A Kirby Retrospective: The Dream Land Era

this video is sponsored by tokyo treat and sakarako authentic japanese snacks delivered to your door every month stay tuned for more details today i feel like talking about nintendo whatever will i talk about those were the words that started this channel on this day seven years ago i released my first ever video on kirby squeak squad a fairly innocuous game from my childhood that i didn't see discussed all that often not only is it now kirby's 30th anniversary but in the seven years that i've been running this channel i have somehow neglected to cover any of his games that's about to change to make up for lost time we're going to be talking about the franchise as a whole its main entries and its spin-offs its appearances and other games and media developer inspirations the highs and lows a whole lot of it i want to get to the bottom of what this franchise stands for to figure out why i and many others are so enamored with it i think there's an impulse to look at kirby and say it's consistent but doesn't often go beyond in a sense i think that's true until relatively recently it was one of nintendo's last active franchises that hadn't made the jump to 3d though it's always been successful that success was modest and somewhat predictable yet i also believe the games have a fundamental appeal a unique flavor that keeps its fans coming back kirby is more than just a franchise it's a phenomenon one that's captured many hearts over the years the scope of this project is much too big for a single video so we're going to break this into three distinct eras this video will cover the span of time between kirby's dreamland and kirby 64 or from 1992 to 2000 the next video will cover the period between nightmare and dreamland and kirby's epic yarn or from 2000 to 2010 the final video will cover the stretch between return to dreamland and the newly released forgotten land or from 2011 to 2022 i hope you'll stick with me as we explore what makes kirby so special you're watching a kirby series retrospective recently we compared two superheroes dashing super guy and kirby from nintendo in some ways kirby lost big no big hair no big muscles no weapons nothing all kirby's got is appetite kirby's dreamland the thrilling adventure game on game boy kirby munches spits back and floats saving gloria's dreamland he's kirby and he packs a meme right kirby's dreamland only on gameboy [Music] hal laboratory got its start in the 80s making various different games some even published by nintendo like pinball and golf at the time they were caught in a cycle of poor sales and rush development a game would sell poorly which would give them less time to make the next game which would lead to an unfinished product which would lead to poor sales and the cycle would repeat competency wasn't the issue in fact its development staff included the late satoru iwata despite their struggles nintendo's faith and hal never waned and they offered to assist with marketing and sales this arrangement is what created kirby a series built on dreams meant to deliver them from their nightmare kirby's dreamland directed by masahiro sakurai and programmed by satoru iwata was intended to be a relatively simple and accessible platformer for those new to the genre kirby can walk jump float infinitely suck up enemies and shoot them out barring the occasional power up that's essentially all he can do you're cute the enemies are cute the environments are cute it's all very welcoming the first boss is a tree who drops apples and blows on you occasionally it's a pretty simple moment-to-moment loop here you're dropped into one of five levels you run through mostly linear rooms taking care of the enemies in your path and occasionally happening across a secret room with healing items and one-ups since you have an infinite jump it's easier to classify as an action game with platforming elements enemies and bosses will be the ones taking away your hp and so there are quite a lot more of them to deal with of course it's all relatively straightforward waddle dees are your standard goomba waddle doos shoot a conal beam scarfies can't be inhaled some enemies fly some of them move quickly some of them throw bombs there's a decent variety spread across the roughly 20-minute adventure what i love about kirby's dreamland though is that it doesn't just stop at being a beginner-friendly platformer after you beat it you learn the code that unlocks extra mode not only is it a button combination meaning you can turn extra mode on at any time as long as you know the code it's also far more than a simple difficulty upgrade almost every enemy has been changed waddle dees now run faster and have gained the ability to jump some enemies have transformed altogether the boolers in castle lololo are now gas bars faster variants that deal two points of damage to kirby instead of one virtually every enemy has been changed and in a game that's less focused on platforming this changes the whole playthrough the boss fights already the most challenging portion of the playthrough have had their move sets completely changed wispy woods will mix a few gordos in with his apples lololo and lalala move much faster and krakow's dialed up to 11 with faster movement speed more erratic beam attacks with some bombs thrown in for good measure you'll also be able to adjust your max hp to make it even more challenging if you so choose that's the secret sakurai spice it's a pretty easy game on that first playthrough though you might pull a few hairs in the boss rush and subsequent ddd fight in extra mode that boss rush is agonizing i'd almost call the kabula fight unfair her attacks are so quick and unwieldy but hey that might be the rotting gamer brain at play thankfully it never feels completely out of reach as game overs simply send you back to the start of the level rather than the beginning of the game this would become somewhat of a staple for the franchise going forward a mantra which holds that most of these games will be easy to finish and maddening to fully complete if you consider 1 hp extra mode essentially a damageless run to be full completion then yeah i'd say that traxx it's an impressive game boy title with some gorgeous sprite work and surprisingly detailed level transitions a feel-good platformer with a bit of an edge that would top famitsu's sales charts for a month sell a million copies in a year and eventually sell about 5 million copies overall though it was sakurai who directed the game i think a decent share of the credit for its success