Game Review: Kirby's Return to Dream Land
2018-Nov-04, Sunday 10:55![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dorchadas
I know that November is supposed to be the spooky month, but after Stasis, I wanted something a bit different.
We had a Wii back in 2007, and then when we moved to Japan, we left it behind under the mistaken impression that it wouldn't work with Japanese televisions. That meant that I lost track of basically anything to do with console games, and even series that I liked a lot, like Legend of Zelda or the Kirby games, fell off my radar. Kirby's Return to Dream Land came out at the end of the Wii's lifespan, around the time that Skyward Sword did, but I didn't hear of it until a couple years ago. I heard that it was pretty good, a return to platforming form after Kirby's Epic Yarn had changed up the formula. Sure, it was easy and fluffy, like most Kirby games, but it looked good and was fun to play. And both of those things are true, and those are really exactly what I was looking for.
Or, so I thought.
He's so round and cute.
Most of the game is pretty similar to other Kirby games. An incident occurs on Planet Popstar--a traveler from another world named Magolor crashes on Planet Popstar and ruins his flying ship. Kirby, Dedede, Bandana Dee, and Meta Knight are all nearby and come running to the crash, and as soon as they learn what's wrong, they promise to help Magolor fix his ship. That leads to Kirby traveling all across Popstar looking for the various parts of the ship, inhaling everything in his path, taking copy abilities, and otherwise being Kirby.
Kirby games tend to be easy, but I feel like Return to Dream Land is a lot easier than even previous Kirby games I've played. Kirby starts with seven lives and the levels are filled with stars, collecting a hundred of which grants an extra Kirby. Furthermore, rather than being required to start the level over from the beginning, dying just restarts at the last star door that Kirby passed through. In addition, Kirby has a life bar rather than a discrete series of hits, meaning Kirby takes more damage, has more lives, and so is many times more resilient than in previous games.
I mentioned the other people who saw Magolor crash, and the reason they're there and show up in all the cutscenes is that Kirby has drop-in multiplayer for up to three other people. Spawning in costs a life, which is why Kirby starts with so many lives. Nintendo made the smart decision to balance the game around the drop-in multiplayer so that it wouldn't get frustrating if the other players keep dying, since there's enough lives to go around. When I beat the game I had something like seventeen lives, and that's with the number of lives not carrying over between sessions. In two hours I got ten lives despite not actively hunting for them, but I'm sure if I had other players who were using some of them up I would have appreciated the buffer. Then again, maybe the game would have been even easier than it already was.
Hammer time.
One aspect that made it easy, but which I didn't care about because it was so fun, were the super abilities. Every once in a while, Kirby finds a glowing version of an enemy, and inhaling them grants one of five super abilities: Sword, Hammer, Ice, Fire, and Beam. The abilities last for only a limited time, but it really doesn't matter. They completely annihilate everything in Kirby's path, including bosses, and make him almost completely unstoppable. They're usually integral to progressing through the stage they're in, too. The stages with the Ice super ability, which allows Kirby to turn into a giant snowball and roll through anything in his path, usually have ramps to launch the snowball off of, or flaming pillars to smash through. The Beam super ability creates a glowing orb that's fully controllable, and often there were a series of switches that had to all be hit within the limit of the the orb's existence. That was really the only frustrating part of using the super abilities. Everything else was pure destructive joy.
Sometimes, it's not what you do in a game, it's how you do it. Some games make this an explicit mechanic, like how Devil May Cry rewards extra experience for fighting stylishly. Sometimes, it's just a way of making the game more fun. I could have ignored the super abilities and tried to get through the stages normally, and while sometimes it wouldn't have worked since the stages have impassible geometry that Kirby needs to cut through with his gigantic sword, or cleaver, or bokken--or, in one case, a giant fish--otherwise it would have been fine. But Kirby games generally aren't about difficulty, they're about being fun to play and using the copy abilities you want to get through the game. I mean, it's a platformer where the main character can fly at any time. How difficult can it be? I certainly wasn't thinking about difficulty when I was using the Fire super ability, though, I was just blasting fire dragons all across the screen and smiling at the destruction that I was wreaking.
I'm really not sure why bomb Kirby gets a wizard hat.
