a lot of the bosses have a shit ton of health, especially later on. a lot of copy abilities are worse than just playing as normal kirby because of how much of an unsafe position you have to put yourself in to use their moves. theres like an 7 copy abilities in the game too, which I guess is supposed to be made up for with the fact that the game has animal friends, but Coo is the only one I found fun to use. Levels are also a lot more boring than other kirby games ive played. you have to keep fighting the same mid bosses throughout the game over and over again. game would be like a 1 or 1.5 stars if it werent for the final boss being goated because its a kirby game of course the final boss is gonna be goated.

as surprising as it sounds this game released for the same console as the original kirby and somehow they cant be more different from one another

for starters the gameplay got so much more detailed adding not only the signature copy abilities (theres 8 which is a pretty solid number for how short it is) but also 3 companions that can be used to go through different types of levels and can also utilize the different abilities so thats like on another complete fucking level from the first game

these ones are cute (i prefer the cat in kirby's dream land 3 but lets say that my fav one in this is the hamster)

not much left to say about this apart from the fact that the levels are cool the bosses are cool and the final boss is amazing damn i enjoy dark matter as a hostile entity a bit too much

this game is just so cute honestly i love kirby

food for thought: is kirby a ball gag in the fish symbiotic transformation

I wondered why this was the least talked about main Kirby game, specially after playing 3 and finding it really charming. Now I know. This game really is a much bigger version of its predecessor, but having more of it doesn't necessarily mean what you're getting is good. The level design and music are the most forgettable of any Kirby game I've played, and it really is more "difficult" than 1, by virtue of being more unfair and longer (and more boring). The animal friends suck and are just plain worse than regular Kirby, with only the owl being better (maybe too much, since you can just zoom through the levels).
Many levels are literally 3 rooms stitched together too. If you can't put up a whole level, just fuse them instead of making me think a zone has 7 levels when it actually doesn't to try and trick people that the game is bigger than it is.
But the thing that annoyed me the most were the collectibles for the final ending. For me the thing that Kirby games have over other platformers is that it's cute, simple and easy to play, you just zoom through them and feel bubbly and stuff. I can't get into that if I have to be on the look out to get a specific mix of a power and an animal at any time. Dream Land 3's has a pass because the collectibles were actually integrated in the levels and told cute stories most of the time, but this is just a chore.

HBO’s Gossip Girl sequel series is an interesting beast. Keenly self-aware that what worked for its parent show in 2007 won’t work today, both content-wise in terms of character relationships and particularly the way male characters treat the female leads, and presentationally in terms of modern youth’s perception of and relationships to wealth, the wealthy, and how those things interact structurally with the public.

There’s a very obvious and conscious effort to avoid all of the easy criticisms of the first show; characters are aware of their privilege but not above it and not so aware that they’re not believably terrible enough to necessitate the resuscitation of a Gossip Girl to hold them accountable. Gossip Girl’s identity is revealed immediately in the first episode rather than being teased as an impossible and unsatisfying mystery. The social issues covered feel a lot more grounded and on-the-pulse, and unlike the vast majority of shows about teens that try to tackle online or “woke” culture, they MOSTLY feel pretty lived in and true to how shit head rich assholes would want to perform social justice, and how they might be challenged by normal people around them if, in real life, any normal people had that chance and any rich shit head was obligated to listen. The cast was touted before premiere as “majority queer and POC” and this miraculously carries through with only one guy in the entire thing who is both straight and white, and multiple male-identified characters who kiss and fuck other dudes on screen in a very normal way? Penises out on this show? It’s really nice?

And yet, somehow, despite seeming to try to be the anti-Gossip Girl Gossip Girl, GG 2021’s first six episodes (half of the first season, all that’s been released so far) manage to fall into nearly all of the same dramatic traps that the original did, made all the more glaring by the illusion of HBO Prestige and obviously outrageous budget that combined with its newfound “down to earth” subject matter lends it a superficial degree of ostensible respectability over it’s often comically underfunded, proudly juvenile, stupendously tacky mid-aughts CW forebear.

