Kirby's Dream Land

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Kirby's Dream Land

"He's Kirby, and he has a handsome neat bite"
Protagonist(s): Kirby
Genre(s): Platform
Platform(s): Game Boy
Release Date: JP: April 27, 1992
NA: August 1, 1992
PAL: August 3, 1992
Developer(s): HAL Laboratory
Publisher(s): Nintendo
Series: Kirby
Successor: Kirby's Adventure


Kirby's Dream Land (otherwise known as Kirby of the Stars in Japan) is a platform game and the first installment of the Kirby series. Developed and created by HAL Labatory Inc. and published by Nintendo for the Game Boy in 1992.

Why It's A Dream Land

  1. The game kickstarted Masahiro Sakurai as a director and game designer of the game, as it features one of the most adorable Nintendo mascots.
  2. The soundtrack is pretty good and memorable with most notably being Green Greens.
  3. Kirby has a unique moveset as he can inhale and spit out or swallow enemies, and he can hover and float.
  4. There are a ton of items that Kirby can pick up throughout his adventure:
    • Pep Brew: Restores one of Kirby's vitality.
    • Maxim Tomato (mistranslated as the Bag of Magic Food): Heals all of Kirby's vitality.
    • Spicy Food: Allows Kirby to spit out fire for a limited time, thus defeating enemies pretty quickly.
    • Mint Leaf (known as Sweet Potato in Japan): Allows Kirby to shoot an infinite amount of air puffs, this item can only be found before the boss fight against Kabula in Float Islands.
    • Candy: Inspired by the Super Star from the Super Mario series, this item makes Kirby temporary invincible, which allows Kirby to defeat enemies while running into them.
    • Bomb: When Kirby swallows it, he can spit out the bomb thus destroying multiple enemies in its path.
    • Microphone: Allows Kirby to spit out the microphone that destroys all enemies on screen.
    • Warp Star: The most well known Kirby item which allows Kirby to traverse through the next portion of the stage, this would later become a staple item in future games, as it requires you to reach to the next section as mentioned.
  5. Solid and good graphics for Game Boy standards.
  6. Memorable and fun bosses.
    • Whispy Woods: A giant tree with a face, Whispy will try to drop apples on Kirby to which Kirby must inhale then spit back, and shoot air puffs which Kirby can't inhale. In Extra Mode, Whispy will move faster and also drops Gordos every other 3rd time which roll along the ground and must be jumped over.
    • Lololo & Lalala: A tag team boss in a room with four floors that extend across the screen. Doorways (that Kirby can't enter) lie at each end. Only portions of the floors that are thin can be jumped up and down through. The duo appear at separate doors and march to the other side pushing a box. Kirby must inhale their boxes and fire them back. In the Extra Game, they move at an increased speed.
    • Kabula: A blimp with cannons. Her battle fully takes place in air. Kabula, who has two more health bars than other bosses, shoots flurries of bullets and dashes at Kirby. In advance to this battle, Kirby swallows a special Mint Leaf, which allows him to spit unlimited air puffs at Kabula. Kirby simply has to shoot the air puffs at her to win, but she is constantly moving around, making the battle much more difficult. In the Extra Game, Kabula is much more aggressive; she will shoot more bullets at a much faster rate than before and charge at Kirby more unexpectedly.
    • Kracko: Kracko is fought twice, once as a mid-boss, Kracko Jr., and then again as the stage's boss. As the full Kracko, his attacks range from dropping Waddle Doos, crashing into Kirby, and emitting a blast of twinkling stars from his body. In the Extra Game, both fights become much harder. Kracko's attacks are easy to avoid but are very unpredictable; the Waddle Doos are also replaced with bombs.
    • King Dedede: The arch-rival of Kirby, King Dedede attacks by trying to tackle Kirby, by walking up to him and swinging his hammer, and by attempting to flatten Kirby by crashing down on him after a huge jump. He can also try to inhale Kirby; if this succeeds King Dedede will spit him out. Dedede is defeated after taking ten hits. In Extra Game, he moves much faster.
  7. If you press Up, A, and Select at the same time, you unlock a harder mode known as Extra Mode. It's the same as before, but this time the enemies are stronger and faster, weaker enemies are replaced with much tougher enemies, some bosses have newer strategies, and the final boss moves much faster.
  8. Unlike many platformers at the time, the game is much more lenient on it's difficulty and doesn't dramatically punish the player for making mistakes.

Bad Qualities

  1. It's very simple compared to later titles.
    • You can't copy abilities, dash, slide, swim, or even save your progress after beating a stage. There is just the simple suck-and-spit attacks, and inhaling multiple enemies at once doesn't let Kirby spit a more powerful star that goes through all enemies on the screen.
    • King Dedede gives you no obvious attacks that you can inhale and spit back at him. To defeat him, you have to inhale the stars that briefly appear when he strikes the ground with his hammer or when he lands from a jump, and spit those back at him.
  2. Speaking of length, the game was criticized for its short length back in the day and is considered something of major criticism to this day. It's possible to beat this game in approximately 30 minutes.
  3. There are two bosses that will give the player trouble.
    • Kracko in Extra Game. He moves very fast, giving you next to no time to react and he now throws bombs. This boss battle is more about luck than anything since he doesn't have a discernible pattern. However, if you sit in the right corner you can easily jump over him when he tries to charge at you, making the fight much easier.
    • Kabula. Her shots spiral erratically, making it hard to dodge them. To the point that fights with her can easily just turn into a battle of attrition. It's even worse in Extra Game as her increased fire rate makes her one of the hardest bosses in the game.
  4. The North American manual is absolutely atrocious. It was poorly translated from the Japanese manual, with misinformation such as the sweet potato being called a "mint leaf".
  5. The commercials weren't really great.

Reception

Kirby's Dream Land received a generally positive reception. Upon release, Nintendo Power editors George and Bob shared generally positive opinions of the game; George stated that it is a really fun game, owing its quality to its excellent play control and well thought out concept, while Bob stated that it is deceptively simple looking, when it in fact features a decent challenge for more experienced gamers.

Sales

In Japan, Hoshi no Kirby topped the Famitsu sales charts from May 1992 to June 1992. In the United States, Kirby's Dream Land topped Babbage's Game Boy sales chart in October 1992. The game sold more than 1 million units worldwide by March 1993.

By May 28, 1994, Kirby's Dream Land had sold 1.3 million copies. By 1997, 4.6 million units had been sold. As of 2010, it has sold in excess of 5 million copies worldwide; Gamasutra cited its new style of gameplay for its success. At the time, it was HAL Laboratory's most successful game. Gamasutra's Osamu Inoue attributed the game's success to Satoru Iwata, formerly an employee of HAL Laboratory, who Inoue comments has a "simple-minded passion for creating games"

Trivia

  • The game was originally called Twinkle Popopo early on, with Kirby being named "Popopo".
  • Kirby was named after John Kirby, a lawyer who stood up for Nintendo and saved them when Universal Studios sued Nintendo for "stealing the King Kong concept".
  • Kirby himself was originally intended to simply be a placeholder sprite, however Hal grew attached to the placeholder sprites and ultimately decided to stick with it.
  • Sakurai has stated several times that Kirby was always meant to be pink, but Nintendo of America thought Kirby was white, since there was no color on the original Game Boy. The marketing team followed suit and made Kirby appear white so that he "matched" his in-game appearance.

Further reading

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