Was really excited to get into Kirby's Dream Land 3 right after having played all the prior mainline Kirby titles, hearing a lot of praise for this one. Unfortunately it didn't hit as well for me as it did for others.

Right off the bat just after having played Kirby Super Star, you immediately feel how sluggish and unresponsive Kirby controls in this title, compared to it's other SNES counterpart. With an open mind, I didn't immediately let this sour my taste as I took in the factor that this could just be a slower paced Kirby by design. Eventually though, I really did not like how Kirby controlled and that is a huge minus for me considering KBL2 on the Game Boy controlled better than this.

The game is basically an evolution of KBL2 in both title and design. Everything introduced in KDL2 is brough back and expanded upon, from the same copy ability convention, to the mix and matching with the animal buddies. But is slightly more copy abilities as well as new animal buddies introduced, allowing for much more mix and matching abilities. Initially, I gave this system a pass in KBL2, but did not enjoy it as much in KBL3 due to how sluggish and underpowered all the mixed copy abilities felt in this game. Most of the time you're better off just as Kirby by himself as it feels like the copy abilities are the most effective solo.

Now comes the biggest flaw that really brings this game down for me, the level design. If you want to really enjoy KDR3, you have to go for the 100% completion. All levels have an "optional" mission that grant you a star at the end if you fulfil it's requirements. Unfortunately, to me, fulfilling those requirements are not fun due to the fact that if you miss something while playing a level, most of time you have to restart it. Another big issue with this is that the game does not tell you what the requirement is, so if you're not using the internet or a guide, you'll need to constantly retry the level to figure out what the mission requirement is.
If you try to play the game without doing these optional missions, like I initially did, every level is a boring barren wasteland. Just a left to right stretch from point A to B with a few blocks an enemies in between, but no proper design. I gave KDL2 some slack for not having as good level design as KDL1, but the level design in this game makes KDL2 levels look great by comparison. So yeah, the levels are designed around these optional missions, otherwise you won't have as much fun.

The best thing about KDL3 is the artstyle and soundtrack. This one of the most beautiful looking games on the SNES, making the crayon looking world KDL2 on the Gameboy come to it's full realization on console. These don't look like sprites, they look like actual hand drawn images.

Although the general consensus of this game is very positive, I think this is probably my least favorite mainline Kirby game that I've played. I'm glad the future titles went more for the Super Star route than it did the Dream Land route.