Here we are, still forcing the show to contort itself around an exceptionally unnatural feud between its two central women who don’t really have a real reason to be feuding and who are more interesting (separately and apart) when their relationship is a conspiratorial one rather than adversarial; still finding ourselves halfway interested in having our characters interact with touchy real life current events and then making those events into tasteless window dressing for emotionally charged break ups and hook ups that could really have been instigated anywhere and by anything probably; still doing deeply misguided teacher/student hook up storylines???? Making them both dudes doesn’t help! It’s very interesting to see all the ways that this is very much Still Just Gossip Girl, even as it’s Gossip Girl with seemingly more genuine heart and possibly more genuine brains.

So as you can see, there’s a lot to chew on here. If Gossip Girl 07 was a show that I couldn’t ignore when it was on in the room because it was so loud and obnoxious and on one all the time, Gossip Girl 21 is a genuinely fascinating look at the ways a concept does and doesn’t change with the times. I can’t get enough of it.

Which makes KIRBY’S DREAM LAND 2 THAT MUCH MORE IMPRESSIVE because as long as this shit was in my hands and my single earbud was connecting my 3DS to my left ear I didn’t give a SHIT about Julien and Zoya and all their stupid fucking friends KIRBY HAS COPY ABILITIES NOW

THEY CAN RIDE IN A FISH’S MOUTH

THE FISH HOPS AROUND IT LOOKS FUCKING STUPID

IT’S SO CUTE

IT’S SO CUTE

IT’S KIRBY

FIVE OUTTA FIVE BRO

The simplicity of Kirby on the Game Boy was excusable as his first ever entry, but after Kirby's Adventure on the NES basically made the character and series what it would be continued to be known for, the direct sequel to Kirby's Dream Land falls somewhat flat. It's not a terrible game, and it has all the familiar things you'd expect from Kirby at this point: the inhale/exhaling, the flight, and of course the copy abilities which were introduced prior. Though, a couple of minor gameplay things irk me.
First of all, there's no slide, which was introduced in Adventure. This wouldn't be as big of an issue if it weren't for the fact Kirby cant dash and his speed isn't as fast as you need it to be sometimes. Second, you still need to hold up on the D-pad to fly instead of just double tapping the jump button, which is definitely more trouble than it sounds. Third, copy abilities are insanely weak compared to Kirby just inhaling and spitting things out. I know this was of course meant to encourage the more challenging option, but I feel like that goes against the point of the introduction of copy abilities in Adventure. All of these factors coupled with the egregious level design makes for a very frustrating experience. Puzzles and bosses and auto-scrolling levels would be much better with those things tweaked, not to mention the size of the Game Boy screen doesn't accommodate the levels particularly well.
This was the first game made by Shinichi Shimomura, and he would introduce things in this game that fans like myself would grow to love in the franchise, like the Animal Helpers, Gooey, and Dark Matter, as this is the first in the "Dark Matter Trilogy" of games directed by him. On the topic as well, the Animal Friends provide Kirby with extra health, somewhat akin to Yoshi in the Mario series, and an alternate form of his base copy ability attack. They also have gameplay quirks such as Kine the Sunfish can swim through strong currents, Coo the Owl can fly through strong winds, and Rick doesn't slip on ice. Unfortunately Rick in this game is the weaker of the 3 and you'll find the other two being more useful in any given situation. Especially compared to his buff in the sequel game, Dreamland 3, where Rick can jump on enemies heads (yet again ala Mario), and climb up walls. Honestly, you'll find most things have gained a significant improvement in Dreamland 3 which stands as one of my favorite Kirby games in the series. This game hasn't particularly aged well, and I wouldn't really say it's worth coming back to after all these years, but there's nothing wrong with reflecting on the humble beginnings of the (presumably) late great Shimomura and witnessing how his directions changed the course of the series in an interesting way.

👍68%

This game really doesn't do anything differently from it's predecessor. The level designs don't really change and it looks exactly the same way. The controls show no improvement over a three year difference (which usually happens in platformers) and the bosses aren't unique. It's basically a much longer version of Dream Land 1. But you know what, it's fun. There's no shortage of charm in this game and all of the characters are fun to play as. The game is easily bingeable and it doesn't get old at all. My biggest complaint with it though is that it feels more like an expansion of Dream Land than a sequel. It's fun regardless, but since it doesn't do anything differently and feels exactly like the first, it's more like Dream Land 1.5. Hopefully Dream Land 3 shows some improvement and feels more like a sequel. This game is a lot of fun, but there is room for improvement. I'd still play it if you like the first game though and other Kirby games!