Kirby’s not my usual bag, so I thought I’d compare two of his games I’d played recently. Of course, I snagged Adventure during the Famicom sale even though I wasn’t terribly interested in it. Dream Land 3 was more appealing, because of its distinctive “crayon-y” art style and its use of cameo Nintendo characters.

The differences go deeper than the art style, as I found out. Adventure is a Sakurai game, and so feels similar to the other Kirby game I’ve played, Super Star Ultra, which is based on Sakurai’s Super Star. The emphasis is on a variety of powers and their organic use, with setpieces sprinkled in the levels and secret areas to find. DL3 on the other hand relies on its animal buddies to change up your movement and your more limited power set, as they each change how each power works, as well as employing collectibles and optional objectives.

On the whole I preferred Dream Land 3. It obviously has the graphical edge over Adventure, being on a more powerful console but its more unique style also appeals. The music stuck with me more, and it had a bit more variety with softer pieces in the animal friend and NPC rooms, while also having very dynamic tracks for things like boss battles. Those boss battles were also more fun; Adventure felt like powers were too limiting and did hardly any damage. The sheer variety of powers in Adventure I also found overwhelming compared to DL3’s more manageable set.

DL3 also had a more enjoyable structure; rather than a series of obstacle courses with minigames sometimes, it felt like an adventure (ironically). Helping the NPCs with their various needs (figuring out what they wanted was sometimes a puzzle in itself) with the help of your buddies and possibly even a co-op friend gave a good feeling of teamwork, as well as varying your side goals. The NPC designs were super cute, and as I said seeing characters like ROB and Samus was a welcome sight. Having more collectibles like little stars and the NPC objectives were also good ways to give rewards to players for exploring or doing things.

The co-op mode of DL3 was a surprise, and allowed me to play with my dear wife for a while. Unfortunately the ramping difficulty, combined with her discomfort with platformers, led her to drop out, but it was good while it lasted. Of course, both games get harder as you go on, leading to my general frustration with Kirby games: a lack of precise control with increasingly demanding platforming and combat. As the games get harder the experience of playing them feels worse. I saw them both through, but only DL3 had enough other appeals for me to strive for 100%.

There were a lot of fun ideas in both games, though. Moments that stand out in my mind were the level in Adventure that apes the Game Boy palette of Kirby’s origins, and the massive dungeon-like pyramid in DL3 where you search for ROB’s missing parts. Ultimately though DL3 had more of these moments, placing it ever above Adventure in this comparison. And what’s up with that weird blank line that’s always on the left of the screen in Adventure?

I don’t feel overly convinced about the Kirby series in general. Dream Land 3 was actually delightful in a lot of ways, but the core gameplay still seems slightly unsatisfying to me. Not to mention the Kirby games’ tendency to go “Oop, you wanna get to this secret area? You don’t have the right power. Start the level again.” The only other games in the series I’m curious about are Mass Attack and Epic Yarn, the ones with interesting gameplay or artistic gimmicks. I didn’t get on with Adventure at all, but I’d easily recommend Dream Land 3, there’s lots to love from the look to the variety. And it’s just so cute!