should rightfully go to iwata who ensured that it was in a finished and polished state it was safe to say at this point the cycle was broken under the leadership of iwata the newly appointed president hal made it their mission to have every one of their games sell at least a million copies in the hopes of paying back the 1.5 billion yen they borrowed for production costs i wasn't joking when i said kirby delivered them from a nightmare they were basically on their last legs naturally hal weren't going to let this newfound success go to waste it's always funny to me that kirby's dreamland was the first kirby game because my mind always turns to adventure instead for one thing it introduced kirby's signature ability to copy his enemies and use their attacks there are switches defined in the levels that unlock various sub games contributing to your save file percentage and it was also meta knight's debut it's essentially souped up dreamland fitting since nintendo originally tasked hal with a dreamland nes port you run through linear acts sucking up enemies finding secrets fighting bosses there are 24 copy abilities to use which sakurai implemented in order to address complaints about dreamland being too simple burning will shoot you across the screen beam will attack in a cone in front of you stone will drop you onto the ground laser will shoot a laser that bounces off walls and corners none of them are all that groundbreaking but there are also quite a lot of them imagine if mario 3 had 24 power-ups instead of seven having this much variety in your potential move set makes dealing with enemies and obstacles a lot more satisfying especially since you can theoretically play the whole game with a single power-up of your choosing provided you don't lose the copy star after your hit this was all done to make the game more complex for advanced players without increasing the overall difficulty it's safe to say that accessibility was a fundamental concern when it came to developing kirby games and would quickly become part of their dna it's a series with a very comfy vibe and i don't think there's anything wrong with that approach adventures far from a cakewalk the sub bosses and regular bosses put up a pretty good fight that scales well across each of the levels meta knight is harder than krakow who is harder than paint roller who is harder than wispy woods there's an obvious upward progression here as you move closer and closer to the nightmare infecting dreamland earlier levels have a lot of waddle dees you can dispatch fairly easily and later levels have a lot more spikes and gordo's you're forced to avoid earlier secrets are out in the open and require very little thought whereas later secrets are hidden behind timing-based challenges that often require a specific copy ability those secrets can potentially hold switches that open up more of the hub world and inch you closer to 100 completion it's a simple thing to beat a kirby game almost anyone can do it completing one on the other hand we've already established is its own ordeal and that couldn't be more true of adventure in a lot of ways it's a more exciting dreamland you run through colorful hallways with catchy music accompanying you except now you can zap them with spark if you want you can zip through fun set pieces with wheel if you're lucky enough to find them you can even fly through the sky and shoot lasers with ufo without the copy abilities this longer adventure would likely grow stale quickly which is why it's a shame that they've designed it in such a way that a single hit causes you to lose the ability while you can suck it back up it bounces away from you faster than a nintendo cease and desist will disappear down bottomless pits and are gone forever if lost underwater it is a noticeably frustrating punishment in a game that is otherwise extremely welcoming and it makes the simple act of hitting enemies even more stressful than it should be almost every ability has a delay on its activation time so accidental hits are more common than you might think and i want to make sure i cover my bases here i was playing the nes version for footage but i am aware there's a port on the 3ds without slowdown the smoother frame rate helps a lot but it doesn't change the fact that these abilities have been designed in such a way they don't come out instantly and usually force you to come to a full stop this is most egregious when completing some of the optional challenges specifically the ones which require you to light a fuse and jump into the connected cannon before it fires this is a novel idea challenging the player to speed through a gauntlet of enemies or a series of platforms much of the time however i struggle less with the challenge and more with kirby's awkward play control as cute as kirby is there are only so many times i can attempt stuff like this before i start wanting to punch him any smug little i'm sorry i don't actually mean that kirby it's okay it's just i'm going through a lot right now to many this might seem like a bit of a nitpick but i'd argue that frustration is one of kirby's mortal enemies problems that would seem minor in other games are specifically aggravating in kirby games since they pride themselves on comfort and accessibility part of their appeal is in exploring vibrant imaginative levels listening to the catchy tunes and humming along anything that gets in the way of that trance-like flow will be much more noticeable when i speak on frustrations like these going forward know that i'm talking about accessibility more than i'm talking about difficulty though it is admittedly limited in its scope i love what the hub world brings to the game shorter levels work for kirby's more approachable style the cute goal games offering an extra little burst of dopamine before you're allowed to rest for a bit this rest can involve playing a sub game for extra lives fighting a mini boss in the arena for a new power up or entering a new door you unlocked with a hidden switch as the difficulty ratchets up it's even more satisfying to play a quick little crane game or participate in a test of your reflexes that i swear is virtually impossible without a crt these sub-games were introduced to dull the impact of this harder longer more complex sequel and having natural rest points like this allows the game to get away with a lot more than dreamland did without sacrificing its comfy energy it means you'll likely have a stockpile of lives and a new power-up waiting just around the corner it might be a somewhat frustrating occasionally clunky