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awful-possum · 10 months

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Pink and Me: A Kirby Retrospective

I have a special spot in my heart for a small pink puffball that’s been around on this planet for as long as I have. I also think my gaming sensibilities were formed by this lil’ dude; always wanting to fully complete the games I played, vibing with a game’s soundtrack, replaying the game on a harder difficulty and just wanting to myself get better and faster at the game. I think I can owe it all to Kirby and that’s what I want to talk about: My journey through the Kirby series and how it’s shaped me into a dweeb that loves videogames and all things pink and powerful.

When I was growing up I played whatever games my Dad had in the house. Sega Genesis, Nintendo(NES) and Super Nintendo(SNES). It was fun! even if I was just given the second controller and faffed about. It wasn’t until I got my Game Boy Color(GBC) for my Christmas back in 1998 where I had a more direct way to play what I wanted. No sharing the SNES or Genesis with my Dad, even if I loved playing games with him. With 4 AA batteries, I could play a videogame whenever I wanted.

Kirby’s Dream Land 2 was the first game of the series I ever played. I got it from my parents along with Pokémon Blue the same Christmas I got my GBC and let me tell you I was set for life. I sank so many hours into these games. Any time I was was in the car with my parents to go anywhere, I had my GBC and I was playing either Pokémon Blue or Kirby’s Dream Land 2.

Kirby’s Dream Land 2(I’m going to call it Dream Land 2 for now) released for the original Game Boy on May 1st, 1995. I definitely received this game as a discounted price and that’s perfectly okay! Sometimes you gotta go back and play some older games you missed out on, even if it’s for budgetary reasons.

Now what’s going on in this game? Well, an evil entity known as Dark Matter have taken the rainbow bridges that connect the Rainbow Islands on Kirby’s home: Dream Land. Naturally, Kirby and his friends set out on an adventure to save Dream Land! Pretty simple stuff really but sometimes that’s all you need.

I love Kirby’s simplicity. The design philosophy of this series - to make the game simple enough for anyone to be able to pick up and play; made it easy for a dumb baby like me to just move Kirby around press the A button and press the B button. Dream Land 2 was an easy game to grasp the controls and understand what information is being delivered to you. The series creator, Masahiro Sakurai, has a youtube channel now and he talks about all the games he’s worked on amongst other game industry topics!

Right, so Kirby controls really well. And it’s fun to play as the puffball! Kirby can:

Run

Fly

suck Inhale

Shoot

Swallow

Pretty straightforward 2D platformer stuff really but the key factor to this series is Kirby’s mouth. While Kirby’s got a homie in his mouth, he can either spit them out as a projectile or he can swallow them. Now depending on the enemy, swallowing the enemy will either be nothing or Kirby will gain a Copy Ability. A new attack Kirby can gain by pressing the suck action button(B) again.

These are the bread and butter of the franchise now and it might possibly be my favorite aspect of the series. When playing this game for the first time, it was so fun to learn and discover what powers the baddies would give me. My favorite power of this set was definitely Burning. It was a fiery tackle and the sound and screen shake of this copy ability when you hit a wall was peak design and it fired me up every time. I would just spam the B button when right next to walls. You get some vertical movement and a cool effect.And that’s just the kind of game Kirby is: have fun with these powers and do neat stuff with this new ability. Don’t like the ability? Just hit Select and Kirby tosses it away for you to inhale another baddie. The customization the Kirby games sort of give is really what helps give the player some autonomy with their own playthrough.

Speaking of abilities! Kirby now has some friends of his own to join in the adventure:

Rick The Hamster

Coo the Owl

and Kine the Fish

Throughout the adventure, Kirby can rescue the coolest guys and they’ll tag along, enhancing Kirby’s innate moveset. Rick has a faster walk+run speed, Coo can have Kirby fly without puffing himself up and Kine helps out with the swimming levels. On top of these movement buffs, they can also combine with whatever copy ability Kirby has on him. And they each use the copy ability pretty differently! Just look at the differences with the Parasol copy ability!

