Even without a few features that have made Kirby the beloved franchise it is today, Kirby’s Dream Land is actually a pretty good game, and I’ve already shown why in my review of it. However, Kirby’s Adventure, which is the sequel to that game, introduces colour and copy abilities to the pink ball’s series. Is this game better than what came before it?

Yes. It’s pretty obvious. Do you want to know why it’s better, though? Read this review to find out!

The game starts off with a tutorial on how to draw Kirby, which is pretty funny and cute if you ask me. Then, we see the title screen, which now contains colour and Kirby waving at you. This is already an upgrade from Kirby’s Dream Land’s title screen just being the title of the game.

Vegetable Valley is the first level of this game and it’s super neat. In the opening cutscene, you learn how to gain copy abilities, which you can do by inhaling an enemy and completely eating it instead of just spitting it out of a star. Then, you are plopped into a hub world. I’m not a big fan of hub worlds, but unlike Sonic Advance 3’s hub worlds, the hub worlds in this game are easy to navigate. After opening a door that has the number 1 on top of it, you are placed into this colourful world that has these weird, oval-like structures in the background. There are also some trees in the distance. I’d just like to say that Vegetable Valley is clearly the Emerald Hill Zone to Green Greens’ Green Hill Zone. The setting, music, and boss battles of this level are very similar, if not completely identical to those of Green Greens. Anyway, you are provided with quite a few enemies to gain copy abilities from, which is very cool. The level design is empty in the first part of this level, but that’s fine as this is just the beginning.

After completing this level, you find yourself in a place full of clouds called a Goal Game before falling onto a platform. When this happens, you must time your pressing of the A button extremely well so you can get to the highest layer of clouds. After this, you are sent back to the hub world. When you enter the second part of Vegetable Valley, you walk for a bit before jumping onto a Warp Star and fighting a slightly harder version of Green Greens’ mini-boss. It’s nice that the developers of this game didn’t just copy the original and actually made it more difficult. There are some cool little platforming segments, but they can easily be skipped by flying.

After finishing the 2nd part of Vegetable Valley and completing the Goal Game, you can head to the door that sends you to the 3rd part of this level. It’s basically the same as the 2nd part of Vegetable Valley, so I’m not really gonna talk about it much. The 4th part of Vegetable Valley starts off with a fight with a mini-boss called Mr. Frosty, who looks like a walrus without tusks. My experience with him was short-lived since I spammed the fire ability to beat him very quickly. However, he did chuck some ice cubes at me, so he did do some damage. After making your way through a mix of platforming and empty segments, you find yourself face to face with Whispy Woods once again. This time, he attacks much faster than he did in Kirby’s Dream Land. Also, the apples can bounce, so they have more of a chance of hitting you. By the way, there’s no Goal Game after any main boss battle.

Ice Cream Island is the second level of this game and it’s just as good as, if not better than Vegetable Valley. The first part of this level is nothing special, so I won’t talk about it much. It has more unique level design than its predecessor, and the beach setting allows for some great music and artwork. It even reintroduces water, which is actually tolerable in this series. The second part of this level has you ride a Warp Star to a desert-like area before fighting a mini-boss. This mini-boss is a wheel with eyes that will zoom towards you and launch little versions of itself at you. If you don’t have a copy ability, you can just inhale the little wheels and hit the mini-boss with them. However, the game provides you with a few copy abilities right before the fight starts, so you can just use those. After beating the mini-boss, you make your way through the desert before going to the third part of the level.

In the third part of Ice Cream Island, you meet and fight Axe Knight, Javelin Night, Mace Knight, and Trident Night, known collectively as the Meta-Knights. You can defeat each of the Meta-Knights by inhaling either one of their teammates or the weapon either they or one of their teammates will try to hit you with and firing them at your target. After beating the Meta-Knights, you can continue. This part of the level is basically the same as its predecessors, so I’ll just move on. The fourth part of Ice Cream Island has you fight Mr. Tick-Tock, who will launch music notes at you, jump around, and create short-ranged sound waves. You can inhale the music notes and shoot them back at Mr. Tick-Tock, but if you have a copy ability, it becomes much easier. In this part of the level, you are placed in a world of clouds. I like the change in setting as it shows that the developers are creative.

In the fifth part of Ice Cream Island, you make your way through many different settings, ranging from a forest to a cloud world. However, there’s nothing to really talk about other than that. The main boss Battle of Ice Cream Island is against Paint Roller, who will paint random objects, which range from an umbrella to a car to even Kirby. Paint Roller will then chuck these random objects at you. He will also move around a lot, so you have to dodge him quite a bit. To defeat Paint Roller, you must inhale these objects and spit them back at him. The variety of objects and Paint Roller’s unpredictable movements make this fight much less repetitive than it should be.

Butter Building is even better than the previous 2 levels. This level’s music and artwork is even more great than those of its predecessors and the level design makes this level more of a challenge. In the first part of this level, you have a rematch with Mr. Tick-Tock. Other than that, though, there isn’t much to talk about. From the second part of Butter Building to the last, there is much more of a focus on platforming in narrow and tall spaces due to the whole story of this level is about Kirby getting to the top of his tower.

Speaking of the second part of Butter Building, that’s what I’m going to discuss now. There’s a little segment where you must walk on this circular platform that turns when you walk on it. Some enemies will pop up out of nowhere, but you can easily deal with them. After some walking, a door will appear and you can move on. In this part of the level, you will fight Bugzzy, who is a stag beetle. He will zoom towards you and grab you before throwing you away, so you have to dodge him quite a bit. He will also launch little stag beetle enemies at you, and you must inhale these enemies and shoot them back at Bugzzy to defeat him. Well, you can do that or you can use a copy ability. Either way, this fight is actually super cool.

In the third part of Butter Building, you walk on that circular platform again and do a bit of other platforming. Now, there’s one segment that I think is super interesting and fun. Basically, you are placed in this narrow and tall blue room. You can use some of the doors to go to a room that is nearly identical except for it being red instead of blue. Some areas in the blue room cannot be accessed unless you go through a door in the red room and vice versa. It’s super original and cool. In the fourth part of Butter Building, you have a rematch with the Meta-Knights before making your way up numerous platforming-focused segments.

In the fifth part of Butter Building, you walk on that circular platform for the billionth time before fighting Bonkers, who is a gorilla with a hammer. When he tries to hit you with his hammer, large stars will appear. You must inhale these large stars and fire them at Bonkers to defeat him. It’s similar to the King Dedede fight at the end of Kirby’s Dream Land, but it’s much less boring. In the sixth part of Butter Building, there is a segment where you must traverse a nearly pitch black hallway where you can only see yourself, a Cool Spook and its light, and the outlines of enemies. The music changes to be more spooky in this section, which is pretty neat.

The main boss battle of Butter Building is against Mr. Shine and Mr. Bright. One of the two will go up to the sky and launch attacks from there while the other will try to hit you on the ground. After some time, they will switch places, which makes this battle less boring. The attacks that are launched from the sky will emit large stars that you can inhale and fire at whoever is on the ground. All you have to do is avoid Mr. Shine and Mr. Bright’s attacks while shooting large stars at them to beat them. Mr. Shine and Mr. Bright’s unpredictable and varied attacks make this fight much less repetitive than it should be.

Grape Garden is the fourth level of this game and I like it, although it isn’t as good as its predecessors. The first part of this level has you go through a few different settings, ranging from a cloudy world to a dark but starry area. There is a slightly boring and annoying segment where you have to break through a ton of Star Blocks, but if you have a copy ability like Beam, it’s not that big of a deal. The second part of this level is a bit annoying due to there being a labyrinth near the middle that involves a lot of wandering around, searching for entrances/exits, and breaking Star Blocks. At the end, you have a very similar mini-boss battle to the one in Green Greens, but instead of there being one mini-boss, there’s two. I like how you have to try to avoid one bomb while attempting to inhale the other. It’s nothing too difficult, but it’s not stupidly easy like the original.

The third part of Grape Garden places you on a blimp, which is a nice change of scenery. After going through a door, you enter a segment where you are being pushed by the blimp’s propellers. You must fly until you find a door near the bottom of the blimp while dodging enemies. It’s actually super cool to see Kirby’s ability to fly being used for a segment. Well, for two segments. Right after going through the aforementioned door, you must play through a segment that is nearly identical to the one before it except for the fact that this one is shorter and the fact that you must get onto a Warp Star when you reach the end of the blimp. Then, you just gotta walk up these cloud platforms before getting to the end.

The fourth part of Grape Garden includes a segment where you roll down multiple slopes. Along the way, you will have to avoid/kill enemies. You can use the Wheel ability to complete this segment faster. I like how it’s more speed-focused than platforming-focused. Near the end, you will fight Rolling Turtle, who will zoom towards you and grab you before throwing you. He will also roll around and chuck little versions of himself at you. You have to inhale these little turtles and fire them at Rolling Turtle to defeat him. Well, you can either do that or spam a copy ability. This fight is pretty cool, and it isn’t too hard.

In the fifth part of Grape Garden, you fight the Meta-Knights once again. Don’t worry, they’re going to appear in the next few levels as well. There’s a slightly annoying segment where you must fly through quite a few tiny rooms containing Gordos that you must dodge, but once that ends, so does this part of the level. The sixth part of Grape Garden has a rematch with Mr. Tick-Tock. It surprises me how much he appears in this game. Other than that, though, there isn’t much to talk about.

The main boss battle is a rematch with Kracko. The first section of this fight has you either flying or using the Hi-Jump ability and jumping onto cloud platforms to get to the battlefield as Kracko destroys each platform one by one. Kracko actually goes pretty fast, which makes this chase scene quite intense. The second section of this fight has you face off against Kracko as he hits you with a variety of attacks. Sometimes, he will slowly move across the battlefield as he spews lighting onto the ground. He will also occasionally launch a Starman, which you can use to get the Hi-Jump ability if you didn’t already have it. Using the Hi-Jump ability, you can launch yourself into Kracko, damaging him. Do this multiple times and you will beat him. This battle is actually super cool and I definitely prefer it over the Kracko fight in Kirby’s Dream Land.

Yogurt Yard is the fifth level of this game and it’s pretty good. The first part of this level places you in a cloudy world, which is a nice way of continuing where the fight with Kracko left off. After a bit, you enter a segment where you just fall down while dodging enemies. After breaking through some Star Blocks, you make your way through different settings before going to the next part of the level. The second part of this level has a similar maze to the one in the third part of Butter Building, which is super neat. It also contains a rematch with Bonkers, which I think is cool.

The third part of Yogurt Yard starts with a very similar segment to the first section of the Kracko fight. You can either fly or use the Hi-Jump ability to jump onto platforms. I’ve already stated that I like this formula before, so there’s no need to state it again. There’s also a segment where you just get pushed upwards by a wind shaft, and it’s super fun. Speaking of super fun, there’s a segment where you can use the Wheel ability to zoom through enemies. I love it. After playing through a segment where you have to fly downwards while avoiding spikes, you move on to the next part of this level.

The fourth part of Yogurt Yard contains a rematch with the Meta-Knights. It also contains a segment where you must swim across two hallways containing Gordos and spikes that you must avoid. After completing a segment where you fall down and try to avoid enemies, you can go to the next part of Yogurt Yard. The fifth part of this level has you go onto a Warp Star that will take you to a castle. In this castle, you will fight a lion. This lion will try to grab you before scratching you and throwing you away. It will also try to jump on you. When it lands, large stars will appear, which you must inhale and shoot at the lion. Either do this or spam a copy ability and you’re good to go.

The sixth part of Yogurt Yard starts with you trying to avoid wheel enemies. You can use one of these wheel enemies to give you the Wheel ability, which will be useful in the next segment. Speaking of which, the next segment has you zooming through a cave while trying to avoid Rockys that will try to crush you. The Wheel ability will make you pass by these Rockys before they can even fall. After zooming through some grassy plains and flying over some watery death pits, you can head to the main boss battle.

The main boss battle is against this weird machine called Heavy Mole. Basically, both you and Heavy Mole are placed inside of this little cave. Heavy Mole will start digging through the cave and you have to keep up with it. Occasionally, Heavy Mole will shoot missiles at you, which you can inhale and fire back. Just do that while trying not to die from being crushed or falling to the bottom of the screen and you will defeat Heavy Mole. This is honestly a super creative, fun, and even difficult fight. It’s great.

Orange Ocean isn’t as good as every level that precedes it if I’m being honest. In the first part of this level, you are plopped into water. You can have a rematch with Rolling Turtle if you want, but it’s much more difficult. In this rematch, there is now some water covering the ground. When Rolling Turtle launches little versions of himself at you and you inhale them, you must jump out of the water before shooting them back at Rolling Turtle. If you don’t, the star that comes out will quickly sink to the bottom of the screen. I decided to skip this rematch because it pissed me off. Luckily, the water segment doesn’t last long. After playing through some platforming segments that you can easily skip by flying, you move on to the second part of this level.

The second part of Orange Ocean has a segment where you climb up and down cloud platforms to get past multiple pillars. To be frank, it’s quite slow and boring. This part of the level also contains a segment where you have to avoid both Gordos and Scarfies. If you have a copy ability, this is pretty easy, but if you don’t, this is quite difficult. The third part of Orange Ocean takes place on a ship, which is a nice and original setting. During this part of the level, you have a rematch with Bonkers. Unlike the rematch with Rolling Turtle at the start of this level, this fight is actually tolerable. After this, you must climb the aforementioned ship’s masts until you reach a Warp Star, which will take you to a new location. However, you can easily skip the mast climbing by flying. After doing a bit more platforming, you can go to the next part of the level.

The fourth part of Orange Ocean isn’t that good due to a few really annoying segments. For example, there’s a tiring segment where you must walk and swim through numerous tunnels to get to a door. The tunnels that contain Gordos are underwater, so it’s harder to avoid said Gordos. It’s also just boring in general due to the complexity of the maze. There’s also a pretty annoying segment where you must fly upwards while avoiding coconuts that will try to fall on and damage you. Nearly every single time I tried to dodge one coconut, another one would fall on me. The placement of the coconuts could really be improved. After another coconut-focused segment, you can move on to the next part of the level.

The fifth part of Orange Ocean suddenly takes you to a snowy and icy world, which is a wonderful and unexpected change of scenery. From this point to the main boss battle of this level, everything gets much better. There’s a segment in this part of the level that I find to be both extremely funny and sad. Basically, you have to go in and out of a water tunnel to get to a door. Before you can get into the water tunnel, though, you must break a Bomb Block, which will drown some Blade Knights. It’s both hilarious and depressing to just watch them sink to the ground while they’re utterly confused by what just happened. Anyway, after completing this part of the level, you can move on to the next.

The sixth part of Orange Ocean has a very unique segment. Near the middle of this part of the level, you find yourself in front of two doors. I went into the bottom door and fought against two Mr. Frostys. During this rematch, I realised what the ice cubes were for. You have to inhale them and shoot them back. If I didn’t have a copy ability the first time I fought Mr. Frosty, I would’ve realised this much sooner, but here we are. Anyway, at the end of this part of the level, you have a rematch with the Meta-Knights.

The main boss battle of Orange Ocean is against the leader of the Meta-Knights and one of the most iconic Kirby characters of all time. Yes, I am referring to Meta-Knight. At the beginning of this fight, you are given a sword, which is what you will use to attack. Meta-Knight will either jump or run towards you before swinging his own sword. You have to take advantage of the times where Meta-Knight isn’t doing anything by hitting him with your sword. Do this a couple of times and the fight will end. Meta-Knight’s build-up takes place across numerous levels and finally facing him is quite epic. The variety in his moveset and the new form of combat makes this fight more fun and less repetitive.

The second I got to Rainbow Resort, the worst thing that could possibly happen happened. When I saved and quit, the save didn’t actually work, so when I tried to load my save, nothing happened. All of my progress vanished. At this point, I wasn’t motivated to replay the entire game, so I just gave up.

In conclusion, I definitely believe that Kirby’s Adventure is a step up from Kirby’s Dream Land. The latter half of the game does have some flaws, but that’s the case with a lot of video games. I think that this game deserves 4 stars. It’s quite good.

as someone who isn't particularly fond of the kirby franchise, this is by far the best game in the series i've played thus far. color me surprised, as i don't even really like the NES either, so i am surprised i enjoyed myself as much as i did.

i think the (in my opinion) bizarre control scheme of kirby works in this game due to the NES controllers lack of buttons, having run be bound to double-tapping the directional pad makes sense in this game since there was genuinely only 6 buttons to work with. whereas on a game like kirby super star, it just felt odd since there were plenty of other buttons to work with.

this game was also suuuuper expressive for a NES title, it coming out in 1993 really shows, thick into the SNES era, the usual things that date a NES game like it's poor execution of checkpoints or unfair difficulty was practically non-existent in this game, i'd go as far as to say this game was too easy in that department. the bosses however did provide good challenge and kept the game engaging.

all of kirby's little animations and the beautiful backgrounds made this game a visual treat too, which again, is surprising to say regarding a NES title. my biggest gripe is probably the floating mechanic being bound to up on the directional pad felt slightly awkward. but besides that, the game really surprised me.

for the first game with captures, this game sure nailed it in my opinion. i'm still not sure if kirby is the franchise for me - but this game was certainly a step in the right direction.

I was in the mood for some more Kirby after finishing Kirby 64, and then I remembered Kirby's Adventure on my NES Classic! It's one of the very few mainline Kirby games I haven't yet beaten (and I think may actually be the last I hadn't beaten), so I thought why not give it a try. I remembered it controlling not so hot the last time I tried it, but I figured that must've just been the mood I was in at the time. I proved to myself it was in fact not the mood I was in at the time, and I didn't really enjoy my time with this game when all was said and done. I'm glad to have the entire mainline Kirby series under my belt now, I suppose, but the 3 hours of this game aren't really ones I'll look back on super fondly compared to the many many hours I spent with the GBA version of this game as a kid.

It's Kirby in his first adventure where he could gain powers and not just suck things up and spit them out. It's a pretty groundbreaking entry for the series, considering the copy ability is one of the things Kirby is best known for these days. There are a good handful of powers, at least on paper, as many of them have very similar or nearly identical effects but different cosmetics. You go through 7 worlds with 7 bosses to eventually fight Nightmare in a special final two-stage boss fight.

The level design is alright, even if some levels end up feeling a little short in retrospect. You get to them via a series of hub areas for each world that has both doors to the stages but also doors to mini-games you can play for extra lives, mini-boss arenas you can do for a maxim tomato, or a gallery area where you can get a certain power for free whenever you want. Many of the levels have secret switches hidden in them that will unlock more of these special bonus areas in the hub maps, but some of these switches are SUPER hard to find and are behind nearly or entirely invisible doors. 100%-ing this game without a guide is no easy feat, and I definitely couldn't've done it in 3 hours if I hadn't remembered basically all of them, at least in part, from all my time with this as a kid.

My biggest issues with the game are largely mechanical. First off, while the game is very pretty for a NES game, it also means there's a LOT of slowdown, particularly when there are a lot of enemies on screen at once. Next, Kirby has a lot more heft to him than he does in later games, and even compared to Kirby's Dream Land 1 and 2 (the games before and after this one), it feels like it takes him way longer to recover from hits, falls, etc. before he can jump or use a power again. On top of that, while you press B to use your powers and A to jump, A very critically does not fly. Pressing Up on the D-pad flies, and while this is certainly partly my fault for having the muscle memory that later Kirby games have given me, there were a ton of times where I wanted to fly but couldn't, or accidentally started flying when I didn't want to because of a stray command on the D-pad. Lastly, it's always just one hit (instead of how it's almost always several in later games) before you lose your power. The end experience wasn't often very challenging, but it was very often frustrating due to some combination of the above issues.

The presentation is nice, as you'd hope a NES game from 1993 would be. Although it does add to the aforementioned slow down, the environments have lots of colors, enemies and Kirby have a lot of animations. The color pallet swaps from stage to stage do a good job of coming off more as stylistic choices instead of hardware necessities. The enemy designs would go on to be reused to countless Kirby games for a good reason: They're really solid and memorable ones, especially the bosses (even though a lot of these guys are lifted from Kirby's Dream Land themselves). The same thing goes for the music, which is as iconic as anything else in this game when it comes to Kirby.

Verdict: Not Recommended. I did not enjoy enough of my time with this game that I can't recommend it without tons of caveats. The experience of Kirby has been improved and tightened up so significantly since this, his second outing, that the barrier to entry is already weirdly high for a Kirby game (having to relearn how to Kirby) even if the slowdown issues weren't a problem on top of that. It's an important stepping stone for a series I love, but this is definitely my least favorite among all the mainline Kirby games.

Kirby’s Adventure is kind of an enigma. It's so different from everything on the NES library and as I play more games from that time period, I see how different this game is, it has so much charm packed in, it’s bursting through the seams. The visuals are fantastic and sonically, it’s probably one of the best on the console. The minigames in between and after levels are fun. But the actual gameplay is just ok for me, like I can’t really remember most of the levels, and that’s due to how short each individual world is, you could probably go through a world in like 15 minutes. Now this is both a good and bad thing, because of that if a world is not to your liking, you’re out before you can think about it, but also if a world is interesting, the levels done before you’ve formed an opinion, the difficulty is very, very easy and usually I wouldn’t have a problem with that but what that led to for me is just not being engaged level to level, the bosses are pretty good, unique designs and solid gameplay. But not anything too astounding, EXCEPT the final boss, which is one of the best bosses I have played, ever in any genre or game. This boss is insane, now just so we both understand this is my FIRST Kirby game, I didn’t look at any reviews, or gameplay I just went in raw so you should've seen my face when I start fighting a VAMPIRE ON THE MOON. I could tell it pushed the NES to its absolute limits, as-if it couldn’t push further than that. Overall this game is like a pb & j with the best presentation, looks pretty good, but at the end of the day it’s still just a sandwich. 71/100

I've played this one before, via Nightmare in Dreamland for the GBA; a remake of this classic. I'll just start right now by saying if you have that version handy, that is the better version in my opinion just in terms of controls.

Graphically, this game is insane for being on the NES. I actually played through this because friends of ours got my wife a blanket from this and I had to replay it but on the NES.

I will say, having played it before I did not find this difficult at all, only having trouble with re-wiring my brain to the fact you press up to float rather than just multi pressing A. That took some adjustment but wasn't dealbreaking for me.

Overall, good if you don't have access to Nightmare in Dreamland; but if you do have Nightmare I wholly recommend you play that instead.