game by today's standards and i admit it's not one i'm keen to return to anytime soon however it's certainly one of the nes best platformers a wonderful sequel to dreamland and an exciting foundation for future sequels now if you're anything like kirby you're probably snacking on something as you watch this very video could i interest you in an authentic japanese snack service delivered straight to your door every month i have a few offers for you tokyo treat and sakurako with tokyo treat you will get up to 20 of the latest most exclusive limited edition and seasonal flavored japanese snacks in your box that are only available in japan for a limited time not only that with sakarako you will receive 20 traditional and authentic artisan japanese snack items 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either your first sakarako box or your first tokyo treat box links on screen in the description and in the pinned comment again use the code king for five dollars off either your first sakaraco box or your first tokyo treat box all right so what'd you look like well he was pink caucasian no pink i'm big you're saying like a big marshmallow know what to do he made me my friend play this game avalanche and he dumped all these little blobs on me and the only way that i could survive was if i buried my buddy in boulders now look he's a is this the guy kirby's avalanche the chain reaction puzzle game or try kirby's dream course it's psycho golf in 3d only for super nes all right son marshmallow while not the runaway hit that dreamland ended up being kirby's adventure still sold over a million copies which fell well within the goals iwata had set for the company and was more than enough to be considered a success in the 90s it's a little crazy to me that a game selling more than a million copies nowadays could even be considered a failure but uh that's a whole other can of worms kirby was growing into one of nintendo's more consistent properties it might not have been doing mario numbers but then again who was i think this is why we saw a bit of a paradigm shift around the time two new mainline kirby games were developed simultaneously after adventure along with a litany of spin-off titles in between kirby's adventure and kirby superstar we saw the release of kirby's pinball land kirby's dream course kirby's avalanche and kirby's block ball i don't think any of these games are important enough to dedicate an entire section to each of them but i do think their existence highlights something else i've come to love about kirby often these spin-offs are simple in scope pinball golf puyo puyo match 3 breakout you've played these games before in many different formats and probably many different times yet with kirby it feels like a little more in most franchises spin-offs are developed to fill the void in between major releases a low-cost way to capitalize on the success of the ip mario has a series of kart racers sports games of all kinds various party games he has or you know used to have rpgs he's done ddr he even went to the [ __ ] olympics with his lifelong rival some of those games are pretty cool yet i feel like kirby's spin-offs are more purposeful a lot of the time mario is simply able to sell these spin-offs using his name alone how many times have you heard your parents ask about the new mario kart or the new mario party or that cool new mario golf game through taking relatively simple accessible concepts and attaching the mario name to them they're able to reach a wide audience without doing anything exceptional i think this has allowed many of the mario spin-offs to get away with simply resting on their laurels allowing the prestige of the brand to carry them to success kirby spin-offs meanwhile are constructed with the same general template that a mainline kirby game would a cute title screen to set the tone an adventure that spans a series of levels often incorporating concepts from the main series almost always ending with a tough boss or final challenge that leaves the player satisfied when you go through the franchise's history with one or two exceptions every single spin-off nay every single game is built to be another adventure with kirby yeah kirby's block ball is a breakout clone yet it's also a breakout clone where you fight bosses from the mainline games you'd think this wouldn't be a huge deal but uh some franchises are allergic to their legacy unfortunately you listen to music from the mainline games and progress through different worlds almost each room introduces a new concept and the difficulty scales naturally kirby's dream course does much the same thing turning kirby into the golf ball and giving him his signature copy abilities you go through a series of worlds each with several courses that ramp up in difficulty ending with a boss fight against dedede for all intents and purposes it is golf featuring kirby but it's able to feel like an integral irreplaceable entry in the series because of the care put into their structure picking up a kirby game of any kind no matter the gameplay style or length ensures that you will at least get a satisfying kirby game except for kirby's avalanche that one is uh that one's pretty much just puyo puyo but hey kirby was a burgeoning success story i think hal and nintendo deserved to milk it just a little bit and if you think i'm crazy for thinking this is a franchise philosophy unique to kirby allow me to present to you the next major console installment and one of the most popular most influential kirby games of all time [Music] i've seen a rash of these lately mk tmk too much kirby think you can't get too much of a good thing try new kirby superstar it's full blown kermit inflated with eight curvy games bloated with 23 kirby enemies bulging with new kirby powers get him into observation new kirby superstar only on snes can your system handle it [Laughter] look at this box what does the text say right under the title eight games in one this is the title that would both prove my hypothesis correct and set the foundation for the franchise going forward kirby is not necessarily a set of individual games for discussion purposes of course it is it would be quite obnoxious to consider each individual mode of superstar its own game in casual discourse nevertheless it doesn't make the tagline on the front of the box any less correct there are 8 games here they may differ in gameplay style and length but as we've previously established none of these games are attempting to outdo the other they're games which are built for purpose spring breeze is an