We’ve gut the total amount of copy abilities in this game compared to Kirby’s Adventure on the NES because we now have these combinations with our Animal Friends and it’s perfect for this portable excursion through Dream Land! Kirby enemies respawn when you move the screen forward and back so it was fun to just try out different combinations and bop all of baddies.

Pokemon Blue felt more of like an adventure to me personally, but Dream Land 2 was a playground for me. A linear platformer where I got more than one opportunity to grab some of the toys and experiment with little-to-no consequence. Could I take enough damage and lose a life? Absolutely, but Dream Land 2, like the previous two games, was designed to be easily played by anyone. A very forgiving game that allows you to practice in real time to get used to the game at your own pace. No time limits in the Kirby games really. The game has this type of freedom that allowed me to replay the game multiple times, figuring out how to find the game’s main secret collectible the Rainbow Drops. You need to find a specific door and have a specific copy ability to access the collectible. Reaching these rooms and figuring out what copy ability I needed didn’t feel like a slog, the levels were easy to breeze through and I had fun making sure I had the correct copy ability throughout the whole level. That usually meant I had to go through without taking damage. once Kirby takes some damage the copy ability flies out of him. this was a way for the game to give you some form of difficulty, forcing yourself a copy ability until you find that secret room. The brilliant thing about this secret collectible is that there’s only one per world and the very first one is in a NOT secret room. It’s along the beaten path and once you get to the following worlds you’ll notice that these later islands don’t match up with the first one.

A completed world when you find the secret Rainbow Drop has the rainbow drop appear on the world map! With Parasol being one of the first copy abilities you find and the first Rainbow Drop being on the main route, you start to think: “why doesn’t Island 2 look like Island 1?” And that’s how they game gets you, you start replaying levels, combing each screen by going into spaces you wouldn’t think accessible or just needing the right combination of animal buddy and copy ability!

Alright enough of this primer-talk. Let’s talk about these levels and why I dig them so much.

I might be in the minority here but when it comes to video games, I’m very okay with Grass being World 1. And it might be because of my love of the Kirby franchise but I feel us Kirby fans are fed well when it comes to World 1s. We get beautiful hillsides and glades. Happy-go-lucky music that inspires adventure and whimsy. Dream Land 2′s first world, aptly named: Grass Land, is probably one of the easiest versions of world 1 in the series. I don’t even think there’s any bottomless pits?? Just baddies in your way. It’s such a welcoming introduction for anyone. Grass Land is always a pleasant site to behold.

And we get a Boss fight that appears in practically every single Kirby game. My comfort blanket:

Whispy Woods

Whispy Woods is a legit treat for everyone. Where with the Sonic franchise and the Mario series, getting repeat bosses and levels bring a groan of fatigue. Nearly everyone welcomes Whispy Woods with open arms, we become real tree huggers until we want to kick his ass for getting in our way. His combat prowess hasn’t really changed all that much throughout the years, he’s still spitting air at you and shaking apples on top of Kirby to try and harm him. He changes it up in other games but it’s more like an added move-list than a full change in the fight. Grass Land is some real comfy vibes and because of this franchise, I love generic *Grass* being our introduction to the game and game world.

Big Forest is pretty cool with introducing the player to forced flying. There are higher elevated platforms that Kirby will have to fly to reach. We’re also shown more verticality with some parts of the stages. Having us climb tall trees with smaller bush/branch like platforms. And with our trusty Owl friend: Coo, it’s a lot easier to fly through this forest. Big Forest doesn’t leave a huge impression and the only things I really remember from it are Coo, Coo’s theme, and the boss fight’s gimmick.

Our boss in Big Forest is Nruff and Nelly

Nruff and Nelly’s gimmick is that there are 3 levels with doors. the boss will randomly pop out of one of these doors and run across. Kirby has gotta bob and weave to deal damage without taking damage. It’s a gimmick that’s appeared in the Dream Land 1 and will appear again in Dream Land 3. It’s also used a couple of other times for some enemy gauntlet rooms.