There is one element of optional difficulty, and much like in Kirby's Dream Land 3 it's based on collectibles. Unlike in Kirby's Dream Land 3, they have no real effect on the story.
Beating each world gathers one part of Magolor's ship, and on finding the fifth part, Magolor takes Kirby and his friends back to his homeworld like he promised. But scattered throughout each stage are "energy spheres," which power up various subsystems on the ship. These subsystems turn out to be minigames and copy ability collection rooms, none of which are necessary to beat the main story, but which provide something fun to do in between the normal stages. At least, I assume they do. i collected over a hundred of the energy spheres and unlocked nearly everything, but I only went to a copy ability room once, did the timed sword challenge once, and otherwise ignored everything I unlocked. It didn't seem to make a big difference, though apparently if you collect every single energy sphere it unlocks the Item Challenge, which does look interesting and fun to play, but not enough to play through the stages where I missed the energy spheres. It's not like there's a separate final boss or secret ending to unlock.
Though, the real problem to my mind is that the energy spheres basically require doing the level multiple times in order to find them all, because while some of them are behind puzzle areas or the dimensional rifts accessible by using super abilities in particular places, a lot of them lie on particular routes and require either fast reflexes or advanced knowledge of the levels to find. That's true in Dream Land 3 as well, but at least in that game, each level had a clue on the world map that provided some idea of where to look for the heart stars. And also, finding all them unlocked the real final boss. It wasn't just for minigames and unnecessary copy ability collections.
I did unlock Extra Mode out of it, though, which sounds a bit like what I would have liked the game to be in the first place.
Judges give 10/10
Extra Mode is a Kirby game staple, but in Return to Dream Land it's much more than just cutting Kirby's health. It makes enemies stronger, adds more of them, makes the dimensional rift stages harder, and adds extra abilities to the bosses. All the kind of changes that would have made the game more interesting for me to play alone and maybe required me to use some of those dozens of lives I gathered throughout the game. I really would have liked it to be available from the beginning, because I think I would have had more fun playing through that mode. I'm certainly not going to replay the whole game just to experience the changes.
I went into Kirby's Return to Dream Land expecting some fluffy entertainment and that's certainly what I got, but now I'm disappointed knowing that it could have been just a bit more.
We had a Wii back in 2007, and then when we moved to Japan, we left it behind under the mistaken impression that it wouldn't work with Japanese televisions. That meant that I lost track of basically anything to do with console games, and even series that I liked a lot, like Legend of Zelda or the Kirby games, fell off my radar. Kirby's Return to Dream Land came out at the end of the Wii's lifespan, around the time that Skyward Sword did, but I didn't hear of it until a couple years ago. I heard that it was pretty good, a return to platforming form after Kirby's Epic Yarn had changed up the formula. Sure, it was easy and fluffy, like most Kirby games, but it looked good and was fun to play. And both of those things are true, and those are really exactly what I was looking for.
Or, so I thought.
He's so round and cute.
Most of the game is pretty similar to other Kirby games. An incident occurs on Planet Popstar--a traveler from another world named Magolor crashes on Planet Popstar and ruins his flying ship. Kirby, Dedede, Bandana Dee, and Meta Knight are all nearby and come running to the crash, and as soon as they learn what's wrong, they promise to help Magolor fix his ship. That leads to Kirby traveling all across Popstar looking for the various parts of the ship, inhaling everything in his path, taking copy abilities, and otherwise being Kirby.
Kirby games tend to be easy, but I feel like Return to Dream Land is a lot easier than even previous Kirby games I've played. Kirby starts with seven lives and the levels are filled with stars, collecting a hundred of which grants an extra Kirby. Furthermore, rather than being required to start the level over from the beginning, dying just restarts at the last star door that Kirby passed through. In addition, Kirby has a life bar rather than a discrete series of hits, meaning Kirby takes more damage, has more lives, and so is many times more resilient than in previous games.
I mentioned the other people who saw Magolor crash, and the reason they're there and show up in all the cutscenes is that Kirby has drop-in multiplayer for up to three other people. Spawning in costs a life, which is why Kirby starts with so many lives. Nintendo made the smart decision to balance the game around the drop-in multiplayer so that it wouldn't get frustrating if the other players keep dying, since there's enough lives to go around. When I beat the game I had something like seventeen lives, and that's with the number of lives not carrying over between sessions. In two hours I got ten lives despite not actively hunting for them, but I'm sure if I had other players who were using some of them up I would have appreciated the buffer. Then again, maybe the game would have been even easier than it already was.