updated abridged retelling of dreamland using many of the same enemies bosses and level layouts some levels and rooms have been omitted as well as the fight against kabula but it's mostly a remake of dreamland with better visuals music and of course copy abilities there's a title screen an intro movie a final boss and an end credits sequence given dreamland's easy and short nature it serves well as your tutorial and introduction to the expanded copy system redundant abilities from adventure like burning and fire have been combined into one requiring context sensitive inputs for each attack for the most part every ability now has a dash attack a standing attack and perhaps a few air attacks copy abilities were already a fun and interesting way to maintain a sense of variety and this is even more true of superstar it's fun to re-experience dreamland with these souped-up abilities even if you can sorta tell that it wasn't built for them dynablade offers a similar slightly more challenging adventure where kirby has to pacify the great big bird ruining dreamland's crops instead of taking the journey level by level you navigate a world map with copyability rooms unlocked via secret level switches not unlike kirby's adventure these levels are distinct though in that they aren't capped off by major boss fights and instead see kirby facing off against a series of mini bosses dynablade is supposed to be the major event and she delivers a decent step up in challenge there isn't much in these first couple modes that's out of the ordinary they're mostly easy action romps with callbacks to the past and satisfying resolutions of their own like kirby once again kicking ddd from his castle or kirby feeding dynablade's children to quell her anger it's when we enter the great cave offensive that the strengths of this structure become more apparent before it was an awful admittedly hilarious smash bros stage that i still pick as a meme because i hate my friends the great cave offensive was a sprawling maze of rooms and treasures which formed a complete circuit there are no level entrances or endings in a traditional sense simply several interconnected areas with specialized challenges to complete you do fight a boss before transitioning to the next area but you only fight that boss a single time and can travel backwards should you so wish it's more about exploring this expansive cave network figuring out what abilities you need to bring with you and completing those tasks with those abilities you're constantly on the lookout combing the level design for anything that looks even remotely suspicious most kirby games feel daunting to complete and a lot of players opt not to fully complete them because of that superstar is great however because it's able to separate those interests spring breeze is a straightforward romp through dreamland dynablade reserves its secret rooms for copyability museums that will give you an advantage but are not strictly required and the great cave offensive shows you exactly how many treasures you've collected along with the amount you still have left to collect it's far easier to justify fully completing the great cave offensive since it's a smaller game specifically focused around that idea in a normal kirby adventure with normal kirby rules it might be annoying to drag a copy ability all the way to the end and bash your skull against a difficult challenge more on that later in this mode however you're in a giant cave network constantly on the lookout for treasure chests so you get to take it at your own pace it's an excellent juxtaposition to the fast and frantic revenge of meta knight where you need to stop meta knight from taking over dreamland under the gun of a timer while there are occasional secrets there's more of a focus placed on tricky jumps boss fights and annoying enemy layouts it also takes a much more direct story approach than past kirby adventures where meta knight and his crew on board the halberd can be heard plotting against kirby and reacting to his progress this might be my favorite mode of the bunch feels like the crew are constantly on the defensive and because of their dialogue you know that they're directly responsible for the enemies and bosses thrown your way despite the fact that they leave hidden rooms with maxim tomatoes lying around or send the heavy lobster to destroy parts of their own ship in the pursuit it's a great touch that meta knight doesn't get upset or frustrated with his crew he believes in them to the bitter end so even though he's portrayed as a villain you start to get the impression that this villain just wants to become dreamland's protector by dethroning the lazy mostly incompetent king dedede i also like to think that at this point he's testing kirby to see if he's capable of protecting pop star from even greater threats that may loom on the horizon a clever bridge into the final mode milky way wishes which sees kirby encountering celestial beings and fighting the most despicable unhinged threat to dreamland yet a lot can be said about how these various premises flesh out kirby's relatively simple character spring breeze is about him returning the stolen food back to dreamland dynablade is about preventing the crops from destruction ending with kirby's ultimate realization that she is simply trying to feed her children the great cave offensive sees kirby simply exploring an expansive cave network and retrieving as much treasure as he can before leaving revenge of meta knight sees kirby protecting dreamland from the halberd and finally milky way wishes has kirby setting out beyond his home planet to stop the sun and moon from fighting he's an innocent lovable soul always out to protect dreamland but he's also in it to have a bit of fun and maybe a bite to eat here and there i appreciate that the series is able to tell diverse stories which don't heavily rely on established characters or mythos sure characters like ddd and meta knight make dozens of reappearances but they also only exist in two of the five main substantial stories here the final story milky way wishes introduces several new characters such as nova and marx and i suppose it's simply refreshing when mario and zelda are hell-bent on not having any fun with their mythos these days it helps the franchise to feel like it's always moving forward always looking to expand the universe look no further than marx for the benefits of this approach a fairly unassuming figure who sparks kirby's journey to the stars upends that quest at the very last moment to wish for enough power to rule pop