A fun gimmick overall, not too difficult to deal with!

We’re getting wet and wild here in Ripple Field

I don’t think the water levels in the Kirby games are all that bad. Kirby usually controls really well, he has a lil’ attack to blow bubbles at enemies and we get our Fish friend: KINE. Truly the bossest fish. He’s makes anything water related so much easier with the trade-off being he’s so clunky out of the water. Now, this seems obvious but I just want to reiterate having Kine on the ground is slow, clunky and staggered(?). Ripple Field starts us off easy with land before we dip our toe into the water. As we progress through the world, we’ll end up spending most of our time underwater than out of it. There’s no air meter either, just Kirby swimming around, having fun. And when we have Kine, Kirby can use his inhale attack again! Kine is a king and I love him for making water levels easy as hell to go through. Now for our boss, we got a bit of a challenge as we learn to dodge attacks in an auto-scrolling room.

Sweet Stuff

A huge angler fish that has seastars, lightning bolts, Squid cannon-fodder called Squishies. Whether you’ve got Kine or not, you just gotta shoot him with some bubbles or bounce the sea stars back at him by inhaling or shooting bubbles at them. The difficulty has ramped up a bit as we’re dealing with more projectiles from the boss this time. Plus, we’re getting another staple in the Kirby series with a boss in a long corridor with a screen that automatically scrolls.

Almost halfway through the game! We’re now in

Iceberg. These level names aren’t too creative let’s be real, especially compared to names like:

Green Greens

Vegetable Valley

Butter Building

YOGURT YARD

But hey, these are supposedly lil’ islands within Dream Land and we don’t even know who in Dream Land named them. It could straight up just be Kirby calling them simple things. Not that it really matters! Iceberg has one more level than the previous 3 worlds total, and as we progress through the game there’ll be another level added to each world. The kid gloves are coming off now, we got slippery floors, bottomless pits, wind pushing Kirby along and auto-scrolling rooms! We’re going to have a mid-boss in nearly every level and be switching through the animal buddies! Something I’ve always liked with the architecture(?) in Kirby games are these pillar things

In Iceberg they have snow on top of them and it’s a really cute touch! I’m not very good at describing why music is good. But I know Iceberg’s theme fits so well for this Icy island. We’ll get better Icey music in later games but as an early title, it works great.

I love Ice Dragon so much

He’s got such a simple orb-like design much like our Pink puffball. Ice Dragon is large and in charge. With an Ice Breath and a charge, he’s a force to be reckoned with when dealing with a slippery floor. His charge has icicles fall from the ceiling which Kirby uses to shoot back at him. It’s an easy challenge if you’re used to the ice physics, but don’t take these adorable orbs for granted. That’s the best aspect of the Kirby franchise really: adorable on the outside but a cold-hearted killer on the inside.

Red Canyon is out next destination and we’re getting into some dangerous territory here. Lots of tricky sharp-angled platforms with bottomless bits and enemies directly in your path forward. One of the more well-known pieces of music shows up as Red Canyon’s theme, it’s appeared in Kirby’s Adventure for Yogurt Yard and will show up in many more Kirby games. It’s a little too jolly for this dangerous mountain but still invokes the strength to press on. Red Canyon is famous for a certain room in Level 5, a pattern of blocks are seemingly in the shape of a woman and this is a secret I never knew about until a few years ago!

Does this make the game better? absolutely not. I genuinely can’t imagine WHY this is in the game outside of just some very young, perverted developers. Game designers are crazy, y’all. I don’t know what to tell you.

Boss time! One of the most famous boss fights and another recurring pair of characters: Mr. Shine and Mr. Bright

The sun and moon are fighting and Kirby is caught in the middle! You can defeat them like other bosses and enemies, shooting stars at them, using your copy ability. you know the deal. Now the difficulty is ramped up by their speed and the fact that there are just two bosses to deal with! They have this really rad as fuck “eclipse attack” where you gotta hide in the shadows to not take damage.

