Nintendo Okie

I have been a Kirby fan even since Kirby’s Adventure in 1993.  I first played the game at Walmart’s demo station and I remember thinking, “this game is awesome!”  Oddly, I told nobody of how much fun I had.  A few weeks later, much to my surprise, I opened a Christmas gift from my brother and it was the same game I enjoyed weeks before.  When I asked him about the gift it turned out he didn’t know I’d ever seen it before.  I played Kirby during the rest of Christmas break.  I had so much fun, I forgot school existed and was very upset when I was told I had to go back soon.  I could share more stories about my history with Kirby but that’s not why I am here.  The reason for this article, Nintendo has finally released the Kirby game they’ve been teasing since the GameCube and it’s called Kirby’s Return To Dream Land.

What You Need To Know
Return To Dream Land for all intents and purposes is a new Kirby’s Adventure.  By that, I don’t mean it’s a remake (they already did that with Kirby: Nightmare In Dream Land) but more of what Kirby’s Adventure would be like if it was made today.  Return To Dream Land follows the standard Kirby formula of fun platforming with several different enemies hiding secret areas.  Plus they added four-player multiplayer; a first for a console, Kirby game.  The game is played with the Wiimote alone, NES style.  In fact, the controls are identical to Kirby’s Adventure with one exception; you cannot fly by pressing up.  Absent from Kirby’s Epic Yarn, but now returning center stage, is Kirby’s signature copy ability.  And so the fun begins.

Great Copy Abilities
Kirby is no stranger to stealing the powers of his enemies.  In fact, I dare say he does it better than Mega Man.  Depending on the generation of the software, Kirby’s copy ability grants him one or two special moves.  HAL Laboratories (the developer) threw that idea out the window and decided to give each copy ability several different attacks.  Take Cutter for example; my favorite by the way.  Ever since Dream Land 2, Cutter has granted Kirby the ability to throw boomerang blades at his enemies.  Kirby Super Star expanded Cutter by adding a dash attack.  In Return To Dream Land, Cutter’s attacks include a multitude of moves; a charge attack that launches a large blade, a downward slash, a multi-hit melee attack, an upward to downward slash combo and steering control over the blades after Kirby has thrown them.  I had a great deal of fun discovering the new attacks and combos for each ability in the game.  As if that weren’t enough, HAL added Super Abilities; which are exactly what they sound like.  Sword becomes Ultra Sword where Kirby pulls out a giant blade and slices everything on screen.  Beam becomes Flare Beam and allows Kirby to control a ball of energy that destroys everything it touches.  Each Super Abilities is really awesome and they are super satisfying to use.  The only problem is their use is restricted to certain areas of the game.

Expert Challenge
A common complaint people have with Kirby is how easy his games are; some would argue borderline kid’s game difficulty.  I feel the lack of difficulty has hurt some Kirby games, namely Squeak Squad, but Return To Dream Land presents a significant challenge to veterans of both platformers and Kirby games.  Some later levels gave me reasons to panic while others stole several of my lives before I managed to defeat them.  Other than the tail end of the story, you can unlock several challenge rooms if you collect enough hidden items.  These rooms see Kirby with a given ability, a time limit and a set score to reach.  These levels are very demanding as I have only achieved gold on one of them after approximately 20 attempts.

Friendly Multiplayer
While it’s not allowed in the challenge rooms, four-player co-op is available everywhere else.  Kirby can be joined by Dedede, Meta Knight and a waddle dee wearing a bandana (A WADDLE DEE WEARING A BANDANA).  Each character has a specific weapon that mirrors one of Kirby’s abilities; Hammer for Dedede, Sword for Meta Knight and Spear for Waddle Dee.  Meta Knight and Dedede bring their own spin to their abilities but Waddle Dee does not.  If Kirby’s friends are not your thing, you can also choose to play as a Kirby of another color.  While Return To Dream Land’s co-op resembles New Sups Wii, it is less hectic and far less cutthroat.  This is largely due to a common feature for Kirby multiplayer; the camera follows player one and other players are warped next to player one if they go off screen.  While players two, three and four can die mid level and simply jump right back in, if player one dies the level oddly ends and the team must start over.  I suppose this is a side effect from players being able to seamlessly drop in and out of co-op play.

Minor Complaints
While it’s obvious I love this game, I do have a few nitpicky complaints about it.  First, while the sound design is great, there are a few sound effects that peak out; namely the 1up sound and the gain new ability sound.  These sounds are just too loud for the rest of the game and since I heard them quite often, it really grinded the audiophile in me.  Second, the edges to platforms seem to be rounded off.  Anytime I tried to land precisely on a ledge, I would slide off.  I didn’t run into this problem often but it struck me as strange whenever it happened.  Third, the game controls a little stiff compared to other Kirby games, which generally play at a fast pace.  Epic Yarn controlled slower as well but Return To Dream Land is even further away from a normal Kirby pace.  I’m unsure if the gameplay was slowed down for the co-op or if HAL has decided to slow the super-tuff pink-puff down for good.

Perfect Blend Of Old And New
Nintendo has managed, as they often do, to make a game which invokes feelings of nostalgia while simultaneously bringing you something new.  Return To Dream Land is Kirby’s Adventure for a new generation.  Added in for good measure are the best qualities of each Kirby game with the same updated feel as the rest of the package.  This is the caliber of game I would expect to see for Kirby’s 25th anniversary; but that doesn’t hit until 2017.  It’s sad Mario or Metroid didn’t receive a game such as this for their anniversaries.  Perhaps Zelda will fare better with Skyward Sword.

Conclusion
Kirby’s Return To Dream Land has been teasing use for several years now.  I am here to say the wait was well worth it.  If you are a Kirby fan or a connoisseur of platformers, you have no reason to pass on this game.  With the release of every Kirby game, I have been growing further disappointed and I was starting to believe Kirby would never recapture the splendor he had on the NES, SNES and Game Boy.  Thankfully, Return To Dream Land proves Kirby still has it.  If you want something to play on your Wii, you should go buy this game.  It’s the best Wii game to be released in at least a year and the best actual Kirby game (Epic Yarn doesn’t count) to come out since the remake of Super Star.

Final score –
Total play time – 14 hours
Finished the game with a 100% completion rate
Review copy provided by Nintendo