star revealing that he was responsible for the sun and moon's conflict milky way wishes might be a jaunt through various different planets collecting copy abilities to add to your arsenal and heightening the challenge to fit the larger scope but it's also the introduction of celestial entities ending with a truly frightening boss fight against one of the most unsettling characters to yet grace the franchise in a strange way as different as they all were each game was building up to this crescendo where kirby saves pop star from a galactic threat naturally as is kirby's nature he returns home and sleeps to start again tomorrow never one to dwell on these revelatory events he's simply content to live the best life he can what a lad i think it helps that the game has incredibly solid play control attacks come out quicker and are much more effective you also don't lose your ability from a single hit it now takes several to knock it out of you frustration is kept to a minimum only really rearing its head in the great cave offensive which can be a little confusing without a map of any kind and milky way wishes which has basically no indicator of which copy abilities are on which planets so you kind of just have to blindly search around some of the challenges in the great cave offensive can also be a little demanding asking you to carry two power-ups at once via creating a partner with one of them did i mention you can play the whole game in co-op because yeah you can do that for the most part though i think they're well-designed modes milky way wishes feels a bit like a metroidvania where early planets have challenges you can't get through without power-ups for future planets each planet has a different look and sound and you select them through a more free-form world map revenge of meta knight is a fast-paced chase mode with some high octane set pieces where you rip the halberd to shreds piece by piece the great cave offensive has some of the most unique boss fights enough that they basically reused them in milky way wishes i mean whoever came up with the idea for this classic turn-based jrpg boss is a genius in my book on top of that there are three sub games to play in between these adventures and the introduction of the arena where kirby fights through every boss in a row with only five maxim tomatoes in between fights to restore kirby's hp a true final test that doesn't quite let you get away with sloppy play like the main modes do marx is pretty easy on his own but when he comes at the end of a gauntlet of tricky bosses you'll probably be reconsidering that statement and i love that i love that you can goof off with a friend and play megaton punch or samurai kirby or the classic gourmet race against ddd i love how much variety there is in your copy abilities ninja can stick to walls throw shurikens and essentially suplex enemies hammer has this charge attack which completely destroys anything it hits most fun to use in the arena wing is less useful in combat but allows kirby to fly much faster than he can float plasma lets you build up static electricity by moving back and forth rapidly letting you fire off a giant wave of electricity at its apex yoyo gives you an expanded attack range allowing you to attack above and below you with ease packed with an incredibly useful dash attack there are less copy abilities to play around with than in adventure but they're more specialized some helping with close combat some with mobility some with range the music hits a wonderful range the exciting intrigue of trees in the depths [Music] the fast-paced danger of halberd [Music] the ominous presence of marx there's nothing like superstar nay nothing like kirby up to this point i've mostly been outlining what i feel are the core strengths of kirby it's a franchise i adore and one i feel like doesn't get enough credit for how exceptional and unique its game design is however it is not a series without fault and with these next two games i want to focus on some of his weaker points people seem to get really upset when i do this most recently with samus returns but i just want to make something clear my goal with these larger franchise videos is to track their evolution when an entry feels like it's going above and beyond building off of the past to create something that pushes the series forward i'm generally going to be more positive about it when the opposite occurs and an entry feels like a noticeable step down i am not saying that i think it's bad often times these more underwhelming entries are simply a bit average unremarkable but i also believe that they are downward ticks in the series trajectory even if that tick is ever so slight so please listen to what i'm saying here with a broader perspective you're feeling a little down friends are there to rearrange someone's face when they're acting like a clown friends are a hamster a fish and an owl in kirby's dreamland too if you ain't fighting on their side well man i'd pity you cub is back and the flappy one brought three rowdy friends it's a pumped up powered up kirby and kirby's dreamland too new for gameboy on super game boy will you be my friend while sakurai handled the direction of superstar on the snes another team was working on a mainline kirby game for the game boy a sequel to dreamland which would incorporate adventures copy abilities it's difficult to say where the idea for this game came from as details about its development are relatively sparse but if i were to make an educated guess i would posit that either nintendo hal or both wanted another kirby platformer on the game boy to compliment the console releases it was developed concurrently with superstar actually releasing before it so i'm sure it was in part meant to fill the void between releases this is a campaign that sees kirby once again setting out to expel a dangerous entity from dreamland but this time with three new animal buddies to help him out while i wanted to talk about superstar first since it flowed better in the script it's helpful to remember that dreamland 2 released before superstar it expanded upon the copy abilities introduced in adventure but more in the sense that they added new variations you still come to a dead stop for most of these attacks and they vary in their usefulness there are also less of them for kirby to use seven main ones to be exact the trade-off is that each copy ability functions differently depending on which animal buddy you're riding with meaning there are more like 28 different abilities to play around with while that might be more than adventure i wouldn't say it's a boon there were certainly redundant abilities in adventure fire and burning frost and ice light was used a total of 2 times to uncover secret doors however on the whole getting an ability meant an upgrade in combat utility from kirby's base form with the 7 base abilities in dreamland 2 i can say the same burning is still great for mobility stone is great for defense cutter is great for ranged attacks it's just that this only sometimes holds true for the animal buddy versions each buddy has a base upgrade to kirby rick the hamster can run faster and doesn't slip on ice coo the owl can fly and resist harsh winds and kind the sunfish can move quickly through water though he struggles on land this base upgrade is usually good enough to consider riding with them after defeating a mini boss but of course your ability will also have a different effect this can be an upgrade using stone with rick lets you move the stone on the ground like a barrel using cutter with ku lets you shoot three at once using spark with cayenne creates a light bulb which will illuminate dark areas but more importantly will give you essentially the same attack as spark but allows you to move while using it unfortunately many of these abilities are not upgrades and in fact some of them are straight up downgrades using spike with rick reduces its hitbox and also forces you to turn around before using it using burning with ku gives your flame dash an awkward downward angle that makes progression much more cumbersome using parasol with kine turns it into a forward-facing shield which is great except that it also halts all movement most of these abilities are at least fine i guess i think my larger problem is how this system presents itself when you're playing the game animal buddies are found in various levels semi-randomly and as long as they aren't killed you can bring them with you for the whole adventure that is easier said than done especially with some of these abilities and it's hard to remember which abilities suck and which don't since there are four variations on the same seven abilities instead of twenty plus distinct abilities it can get a little confusing sometimes i have to keep cross-referencing the wiki while writing this script to refresh myself on what some of them even do sometimes you get an animal buddy with just the right power up and you're flying high kind and spark in any level that has water feels really good it can just as quickly turn against you if you find yourself using rick and spike add on to that the propeller bombs enemies that upon contact will instantly kill your animal buddy for some reason and it starts to make finding an animal buddy feel less exciting there were many times writing rick where i thought to myself maybe i should just do this with kirby i suppose the beauty of dreamland 2 is that you can usually ignore the animal buddies except in the select few instances that you do need them technically for 100 but i mean really just to unlock the actual final boss and ending each of the seven worlds has a rainbow drop hidden in one of its levels and it's up to you to find it i largely think this is well handled you use rick and parasol for the rainbow drop in 1 3 something you're probably already going to have by that point you only need to bring kind with you into the water section of 3 3 at the very beginning of the level the rainbow drops in 4 4 and 6 2 though force you to use these animal buddies in ways which taught me to absolutely despise them in 4 4 you need to drag kind and burning with you through a water section an attack that is relatively useless underwater for obvious reasons so you drag kine and burning through this water section then contend with him on land for a while before eventually reaching this spot you have to jump down to either side so you can burn the ice blocks in the middle there's a one up on the left and a maxim tomato on the right the catch is that if you were to make the horrible mistake of actually wanting to collect these items you have now trapped yourself your only means of escape being to either abandon kind or exit the level and come back here all over again then when you get to the underwater segment there are some blocks below you which you can't break since burning only attacks in a horizontal line you also need to carry burning to the other side so you can use it to break the blocks guarding the rainbow drop oh boy what you're expected to do here and i'm not [ __ ] you is press select to get rid of your ability under water quickly suck up at least two of the blocks since kind can't fit through a one block gap and then suck your ability up again before it disappears which you know it oh so conveniently fades much quicker when underwater a single point of failure means restarting the level again i would argue that the rainbow drop in 6-2 is even worse trying to do this stuff at a point in the game where i also think the level design starts going downhill and the game begins to overstay its welcome led to a fairly apathetic reaction whenever i got another animal buddy a feeling of oh boy i hope i have a good power up available for this and i hope to god they don't make me drag this [ __ ] through another annoying level for a rainbow drop see adventure had this wonderful thing where the hub world doors would change color if you'd fully completed them dreamland 2 never indicates as such it's just in one of the levels good luck and remember 100 in this game does not work like it does in adventure or superstar in those games it was a simple title screen number that would make you feel cool in this game it's either you do this and get to do the cool fight against dark matter or you end the game fighting ddd again it's essentially a requirement for a satisfying ending here's the deal this game is quite frustrating and as we've previously established this is a dangerous territory for kirby the more frustrated you become as a player the easier it is to notice how the level design isn't doing anything particularly interesting a few of the levels here have pretty long hallways with the same few layouts repeated where you sort of just walk forward stop to attack walk forward stop to attack and repeat by the time i reached the fifth world i already felt like it was dragging its heels a bit and it did not help that some of these later levels became quite comfortable relying on auto scrolling segments actually weaponizing the smaller screen size to take players off guard and crush them for not having crazy good reaction time 7 6 is literally a guessing game where if you pick the wrong path you die the screen is not large enough to see the wrong path before it's already too late and you're sentenced to death reminder that a death of any kind means losing both your ability and your animal buddy i do think there are some fun levels here zipping around with koo in world 2 soaring through the treetops is really fun until you explore a little too hard and run into a surprise propeller bomb in the corner of the screen which instantly kills coo the underwater levels are very fun when you have kine boosting through or against water currents preferably with spark but i say again if you find yourself underwater without kine you move extremely slowly and since these sections need to be quite long to make kine more useful well i think you get the point dreamland 2 gets in the way of its own fun quite often and it quickly gets tiring i would move to dreamland 3 after this but do you want that to explain to you that it's constructed in the exact same way that dreamland 2 was with 3 new animal buddies on top of the 3 that were in too meaning even more ability combinations to keep track of and overwhelm you meaning even more situations where you're saddled with a useless combination get frustrated along with even more opportunities where getting secrets is insanely frustrating and requires you to carry an otherwise useless combination to the end of a level for a single secret meaning they were well aware of how useless some of them were exacerbated by there now being a secret in all seven levels of the five worlds even more copy and paste hallways which pad out the level length and even more noticeable sluggishness to kirby's movement and attack speed and even more completely useless abilities than before with a special highlight given to the [ __ ] cleaning ability which is basically useless in every way unless you're using nago but hey at least it looks good and the music isn't tied to the animal buddy you're using anymore so i don't want to claw my ears off you can also kill some metroids for samus that's pretty cool i suppose what i'm getting at here is that i do think these games have some cool ideas i love some of the secrets in dreamland 3 making sure to avoid stomping on the flowers collecting pieces of rob to reassemble him the aforementioned meeting with samus it's just that these games are primed to take one step forward and three steps back because there are also secrets where you need to memorize a series of different gordo faces in less than a second and give the correct answer three times or you lose the secret which is also in the middle of the damn level and you have to then restart the whole thing just to get back there and try again look contrary to popular belief i don't actually like dwelling on stuff that makes me upset in the grand scheme of the series they trend down rather than up and that's a bit disappointing however they also led to kirby 64 which is a very very very good thing muffin is a half tabby half calico who loves giving kitten kisses but he is part lab part husky and he chases balls kirby is part fire part bomb spike and lightning and he loves to combine these in new ways to destroy his enemies so we have three one two wonderful pets to choose from kirby 64. rated right before dreamland 3 was released hal wanted to make a kirby game with 3d graphics like practically everyone they saw where console gaming was headed and they wanted their up-and-coming franchise to get in on that action project manager takashi saito discussed that the team were very particular about the details not wanting to disappoint their hardcore fan base by changing too much about kirby's fundamentals this was likely why the game still played like a 2d platformer hal wanted to play to their strengths and given their tumultuous financial history it's hard to blame them it might also be that i have a fondness for 2.5 d platformers i uh i wonder where i got that from kirby 64 the crystal shards is considered to be the third installment in the fan dubbed dark matter trilogy alongside dreamland 2 and 3. director shinichi shimamura and much of the staff under him returned to make 64 which is probably why dark matter returns as the villain along with adeline several enemies and even music remixes this time there are six planets each with several levels but instead of following kirby and the occasional animal buddy this time you are part of an ensemble the game opens with dark matter taking over a far away planet a fairy girl named ribbon escapes with a large crystal only to lose it to the blobs of dark matter chasing her this shatters the crystal sending shards across the universe knuckles style and ribbon falls to pop star in front of kirby who obviously decides to help her with this predicament as you finish the levels in pop star you fight waddle dee adeline and king dedede recruiting them into your party so you can all help ribbon restore the pieces of the crystal and to make her way back to her home planet to defeat dark matter all of this is set up without words a simple approach but one that works well for kirby you learn everything you need to know about these characters through their interactions and body language the end of world cut scenes showcase this the best it's adorable one of the first times we get the inclination that deep down ddd really does care about kirby what i love though is that this isn't exclusive to the cut scenes in each of the levels one of your friends will pop in to help whether that be waddle d operating a winch or riding in a mine cart with you king ddd using his hammer to bash through walls kirby can't normally get through adeline giving kirby maxim tomatoes or helping him solve various crystal shard riddles or even just ribbon showing up to grab the shards they really went the extra mile here to make kirby's jump to 3d graphics feel like something special without betraying the expectations of hardcore fans nowhere is this felt more strongly than in the new copyability system this time there are seven base copy abilities burn stone ice needle bomb spark and cutter the gimmick this time around is that you're able to mix and match these various copy abilities to create something entirely new this new system retains the variety of the animal buddy system without the frustrating limitations instead of having to keep track of three or even six different animal buddies and how each copy ability works for them individually this system is a series of combos logically it's much easier to remember these combinations because they follow a theme usually combining two of the same ability just makes that ability stronger burn causes kirby to fly across the screen but burn plus burn turns that midair dash into a phoenix that harms more enemies on the screen and takes kirby much farther stone turns kirby into stone though this game allows him to walk very slowly while transformed an extremely welcome addition i'm surprised is unique to this entry of course stone plus stone simply turns kirby into a bigger stone those are pretty self-explanatory it's when you move to the unique combinations that things get interesting combos in this game feel very intuitive burn and ice is a counterproductive combo as you'd imagine turning kirby into a burning ice cube which lasts for a second at most it's pretty lame but also what did you expect from bird and ice burn and bomb though that makes a lot more sense it turns kirby into a walking firecracker giving him three explosive jumps that shoot fireworks out of his body it's an effective fun power-up that doesn't halt kirby's momentum i'm actually pretty impressed by the versatility of these combos especially coming off the one-hit wonders in the dreamland sequels burn and cutter will give kirby a giant flaming sword which is cool enough on its own it's got a gigantic hitbox with a sweeping animation so it's a very useful ability to deal with enemies and bosses but you can also hold it above your head and shoot it out stone and cutter will turn kirby into the animal buddies who each retain their general movesets from the dreamland games of course the drawbacks of being a stone mean that they aren't very practical to use but pitch is actually extremely fun since he can fly much faster than kirby with the drawback being that he drops like a rock he can even roll down slopes since he's a ball it's really cute bomb and cutter gives you a wicked fast exploding shuriken ice and cutter give you ice skates which honestly aren't super practical but i don't give a damn you see how cute this is ice and ice turns you into a giant snowball needle and needle gives you a bunch of random spiky household objects spark and cutter gives you a lightsaber are there a few annoying combinations sure i don't know what the hell they were thinking with burn and cutter like who the hell wants to be using this bow that can only shoot a single arrow at a very precise angle who wants to be stuck with ice and bomb slowly moving across the screen only to blow up when it hits something but i must stress that you can count the number of truly awful ability combinations on one hand and even then at least they're bad in a cute way that's visually fitting for every bad combination there are like three of them that are badass and fun to play around with and since there are so many of them to experiment with you're basically a kid in a colorful toy box constantly looking for new combos while superstar may have added the most individual depth to each of the copy abilities i think 64 takes the cake in terms of diversity there's so much you can mix and match here giving you a completely different experience through any given level and since you can enter and leave levels without penalty retaining any progress you made at any point it makes it fairly easy for players to use whatever combos they want it also makes the few instances where you're forced to use a dumb combo for one of the crystal shards marginally less annoying there's another thing the crystal shards follow the same general philosophy as dreamland 3 but they're so much less annoying three of them are hidden in each of the levels requiring you to find secret areas bring specific combos much more obviously denoted by colored blocks which correspond to the copy ability color and even a few puzzles that don't force you to restart the entire level should you fail them there's been an effort to make each level stand out from the rest be that a distinct visual motif like an autumn-colored forest a desert ruin an underground laboratory or an abandoned human structure not so subtly shown to be on a post-apocalyptic earth it feels like 64 is constantly one-upping itself and it prevents the level design from becoming stale each planet follows a theme but it's usually a pretty loose theme neostar has a prehistoric theming which it explores in its thick jungle its underground crystal shaft its rocky mountain range that bridges into the bowels of a volcano where you fight the boss and transition to the next planet that visual variety is part of why it's easy for me to remember each of the levels helped along by their absolutely incredible music jun ishikawa has been tasked with creating music for the kirby franchise it's a comfy pleasant vibe with just a hint of action and adventure his music is catchy and inviting though in games like superstar he's been able to show a bit more of his range and capture something a bit more exciting or otherworldly i haven't mentioned him until now because i believe 64 is one of his best works and it showcases his phenomenal range better than any of the games we've talked about today that might be a bit of a controversial statement but i stand by it we get his usual peppy fare with the first level pop star meant to invite players into kirby's colorful world [Music] we get the blood pumping boss theme meant to hype us up for a bit more of a challenge we get the ruins theme a slower more contemplative piece befitting an ancient desert ruin [Music] we get my personal favorite track as kirby falls deeper and deeper into a mysterious factory experiments in the background danger around every corner there's a foreboding tension building kirby 64 is an absolute banger of a game and i will hear nothing else this is what peak performance looks like i'm sorry i can't help myself there are just enough levels to keep me hooked just enough power-ups to keep me interested just enough cutscenes to make me smile just enough bangers to make me hum along kirby's true strength isn't his ability to innovate nor his ability to surprise nor his ability to challenge kirby's true strength is in that fuzzy heartwarming feeling in the pit of your stomach every single kirby project hit or miss has a trademark charm to it a comfy fireplace for the heart i think this is a large part of why the franchise was able to hit the ground running and that momentum would carry it into the 21st century [Music] [Music] do [Music] you

Channel: KingK

Views: 222,921

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Id: PRMW1fG-cOk

Length: 55min 15sec (3315 seconds)

Published: Mon May 30 2022