Kiby's Return to Dream Land Review

Kirby’s Return to Dream Land

Publisher: Nintendo Developer: HAL Laboratory Platform: WiiPlayers: 1-4 Release: 2011 Genre: 2D Platformer / Action Rating: 9.3 \ 10.0: Excellent 

 

Kirby’s Return to Dream Land is an amazing multiplayer platformer. The plot is fresh for the Kirby games-- an alien named Magalor crash-lands his ship, the Lor Starcutter on Kirby’s home planet of Pop Star, and you must recover the ship’s five missing pieces. The graphics are impressive, the visual effects left me staring in awe, and the gameplay is fantastic-- you explore detailed 2D environments, copying enemy’s abilities-- at least for player one. Player one is always Kirby, and players two, three, and four can play as Meta Knight, King Dedede, Waddle Dee, or even a different color Kirby (if you're a Kirby fan who hasn't played this game, let me just say Meta Knight, Dedede, and Waddle Dee are teaming up with Kirby for reasons unknown). Of course, only  Kirby can obtain Copy Abilities, but inhaling enemies isn't the only way to get special powers. You can now get Copy Abilities from levitating crystal orbs with one inside, and there are also several new ones to obtain, such as Water and Whip. There are environment-based puzzles that can only be solved with certain Copy Abilities, adding strategic elements to the game. Also new are the extremely destructive Super Abilities. The Super Abilities are Ultra Sword, which, with a tap of the 1 button, gives you a massive blade that can destroy large objects; Monster Flame, which lets shoot a massive burst of fire in the form of a dragon with a press of 1; Snow Bowl, which allows you to roll up into a massive snowball that you roll by shaking the Wii Remote gets larger as it rolls of enemies; and Grand Hammer, which grants you a gigantic sledgehammer that defeats crushes large objects and nearly any enemy. When activated by pressing 1, you can enlarge the hammer by shaking the Wii Remote before striking the ground, unleashing a deadly shockwave. There’s also a new challenge: collecting all the Energy Spheres. Energy Spheres are spheres with small gears inside them. Energy Spheres can be found in hidden areas, or if you discover a portal, you would get some Energy Spheres after defeating Sphere Doomer, who is fought at the end of every portal stage. The portal stages are auto-scrolling and almost entirely gray, and you must avoid being crushed against the wall of dark matter. And for gamers seeking a challenge, Energy Spheres unlock Copy Ability Challenge Rooms, which can be accessed aboard the Lor Starcutter, in which your skills are put to the test through an obstacle course that you must clear under a tine limit using a specific Copy Ability, its challenges fitted to the ability. There  are even a couple of minigames which are playable through the file selection screen as well as the Starcutter. The first minigame, Ninja Dojo, you shake the Wii Remote to throw a Chinese star at a target, and in the second minigame, Scope Shot, you must aim a reticle and shoot electric orbs at large robots that resemble Kirby characters in attempt to destroy them. The time limit makes some battles frustrating, though. Once you beat the game, you unlock another activity, Arena, in which you must battle every boss and miniboss from throughout the game. I hated losing against the final boss, though. Completing the game also unlocks the difficult Extra mode, in which you must re-complete the game with a smaller health gauge and battle powered-up bosses. one small complaint is the fact that every player shares the same life count, making it more likely to get a game over with multiple players rather than when playing individually, and when player one dies, so does everyone else, encouraging players to protect him / her. When another player dies, he / she doesn't end it for everyone else but still loses everyone's precious life. But the good thing is, when one player collects a piece of life-restoring food, they can share the health with another player by hugging (awww!), a feature carried over from the 1996 Super NES classic, Kirby Super Star. Another half-quibble is that rather than using a Wii Remote-Nunchuck combo, you hold the Wii Remote sideways like an NES controller to play, and the Classic Controller and GameCube controller aren't compatible, but that's just a nod to the classics. The gameplay elements of KRTDL make it, in a way, a soul sequel to the 1993 NES classic, Kirby's Adventure, one of my favorite classic Nintendo games. Though it's flawed in minor ways, none of these issues derail Kirby's Return to Dream Land in any major way, and it's an incredible game that no Kirby are platforming enthusiast alike should miss.

Ups
Fun multiplayer
Great graphics
Awesome Super Abilities
Fun minigames
Feels a like Kirby's Adventure soul sequel
Arena and Extra modes

Downs
Player one is always Kirby
Players share lives
Sometimes difficult
 

ESRB: E 10+ Content: Mild Cartoon Violence Price: $39.99 (Retail)