This review contains spoilers
I never hear people talk about this Kirby game, so I was quite interested to jump into it after it got added to the Nintendo Switch Online service. Being the sequel of the very barebones but respectable Kirby's Dream Land, I wasn't really sure what to expect; I ultimately found this to be a very middling experience overall. Of course, its a Game Boy platformer, so its not going to take you too long to beat, but man something about this one was almost mind-numbing to me. Perhaps that's part of the appeal for some people, though.
Even for early Kirby standards, Kirby's Dream Land 2's gameplay felt very middle-of-the-road to me. For one, the game drags on too long; whereas the first Dream Land only has four levels, so it'll take you at most an hour or so to beat it, the sequel has seven worlds that each have at least 3 levels in it, with the later worlds stretching on to a maximum of 8 levels. I just didn't see the justification for this one to be so much longer. There's even some kind of percentage completion thing in the save file menu and I'm genuinely confused as to what I'm supposed to be doing to fill that to 100% considering that there really isn't much of anything to do in the levels. Speaking of which, the game has rather uninteresting level design that all sort of just blurs in together to me, with the more memorable levels typically being the more frustrating ones like some of the autoscrollers or the levels that have wind as the main gimmick (sometimes combined with autoscrolling). I like some of the ideas here, but, in execution, its just rather unremarkable. For instance, the animal buddies seem to be this game's main new thing, and they do have a neat gimmick in that each have a different way to use Kirby's copy abilities, but two of them have pretty major flaws and one is just so much obviously better than the others. Kine the fish is terrible on land and is clearly built to be a water specialist (too bad every level I found him in doesn't make much use of water before I lost him due to being forced to be on land with him), making him unfortunately straight up worse than just being Kirby. Rick the hamster also feels like a worse Kirby, since all he can do is jump and the ways he uses the copy abilities aren't all that great. Koo, on the other hand, is honestly kind of brokenly strong, since he is always flying and he uses the copy abilities very well (Parasol Koo in particular is wild since he's just immune to everything for up to three hits or so while still being able to move). The copy abilities with Kirby himself feel very underwhelming, though; this was before Super Star came in to give them some sort of expanded toolset, so they're just very basic here. Freeze makes you shoot ice, Spikes basically turns Kirby into a pink urchin for a few seconds, Spark makes a barrier of lightning around Kirby...you get the picture. They're also unnecessarily extremely weak on bosses, especially on King Dedede, and the fact that many of them are close range AND require you to stand still to use them make them quite ineffective in my opinion. Was never able to actually keep my animal buddy to the boss fights, so maybe this was done out of fear that Koo could just make quick work out of every boss, but it also has the unfortunate effect of making using copy abilities with just Kirby feel pointless in boss fights. Stone especially feels useless since, if you stay in the form for more than like two seconds, you will get hit by something despite still being in rock form. Speaking of bosses, they feel a little more involved than the first Dream Land, but they are pretty boring overall. Kracko and Dedede are decently tough and somewhat memorable for that, but I literally just beat the game and I don't even remember all the bosses I fought.
I think Kirby's Dream Land 2 is the game I would use as the definition of "mid". It's not bad, its not mediocre, its not even all that annoying despite some of my complaints about it, its just rather boring. I can't really justify giving this one anything more than a 2.5 stars. Again, NOT a bad game, and I do realize this is still Kirby's very early years (before Super Star revolutionized the Kirby-sphere).
Even for early Kirby standards, Kirby's Dream Land 2's gameplay felt very middle-of-the-road to me. For one, the game drags on too long; whereas the first Dream Land only has four levels, so it'll take you at most an hour or so to beat it, the sequel has seven worlds that each have at least 3 levels in it, with the later worlds stretching on to a maximum of 8 levels. I just didn't see the justification for this one to be so much longer. There's even some kind of percentage completion thing in the save file menu and I'm genuinely confused as to what I'm supposed to be doing to fill that to 100% considering that there really isn't much of anything to do in the levels. Speaking of which, the game has rather uninteresting level design that all sort of just blurs in together to me, with the more memorable levels typically being the more frustrating ones like some of the autoscrollers or the levels that have wind as the main gimmick (sometimes combined with autoscrolling). I like some of the ideas here, but, in execution, its just rather unremarkable. For instance, the animal buddies seem to be this game's main new thing, and they do have a neat gimmick in that each have a different way to use Kirby's copy abilities, but two of them have pretty major flaws and one is just so much obviously better than the others. Kine the fish is terrible on land and is clearly built to be a water specialist (too bad every level I found him in doesn't make much use of water before I lost him due to being forced to be on land with him), making him unfortunately straight up worse than just being Kirby. Rick the hamster also feels like a worse Kirby, since all he can do is jump and the ways he uses the copy abilities aren't all that great. Koo, on the other hand, is honestly kind of brokenly strong, since he is always flying and he uses the copy abilities very well (Parasol Koo in particular is wild since he's just immune to everything for up to three hits or so while still being able to move). The copy abilities with Kirby himself feel very underwhelming, though; this was before Super Star came in to give them some sort of expanded toolset, so they're just very basic here. Freeze makes you shoot ice, Spikes basically turns Kirby into a pink urchin for a few seconds, Spark makes a barrier of lightning around Kirby...you get the picture. They're also unnecessarily extremely weak on bosses, especially on King Dedede, and the fact that many of them are close range AND require you to stand still to use them make them quite ineffective in my opinion. Was never able to actually keep my animal buddy to the boss fights, so maybe this was done out of fear that Koo could just make quick work out of every boss, but it also has the unfortunate effect of making using copy abilities with just Kirby feel pointless in boss fights. Stone especially feels useless since, if you stay in the form for more than like two seconds, you will get hit by something despite still being in rock form. Speaking of bosses, they feel a little more involved than the first Dream Land, but they are pretty boring overall. Kracko and Dedede are decently tough and somewhat memorable for that, but I literally just beat the game and I don't even remember all the bosses I fought.
I think Kirby's Dream Land 2 is the game I would use as the definition of "mid". It's not bad, its not mediocre, its not even all that annoying despite some of my complaints about it, its just rather boring. I can't really justify giving this one anything more than a 2.5 stars. Again, NOT a bad game, and I do realize this is still Kirby's very early years (before Super Star revolutionized the Kirby-sphere).