The game also looks gorgeous - on the limited palette it was understandable for the first Dream Land to look as it did, but Dream Land 2 shows a maturity in animation and visual quality that resembles late-game Gameboy greats like Wario Land 3. It's beautiful stuff.

As for the gameplay well...eh. It feels less than it should be. Enemies feel very same-y after awhile, there aren't too many things to collect (seven Rainbow Drops) to get the ending, and creative solutions to each stage aren't seen so much unless getting a specific Rainbow Drop or powerup is required, save for a couple of segments where very obvious things like flying or swimming would be required. The player will breeze through the game before they can enjoy everything it has to offer.

Kirby's Dream Land 2 is an ambitious little game, looking to bring the magic of Kirby's Adventure to a handheld console. It somewhat succeeds, introducing an all-new mechanic with impressive capabilities but not a big enough canvas to paint on.

History:

The only Kriby game I've played from start to finish was Kirby's Adventure on the NES as part of this project, and I loved it. I've never played any of the portable entries, Tilt 'n' Tumble and Block Ball not withstanding...

Expectations:

This looks like classic Kirby through and through, and I'm greatly looking forward to playing it! Don't expect it should take too long either.

Day 1:

Sure enough, the game is as Kirby as it gets, though, I'm finding that's both a good thing and a bad thing. While there's nothing inherently wrong with the game (I mean, come on, it's Kirby!) it doesn't feel as good as Kirby's Adventure for the NES. While the game itself if all well and good, it just doesn't feel as inspired as the last Kirby game I played.

That's not to say there's nothing going for it! Bosses are very fun, and the animal companions are great. I tend to stick with this angry bird guy whenever I get him, even when I'm supposed to switch to another one. Being able to fly while attacking is just too good.

I had intended to beat this one in a single sitting, but the reality is my body just can't take staying up until 1:00am again this week! I'm stopping right after the World 4 boss, the halfway mark, and I'm enjoying myself so far. Definitely a solid game for the system.

Day 2:

Working my way through World 5 I ran into one of my favorite bosses from Kirby's Adventure! These guys are still pretty fun, if not slightly simplified this go around.

I'm still not particularly loving this game, if only because I still think Kirby's Adventure was superior in every way. Still, it holds up just fine.

Hated this guy the first time I fought him, hate him even more now! Once you learn his patterns he's not particularly difficult to handle, but he always seems to get the cheapest hits off on you! Add to that the long two phase fight and this guy's a real pain!

After I finally beat him it was the final World 7. Seven stages here, but they're all on the short side. The auto-scrolling maze levels are among the most frustrating to play through, but all in all this castle wasn't as bad as I was expecting!

The final encounter with King Dedede was significantly easier than in Kirby's Adventure, while still being challenging enough to enjoy. It takes several hits, but eventually the big guy will go down, and Dreamland is saved! Or something!

Conclusion:

I think my biggest issue with Dreamland 2 is that I'm ultimately indifferent to it. It's a fine game, but I can't help comparing it to the 1993 entry on the NES. I mean sure, if all you have is a Gameboy or Gameboy Color than this is the best option for Kirby on the go, but at home I'll take Kirby's Adventure all day long, and that's ignoring the SNES games!

On its own merits the game is great. Controls are tight and I'd dare say their the only thing that's better than the NES version. You have faster recovery and everything just feels tighter. The animal companions you can ride on are a nice touch, even if I never found them to be required, and the level design was plenty of fun.

All in all this is a fine game, just not one I'd recommend over other Kirby titles.

Liked:

- It's Kirby! Fantastic platforming, great music and graphics and fun level design.
- Controls are better than the NES version, allowing for even better platforming.
- 100%'ing the game unlocks an additional secret boss!
- Hamsters.

Disliked:

- Generally uninspired compared to its predecessor.
- Fish.

Personal Score: