This is a weird one. As far as NES games go it's a lot more polished than even the best games in the library, and this makes it feel a lot more "modern" than a lot of its contemporaries, At the same time it doesn't have the consistent fun of Mario, doesn't come close to the fantastic level design of Castlevania, and push come to shove I think I'd even say Mega Man was doing more interesting things at the time. It ends up feeling pretty unspectacular for a lot of its playtime aside from some amazing audio visual design, and it isn't helped by the few ways it does feel unpolished. Mainly character control seems inconsistent, pretty often you'll get hit by something that you think you should have been able to dodge in time because some actions have a lot of startup. Kirby's controls never feel as smooth as they should which in some ways is practically a staple of his character but can be an annoyance.

It's made up for by the last three worlds being very good thanks to some really interesting settings, and the final boss is incredible. Even as my second Kirby game I wasn't expecting yet another boss to subvert my expectations this early on in the franchise, and not only is it great but I have to seriously think about if it's better than the final boss in Forgotten Land, which was already one of my favorites of all time. Crazy that a Kirby game did Dracula better than any Castlevania game.

This is a very good game once you get into its groove, you just have to go in with moderate expectations. There's a reason why it's both considered one of the best NES platformers but isn't really talked about on the same level as the greats.