Hammer time.
One aspect that made it easy, but which I didn't care about because it was so fun, were the super abilities. Every once in a while, Kirby finds a glowing version of an enemy, and inhaling them grants one of five super abilities: Sword, Hammer, Ice, Fire, and Beam. The abilities last for only a limited time, but it really doesn't matter. They completely annihilate everything in Kirby's path, including bosses, and make him almost completely unstoppable. They're usually integral to progressing through the stage they're in, too. The stages with the Ice super ability, which allows Kirby to turn into a giant snowball and roll through anything in his path, usually have ramps to launch the snowball off of, or flaming pillars to smash through. The Beam super ability creates a glowing orb that's fully controllable, and often there were a series of switches that had to all be hit within the limit of the the orb's existence. That was really the only frustrating part of using the super abilities. Everything else was pure destructive joy.
Sometimes, it's not what you do in a game, it's how you do it. Some games make this an explicit mechanic, like how Devil May Cry rewards extra experience for fighting stylishly. Sometimes, it's just a way of making the game more fun. I could have ignored the super abilities and tried to get through the stages normally, and while sometimes it wouldn't have worked since the stages have impassible geometry that Kirby needs to cut through with his gigantic sword, or cleaver, or bokken--or, in one case, a giant fish--otherwise it would have been fine. But Kirby games generally aren't about difficulty, they're about being fun to play and using the copy abilities you want to get through the game. I mean, it's a platformer where the main character can fly at any time. How difficult can it be? I certainly wasn't thinking about difficulty when I was using the Fire super ability, though, I was just blasting fire dragons all across the screen and smiling at the destruction that I was wreaking.
I'm really not sure why bomb Kirby gets a wizard hat.
There is one element of optional difficulty, and much like in Kirby's Dream Land 3 it's based on collectibles. Unlike in Kirby's Dream Land 3, they have no real effect on the story.
Beating each world gathers one part of Magolor's ship, and on finding the fifth part, Magolor takes Kirby and his friends back to his homeworld like he promised. But scattered throughout each stage are "energy spheres," which power up various subsystems on the ship. These subsystems turn out to be minigames and copy ability collection rooms, none of which are necessary to beat the main story, but which provide something fun to do in between the normal stages. At least, I assume they do. i collected over a hundred of the energy spheres and unlocked nearly everything, but I only went to a copy ability room once, did the timed sword challenge once, and otherwise ignored everything I unlocked. It didn't seem to make a big difference, though apparently if you collect every single energy sphere it unlocks the Item Challenge, which does look interesting and fun to play, but not enough to play through the stages where I missed the energy spheres. It's not like there's a separate final boss or secret ending to unlock.
Though, the real problem to my mind is that the energy spheres basically require doing the level multiple times in order to find them all, because while some of them are behind puzzle areas or the dimensional rifts accessible by using super abilities in particular places, a lot of them lie on particular routes and require either fast reflexes or advanced knowledge of the levels to find. That's true in Dream Land 3 as well, but at least in that game, each level had a clue on the world map that provided some idea of where to look for the heart stars. And also, finding all them unlocked the real final boss. It wasn't just for minigames and unnecessary copy ability collections.
I did unlock Extra Mode out of it, though, which sounds a bit like what I would have liked the game to be in the first place.
Judges give 10/10
Extra Mode is a Kirby game staple, but in Return to Dream Land it's much more than just cutting Kirby's health. It makes enemies stronger, adds more of them, makes the dimensional rift stages harder, and adds extra abilities to the bosses. All the kind of changes that would have made the game more interesting for me to play alone and maybe required me to use some of those dozens of lives I gathered throughout the game. I really would have liked it to be available from the beginning, because I think I would have had more fun playing through that mode. I'm certainly not going to replay the whole game just to experience the changes.
I went into Kirby's Return to Dream Land expecting some fluffy entertainment and that's certainly what I got, but now I'm disappointed knowing that it could have been just a bit more.