I always love fighting these two and enjoy seeing them in some capacity. Bunch of bickering idiots.

We’re getting closer to our destination. Cloudy Park is next and we’ve climbed the mountain in Red Canyon and have reached the clouds!

It’s getting harder now, dealing with wind currents over bottomless pits, tight corridors with invincible enemies, and a variety of terrain types within the cloud and rooms. Cloudy Park and it’s future sky zone contemporaries in the future games always give me trouble. I think I lose some patience and just try to rush through the levels and end up getting slapped in the face and fall to my doom. Dream Land 2 left some scars I suppose. But like always, when you got your animal buddies it’s a lot easier.

We get our next recurring boss fight for the series. Kracko Jr. and Kracko!

Like Whispy Woods, we see Kracko a bunch throughout the franchise and it’s always great to see the creepy eyeball cloud. There’s some iterations that give me trouble as his moveset doesn’t drastically change except for maybe his movement speed? Having an boss that is constantly off the ground is a bit troubling to get used to when we’ve had relatively grounded enemies. Kracko tests players with its speed and multitude of attacks. Though he can be a cakewalk with the right copy ability.

Can you feel it? This pressure? We’ve finally made it

to Dark Castle

We’ve walked along the clouds to reach Dark Castle, the wicked island in the sky. A world with the most levels in the game and a mid-boss in every level. Kirby and friends are truly tested in this world and I love its aesthetic. The darker tileset, the frantic worrying theme of the world along with all the enemies and mid-bosses. It really feels like the end of our journey as we enter this dark castle and make our way upwards, overcoming the danger.

Dream Land 2 has two endings, an ending for just beating the game and the other ending is when you collect all of the Rainbow Drops. When you don’t collect them all, your final boss is the possessed King Dedede!

Look at this Penguin dork. Probably the second most recognizable character from the entire series. He gets possessed by the big bad Dark Matter and when you defeat him without all of the Rainbow Drops, Dark Matter leaves King Dedede’s body and flies up to the sky. Giving us a cutscene of Kirby and friends walking back home in the rain, with Kine looking back up to the sky worried about Dark Matter. It’s some real somber stuff! I felt like I did something wrong! So I went back into the game to find all of the Rainbow Drops.

Now once Kirby and the gang collect every Rainbow Drop, King Dedede becomes the first phase of a three phase final boss! The Rainbow Drops combine into the Rainbow Sword and we proceed to fight Dark Matter!

LOOK AT THESE BADDIES!! Defeating Dark Matter’s true form completes the game and we are given the true ending. A feat to achieve for lil’ ‘ole me back in 1998-1999. I was so proud of myself seeing the 100% on my save file after completing this game. Dream Land 2 was such a fun experience for 6 year old me. Getting 100% in Dream Land 2 unlocks Sound Test and a Boss Rush mode. I took advantage of these modes, always listening to the lil’ sound bits and level music. I would run the boss rush mode repeatedly, trying to complete it faster and faster. Because of this game I strive to get 100% on games to get the most of out the game, not having that many video games helped this a bit, but I liked playing these games to completion.

The music, the character design, the copy abilities, Kirby got its hooks in me, and I wouldn’t say I became a die hard fan of the series just yet. But I was definitely made aware how fun these games could be and I wanted another game on my Game Boy that’s got the pink puffball on the cover and the next one I get is:

Thank you so much for listening to my ramblings. I really loved just talking about this game and I probably could’ve gone into it a bit more all things considered. But I was sort of going off my own memory of the game while using images from The Kirby Wiki. While just talking about a game that I’m not fully sure a lot of people played? Most people talk about Super Star or any Kirby game after that.

This was the first of hopefully many self-indulgent blogs! With social media going to shit even more so than usual, I thought I could stop lurking on Tumblr and actual use it to just talk out into the ether. I’ll definitely get better at writing out my thoughts maybe even plan out how I wanna talk about these topics lol. If you read through this whole thing I can’t thank you enough, I really appreciate it!

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