Let's not kid ourselves, Kirby is definitely a preschooler game. The setting is kiddy without it being parodic like with games such as Twinbee or Fantasy Zone; and apart from weird final encounters, doesn't have the dark depths of games like Earthbound or the latter released Klonoa.
Anyways, the game often feels as if it was a lost work made by Treasure, the technical design looks gorgeous, almost like an early PS1 title, with tons of animations and attention to detail. What keeps it from being as spectacular as a Treasure game, however, is that the game is segmented in various stories, so it feels episodic rather than the epic-scope Gainax anime-esque festival that is something like Gunstar Heroes. Also, the game recycles itself a lot to make for the various minigames included.
Nowhere is the feeling of what could have been an epic cinematic action game than in the "Revenge of Meta Knight" sub-story. The pink puffball needs to raid the battleship of its dark rival and destroy it from the inside, being tossed away numerous times and needing to get back into it with time limits until the world is conquered in an adrenalinic tour-de-force of a visual spectacle for the 16 bit era. Meanwhile, the lower half of the screen often gets filled with the dialogue reports of the villains updating on the ship's status after you keep advancing inside it. It's pretty ahead of its time.
Sadly, the rest of the sub-stories are standard Kirby fare of cute characthers battling for cute, quirky and silly reasons. If you are looking for a more interesting take on the nature of dreams with this cutesy art style, try the two main Klonoa games.
https://youtu.be/gwXq8wohQSk
^ I didn't know the slander video music came from here 🤣
Anyways, the game often feels as if it was a lost work made by Treasure, the technical design looks gorgeous, almost like an early PS1 title, with tons of animations and attention to detail. What keeps it from being as spectacular as a Treasure game, however, is that the game is segmented in various stories, so it feels episodic rather than the epic-scope Gainax anime-esque festival that is something like Gunstar Heroes. Also, the game recycles itself a lot to make for the various minigames included.
Nowhere is the feeling of what could have been an epic cinematic action game than in the "Revenge of Meta Knight" sub-story. The pink puffball needs to raid the battleship of its dark rival and destroy it from the inside, being tossed away numerous times and needing to get back into it with time limits until the world is conquered in an adrenalinic tour-de-force of a visual spectacle for the 16 bit era. Meanwhile, the lower half of the screen often gets filled with the dialogue reports of the villains updating on the ship's status after you keep advancing inside it. It's pretty ahead of its time.
Sadly, the rest of the sub-stories are standard Kirby fare of cute characthers battling for cute, quirky and silly reasons. If you are looking for a more interesting take on the nature of dreams with this cutesy art style, try the two main Klonoa games.
https://youtu.be/gwXq8wohQSk
^ I didn't know the slander video music came from here 🤣