Well then. I'm sure you all know Kirby (Or, at least, know of him). I certainly have for quite a while. Many people regard it as a series with no bad games. I would say that this game is clear evidence to the contrary.

From the Kirby games I've played, I've noticed that there's two ways to make the gameplay engaging:

1. Small sections that are built around a copy ability that can be easily obtained beforehand. These sections are fun and often reward the player for keeping the copy ability with lives or something else.

2. Pure combat sections in which the player can choose a copy ability to use. Fun here is derived from using varied moves to defeat a boss or something of the sort.

I haven't played every Kirby game, and I'm sure there's another way to make a Kirby game engaging, but regardless, a Kirby game needs to be accessible to children but still pique the interest of adults in some way. Kirby's Dream Land 3 does neither, and is an abject failure in being interesting in any way.

Copy abilities have regressed from Superstar into being the simple one-attack abilities from previous entries. This already greatly limits the potential of Kirby design #2. Not automatically an issue, as I think Kirby's Adventure on the NES is one of the best in the series, because it uses Kirby design #1. Levels feel best when using the copy abilities acquired in them, but are still beatable without them. However, would you believe me if I said Dream Land 3 had LESS THAN A THIRD of the copy abilities from Adventure? Once again, not automatically bad, as the animal buddies that help kirby actually change the way copy abilities are used. But there was one fatal mistake. Everything else aside, one thing doomed this game.

Around 80% of the time, the animal buddies are a worse option than just using Kirby by himself.

Imagine if you were playing as Yoshi in super Mario World, except Yoshi is a bit slower and can't jump as high as Mario. That is a rough equivalent of the animal buddies in Kirby's Dream Land 3. Kirby can float, so why would I use Riki, who can only jump once? Coo and Kine are slower than Kirby, so why use them? Even if one may fit a situation, you have to grapple with the altered copy abilities, which can be ridiculously niche in terms of use compared to Kirby's. The only one who was fairly consistently fun to use was Nago, because he was fairly fast, could jump two times in midair (Which was usually good enough), and usually had good copy abilities. The others are almost always detrimental to use in one way or another. Unfortunately, though, I didn't always get to use Nago, as there's usually only around half of the animal buddies in a given stage placed at checkpoints. Despite this, I rarely ever got the feeling that the levels were designed with the animal buddies in mind. Even when they're designed with copy abilities in mind, it's usually just 'hit this block with this copy ability to break it', the laziest way to do it.

There are several other issues. Kirby often outruns the camera, which results in enemies landing cheap shots. the level select and optional content is barebones compared to even Kirby's Adventure. Gooey, the player 2 character, is useless. The game loves autoscrolling sections for no reason. All of the secrets are super obscure and not fun to find. It only contributes even more to the low quality.

The biggest positive I can give this game is that it's a beautiful game. It has great style and animation. Everything else? Okay at best. This brings us back to the statement, "there are no bad Kirby games". Honestly, as bad as this game was, it was, at the end of the day, really easy. I rarely got actually frustrated as a result. However, I never got particularly happy playing it either. I rarely felt anything. Honestly, I think that's one of the worst things a game can be: Absolutely nothing. This game isn't legendarily bad; It's just... boring bad. And I'll probably never play it again.