Of Shinichi Shimomura's three directed Kirby titles, this is probably the one I think about least. It's not bad; far from it, it's a great, cozy little game. It's more that this one was less-readily available to me during my middle school years, when I got into Kirby. I eventually picked it up off Wii Virtual Console, but I'd already played Dream Land 2 and Kirby 64 ages before this one, and this consequently felt like half-and-half of what I liked from those games.
...in all but aesthetics, of course. Holy moly do I love how this game looks. That soft, colored pencil squigglevision is so unique to this game, and it seems to have come out of nowhere, too! Easily a contender for one of the best-looking games on the console, continuing Kirby's trend of releasing late and testing the system's graphical capabilities.
I'll also grant that this is the only of Shimomura's games to feature co-op. At the cost of one hit point, Gooey can split off from Kirby to function as a second player. Adapting Gooey into a second Kirby is a fun choice; I generally find him less interesting than the variety you get from Super Star's Helpers, but it's a fun expansion of a completely disposable character from the prequel, and the Helper system wouldn't really work with this game's limited movesets. And I mean, he's such a weird li'l goober, with his prehensile tongue and his being more explicitly a well-meaning cosmic horror.
The issue I have is imbalance in level design. The goal in each level is to earn a Heart Star, each piece of which is used to build up the Love Love Stick required for the Good Ending. To get each Heart Star, the player(s) must fulfill the "request" of a friendly NPC contextual to that level. The details are never specifically spelled out in-game, but they're usually easy to intuit - don't squish the flowers (or maybe do), clear the mini-game, bring a certain friend to the end of the stage, etc. I have some issues with these challenges themselves - some lack conveyance (you can sort-of step into the logic of MuchiMuchi wanting to be touched by ChuChu, but there's some assumptions that need to be made to get there), and some are just mean (I've played the game at least four times through, and I'm still always thrown by Chef Kawasaki's sound-based mini-game).
But the real problem with this design is that it's overly-centralizing. In the first level, for example, the challenge is to avoid squishing Tulips. That's straightforward enough, but the Tulips only show up in one of the level's four-five rooms. This makes the remaining rooms superfluous in the context of the challenge, and thus often feel like wasted space, depending on what the challenge is. If I botch Tamasan's mini-game, why should I continue playing out the level, knowing the outcome is a forgone conclusion? Not as significant if you're only interested in playing to credits, I suppose, but for completion, it's a little funny.
You can make a similar argument in Shimomura's other two Kirby games, but I don't really feel it as much there. Since there's only one Rainbow Drop per world in Dream Land 2, I don't feel like the world design must focus around it, more that it's an embedded secret that exists as a complement to that world's overall design. Kirby 64 has three Crystal Shards per level, so no one shard centralizes a given level's focus; besides, each level's theming is strong enough to suggest its own purpose independent of the overarching game's goals. When I'm playing Shiver Star Stage 2 in Kirby 64, the level is clearly about Kirby and friends traveling over a mountain through a cloudy passage; the placement of the Crystal Shards within it are irrelevant because the level's theming justifies it. When I'm playing Cloudy Park Stage 2 in Dream Land 3, the level is clearly about satisfying the chicken; the visual theming of the level is irrelevant, so long as I'm keeping an eye out for any chicken-related interactions.
I'm drilling into this a lot, but I should make it clear that I still think Dream Land 3 is a pretty solid game. Like I said, it's short and cozy enough that I've beaten it four times, more than most other games I've played. Heck, I superfluously bought it on Wii U when I already had it in my Wii's Virtual Console, just because. It's a good game! Not a special highlight of what I like about the series, but comfortably good and nice for a periodic revisit.
Plus, there are a bunch of shout-outs to everything from the Super Scope to Shin Onigashima, to say nothing about how bloody violent the final fights are. Lots to love here.
...in all but aesthetics, of course. Holy moly do I love how this game looks. That soft, colored pencil squigglevision is so unique to this game, and it seems to have come out of nowhere, too! Easily a contender for one of the best-looking games on the console, continuing Kirby's trend of releasing late and testing the system's graphical capabilities.
I'll also grant that this is the only of Shimomura's games to feature co-op. At the cost of one hit point, Gooey can split off from Kirby to function as a second player. Adapting Gooey into a second Kirby is a fun choice; I generally find him less interesting than the variety you get from Super Star's Helpers, but it's a fun expansion of a completely disposable character from the prequel, and the Helper system wouldn't really work with this game's limited movesets. And I mean, he's such a weird li'l goober, with his prehensile tongue and his being more explicitly a well-meaning cosmic horror.
The issue I have is imbalance in level design. The goal in each level is to earn a Heart Star, each piece of which is used to build up the Love Love Stick required for the Good Ending. To get each Heart Star, the player(s) must fulfill the "request" of a friendly NPC contextual to that level. The details are never specifically spelled out in-game, but they're usually easy to intuit - don't squish the flowers (or maybe do), clear the mini-game, bring a certain friend to the end of the stage, etc. I have some issues with these challenges themselves - some lack conveyance (you can sort-of step into the logic of MuchiMuchi wanting to be touched by ChuChu, but there's some assumptions that need to be made to get there), and some are just mean (I've played the game at least four times through, and I'm still always thrown by Chef Kawasaki's sound-based mini-game).
But the real problem with this design is that it's overly-centralizing. In the first level, for example, the challenge is to avoid squishing Tulips. That's straightforward enough, but the Tulips only show up in one of the level's four-five rooms. This makes the remaining rooms superfluous in the context of the challenge, and thus often feel like wasted space, depending on what the challenge is. If I botch Tamasan's mini-game, why should I continue playing out the level, knowing the outcome is a forgone conclusion? Not as significant if you're only interested in playing to credits, I suppose, but for completion, it's a little funny.
You can make a similar argument in Shimomura's other two Kirby games, but I don't really feel it as much there. Since there's only one Rainbow Drop per world in Dream Land 2, I don't feel like the world design must focus around it, more that it's an embedded secret that exists as a complement to that world's overall design. Kirby 64 has three Crystal Shards per level, so no one shard centralizes a given level's focus; besides, each level's theming is strong enough to suggest its own purpose independent of the overarching game's goals. When I'm playing Shiver Star Stage 2 in Kirby 64, the level is clearly about Kirby and friends traveling over a mountain through a cloudy passage; the placement of the Crystal Shards within it are irrelevant because the level's theming justifies it. When I'm playing Cloudy Park Stage 2 in Dream Land 3, the level is clearly about satisfying the chicken; the visual theming of the level is irrelevant, so long as I'm keeping an eye out for any chicken-related interactions.
I'm drilling into this a lot, but I should make it clear that I still think Dream Land 3 is a pretty solid game. Like I said, it's short and cozy enough that I've beaten it four times, more than most other games I've played. Heck, I superfluously bought it on Wii U when I already had it in my Wii's Virtual Console, just because. It's a good game! Not a special highlight of what I like about the series, but comfortably good and nice for a periodic revisit.
Plus, there are a bunch of shout-outs to everything from the Super Scope to Shin Onigashima, to say nothing about how bloody violent the final fights are. Lots to love here.