***POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD. READ WITH THAT KNOWLEDGE IN MIND***
Kirby's Dreamland 2 was developed by HAL Laboratory and released in North America on May 1st, 1995. Given the time the game came out, it was given a special color scheme and border if it were to be played on the Super Nintendo's Super Game Boy. Nintendo had planned on remaking this game as Kirby's Dreamland 2 DX for the Game Boy Color, but it along with a remake of Metroid II were both scrapped. Despite the remake being cancelled, Kirby's Dreamland 2 is among the best selling Game Boy games with well over a million sold.
The game picks up after Kirby's Adventure. As is normally the case, Kirby is relaxing when an evil force known simply as Dark Matter possesses King Dedede and destroys the rainbow bridges that connects the seven rainbow islands. At the same time, Dark Matter planned on using King Dedede to takeover Dreamland as a whole. Kirby floats into action in a similar manner as he had on previous adventures. By eating everything in site of course. Upon collecting all the rainbow drops, Kirby is able to forge the rainbow sword which forces Dark Matter out of King Dedede. After a final showdown with Dark Matter itself, Kirby, after creating a new rainbow bridge, once again returns to a life of relaxation and eating.
Graphically, the game is one of the better looking games on the Game Boy. The sprites are clear and easy to see. The environments are fun yet simple, but still capture the Dreamland feeling from the original game as well as it's NES sequel. Some small upgrades from the original Game Boy game are really the only graphical difference. If you have played the original, then you know what I am talking about.
So the graphics are good for the Game Boy as should be expected with this series. The real question is knowing how good of a job was done with Kirby's Adventure, how does Kirby fair in his return to the Game Boy from a gameplay standpoint. The simple answer is excellent. As a more detailed view of it all goes, you can watch the VERY FIRST gameplay video to go along with these blogs to get a look at how the game works!
The game plays in a similar fashion to Kirby's Adventure. In total, seven of Kirby's copy abilities from Kirby's Adventure made the transition back to the Game Boy. While at first glance it may not seem all that impressive, there is something else to consider. As you can see in the above video, you can see something that hadn't been seen in either of the previous two games. This game debuted Rick, a big hamster that Kirby can ride on. Not only can Kirby ride on Rick as well as Kine, the ocean sunfish, and Coo the owl. In addition to those animal friends, Gooey, a creature that is actually made of the same thing as Dark Matter, will occasionally appear and restore Kirby's health if he is already with another one of his animal friends. The animal friends themselves all have their pros and cons. For example, Kine is an amazing swimmer, but is basically a literal fish out of water. He can hop around but nowhere near the efficiency of Rick. Coo grips Kirby in his talons and takes to the skies. The biggest plus to these animals is that they can all make use of Kirby's abilities and all do in different ways. It's a really neat feature that actually makes up for there being only seven different copy abilities. In the end it feels more like there are twenty eight different abilities.
Other than the animal friends, some other new features include the collection of little star pieces. Collect enough and you will be rewarded with an extra life. In addition, each level contains a rainbow drop that need to be collected to fully defeat Dark Matter. Kirby's Adventure had secret switches to open paths to various mini-games. Those switches are absent in this game, but the rainbow drops more than make up for them. You may have noticed that I did not mention the controls yet? Well that's because there isn't much to say about them. I never ran into any issues with the controls and Kirby handles in a very similar fashion to how he did in Kirby's Dreamland, but with the added fun of Kirby's copy powers.
As far as sounds go, the game introduces some fun new tracks to go along with the levels. In particular I found the sounds that play when joining up with an animal buddy to be some of the most memorable on the Game Boy. Otherwise, the sound effects themselves are largely from the original Game Boy game, with some new additions for Kirby's ability sounds and stuff of that nature. Overall it's a solid bunch of sounds for the Game Boy for sure.
On a scale of 1 to 10 I would give this game an 8.5 out of 10. My reasons for this are as follows. For one Dreamland 2 took everything from the first game and expanded on it. It is in every way better than the original in which itself is a very good game. While it didn't expand on Kirby's copy abilities directly, the addition of the animal friends was really well done and the fact that they all make unique uses of Kirby's abilities more than makes up for many of the abilities from Kirby's Adventure being absent. While adding all of this new content in HAL Laboratory managed to not miss a beat on the gameplay, sound or graphics. All in the all the game is a very impressive title in the often times ignored Game Boy library. While it may not have the flashiness, vibrant colors, or number of abilities as later games, it remains one of the best and actually one of the more difficult to complete entries in the series.
Thanks for reading this review on Kirby's Dreamland 2. It's been a very busy few days on this blog in a lot of different ways. Our new banner is up as well as a temporary background that is less explosive than the old one. Eventually we'll have a more interesting background, but for now the one we have will do the job. As you could tell, I've also started to add videos to my blogs. I'm not sure how many per blog I'll be doing or even if every blog will have one, but it is something I want to do more of and so far for both the Game Boy and Super Nintendo it's gone pretty smoothly. The next entry into the Kirby Series will be Kirby Super Star on the Super Nintendo. My next blog however will be a review of the classic arcade hit that was ported to the NES and pretty much every other system under the sun, Paperboy!
As far as sounds go, the game introduces some fun new tracks to go along with the levels. In particular I found the sounds that play when joining up with an animal buddy to be some of the most memorable on the Game Boy. Otherwise, the sound effects themselves are largely from the original Game Boy game, with some new additions for Kirby's ability sounds and stuff of that nature. Overall it's a solid bunch of sounds for the Game Boy for sure.
On a scale of 1 to 10 I would give this game an 8.5 out of 10. My reasons for this are as follows. For one Dreamland 2 took everything from the first game and expanded on it. It is in every way better than the original in which itself is a very good game. While it didn't expand on Kirby's copy abilities directly, the addition of the animal friends was really well done and the fact that they all make unique uses of Kirby's abilities more than makes up for many of the abilities from Kirby's Adventure being absent. While adding all of this new content in HAL Laboratory managed to not miss a beat on the gameplay, sound or graphics. All in the all the game is a very impressive title in the often times ignored Game Boy library. While it may not have the flashiness, vibrant colors, or number of abilities as later games, it remains one of the best and actually one of the more difficult to complete entries in the series.
Thanks for reading this review on Kirby's Dreamland 2. It's been a very busy few days on this blog in a lot of different ways. Our new banner is up as well as a temporary background that is less explosive than the old one. Eventually we'll have a more interesting background, but for now the one we have will do the job. As you could tell, I've also started to add videos to my blogs. I'm not sure how many per blog I'll be doing or even if every blog will have one, but it is something I want to do more of and so far for both the Game Boy and Super Nintendo it's gone pretty smoothly. The next entry into the Kirby Series will be Kirby Super Star on the Super Nintendo. My next blog however will be a review of the classic arcade hit that was ported to the NES and pretty much every other system under the sun, Paperboy!
No comments:
Post a Comment