Where it all began. Probably the second game I played in the series, too, after Nightmare in Dream Land. I think I got this, Dream Land 2, and Pinball Land all around the same time. But knowing me, I would've played this first, and knowing this game, I would've beaten it pretty quickly, even given how mediocre I was at video games in '03/'04.
Dream Land is a game buoyed by the context of when and how a person engages with it. These days, if you take it in a vacuum or even as someone with a cursory knowledge of what Kirby is as a series, it's hard to see it as anything more than a disposable title, so quickly is the whole experience over and done with. Kirby's abilities wouldn't even be introduced until the next game! But of course, it was always supposed to be an entry-level title, and while the series would get better at producing more compelling entry-level games, it's a perfectly inoffensive title. Actually, it's quite good, for its <1 hour runtime (~15 minute runtime if you don't go for Extra Mode - but why wouldn't you?). And it clearly worked, its sales outpacing everything up until Forgotten Land.
But skill level and its launch in the Game Boy's heyday aren't the only contexts that buoy Dream Land. Kirby is a series that has unparalleled love for its own heritage and legacy, constantly looking forward as much as it looks backward. This game has been remade no fewer than NINE times (Adventure, Super Star, Nightmare in Dream Land, Super Star Ultra twice over, 3D Classics Adventure, Smash Bros. for 3DS, Blowout Blast, Smash Bros. Ultimate), with each reiteration introducing a new twist to the original game's simple template. Even when the experience of the game isn't specifically recreated, the suite of ideas and concepts represented in this game are extremely important to how Modern Kirby understands itself. Most memorable is Star Allies, but it even comes down to little things like places where the series sequences in original sprites, or the melodic evolution of themes like "Green Greens" (later paired with "Kirby's Triumphant Return") and "King Dedede's Theme" (later incorporating "Peanut Plains" and... I think some leitmotif used elsewhere in Star Allies...? But also occasionally mashed up with "My Friend and the Setting Sun" here and again). There's always some sort of statement being made, with how this game manifests in later entries. In most instances, I don't think it's a fair attribution to the first entry in a series when later titles reference it. But there's such a purity to how Modern Kirby and Sakurai regard their origin that it's hard not to feel some of that reverence.
I'll say this. When I was getting into video games and online fandom, Kirby was one of the first ways I wanted to explore that. One of the ways I tried to do so was by writing a walkthrough for Kirby's Dream Land. I never finished said walkthrough, because at a certain point I realized that Dream Land is not a game that really needs a guiding hand. I think, instead, it itself makes for a good guiding force. Not much more than that, and it's almost always more interesting to see what flows from Dream Land than it is to interface with Dream Land itself - but if something's strong enough to exist as that bedrock, who am I to hold anything against it?
Dream Land is a game buoyed by the context of when and how a person engages with it. These days, if you take it in a vacuum or even as someone with a cursory knowledge of what Kirby is as a series, it's hard to see it as anything more than a disposable title, so quickly is the whole experience over and done with. Kirby's abilities wouldn't even be introduced until the next game! But of course, it was always supposed to be an entry-level title, and while the series would get better at producing more compelling entry-level games, it's a perfectly inoffensive title. Actually, it's quite good, for its <1 hour runtime (~15 minute runtime if you don't go for Extra Mode - but why wouldn't you?). And it clearly worked, its sales outpacing everything up until Forgotten Land.
But skill level and its launch in the Game Boy's heyday aren't the only contexts that buoy Dream Land. Kirby is a series that has unparalleled love for its own heritage and legacy, constantly looking forward as much as it looks backward. This game has been remade no fewer than NINE times (Adventure, Super Star, Nightmare in Dream Land, Super Star Ultra twice over, 3D Classics Adventure, Smash Bros. for 3DS, Blowout Blast, Smash Bros. Ultimate), with each reiteration introducing a new twist to the original game's simple template. Even when the experience of the game isn't specifically recreated, the suite of ideas and concepts represented in this game are extremely important to how Modern Kirby understands itself. Most memorable is Star Allies, but it even comes down to little things like places where the series sequences in original sprites, or the melodic evolution of themes like "Green Greens" (later paired with "Kirby's Triumphant Return") and "King Dedede's Theme" (later incorporating "Peanut Plains" and... I think some leitmotif used elsewhere in Star Allies...? But also occasionally mashed up with "My Friend and the Setting Sun" here and again). There's always some sort of statement being made, with how this game manifests in later entries. In most instances, I don't think it's a fair attribution to the first entry in a series when later titles reference it. But there's such a purity to how Modern Kirby and Sakurai regard their origin that it's hard not to feel some of that reverence.
I'll say this. When I was getting into video games and online fandom, Kirby was one of the first ways I wanted to explore that. One of the ways I tried to do so was by writing a walkthrough for Kirby's Dream Land. I never finished said walkthrough, because at a certain point I realized that Dream Land is not a game that really needs a guiding hand. I think, instead, it itself makes for a good guiding force. Not much more than that, and it's almost always more interesting to see what flows from Dream Land than it is to interface with Dream Land itself - but if something's strong enough to exist as that bedrock, who am I to hold anything against it?