Replayed on NSO and enjoyed this way more than on Wii VC back in the day. I mustve played it using a GC analog stick or something the first time because I remember it controlling much worse than it really does. Game is mostly easy, but the exploration strikes the right balance between obscure/rewarding while rarely if ever feeling the need to write things down or look them up. Not that the latter can’t be rewarding, but the feeling of finding an item and immediately having an idea of obstacles on the other side of the world that you can get past with it is great. Super Metroid is the same way so its no surprise hacks and randomizers of both would be so popular — once youve played them its near impossible to forget “what gets me past this” so even when things are all mixed up you can always have an idea of whats next

This game is still really good don't get me wrong but I was surprised to find there were definitely ways I preferred Dream Land 1, example: double tapping to dash in Kirby is a mechanic I never liked in Kirby as walking always seemed mostly pointless with how slow it was, and it started here (later games would expand utility slightly by adding dash-exclusive copy moves, but there weren't any here so the result is a Kirby that feels way sleepier than before despite all the new moves). The initial implementation of copy abilities also seems to have come with the genesis of Kirby games' habit of having enemies not be on the screen until it's too late for you to avoid them. Presumably this is to ensure you don't hold on to one ability indefinitely or at least have to spend a little more time learning the levels to be able to do so, and it's not like it makes the game hard to complete or anything; it's still Kirby. However, in practical terms it means often getting the really fun abilities like Fireball really just results in not using them outside of bosses and single-screen rooms because you know there's too much likelihood that you'll zoom to the edge of the screen and spawn a waddle dee right next to you as you come out of the fireball, or one of those skull bombs will come on screen, fall, and explode all while you're in it. In Dream Land you didn't have these fun abilities but at least you didn't constantly feel held back. Also, swimming in this game sucks big time.

The other main issue you'll hear about with this game is the slowdown and it's pretty bad. Especially egregious before certain minibosses where it gives you a choice between Fire and Spark enemies to inhale and nothing else on the screen, and they slowdown the game every single time. It's hard to have faith in basically any of Kirby's abilities coming out when you want them to when you know that whatever is making you want to attack or jump is probably also causing the system to shit itself and drop your input. In that sense the game being easy and merely annoying is probably a good thing, though I don't really like the precedent it sets for later Kirby games (ie Triple Deluxe, which is slow without slowdown, easy, and barely even annoying -- all while clearly trying to follow the template set by this game).

Environments, music, art, minigames all heat though. Dedede's face trying to get Kirby not to use the Star Rod is hilarious. 3 hours well spent.