Past meets present: Kirby's Dream Land 2

This column is “Past meets present,” the aim of which is to look back at game franchises and games that are in the news and topical again thanks to a sequel, a remaster, a re-release, and so on. Previous entries in this series can be found through this link.

Kirby went through some rapid changes in his early years. The first title in the series, 1992’s Game Boy platformer, Kirby’s Dream Land, didn’t even have copy powers. Kirby was just a little guy who could inhale enemies and blocks, and either swallow them or spit them out as a weapon. Outside of a couple of temporary power-ups, that’s how you defeated every foe you met, bosses or standard. These were conscious decisions, in order to make a game that would be easy to pick up and play: platformers, still not that removed from their arcade origins, had a reputation as being pretty difficult back then, and series creator Masahiro Sakurai wanted to do something different that would appeal to a larger, less experienced crowd.

In 1993, Kirby’s Adventure released on the NES, and introduced the copy ability that the little pink dude is known for. The game’s scope exploded — Kirby’s Dream Land was a handful of levels that took about half-an-hour to get through, if that, a title so short that four-fifths of it was reworked to be used as the introductory portion of Kirby Super Star on the SNES four years later — but Kirby’s Adventure still managed to be a more relaxing affair than, say, Super Mario Bros. 3.

Kirby’s Adventure would be followed by non-platformer Kirby titles that sought to still be very much Kirby games, like the mini golf-esque Kirby’s Dream Course, as well as Kirby’s Pinball Land. It took until the spring of 1995 to get another Kirby platformer, and it would end up being the final one of those on the Game Boy: Kirby’s Dream Land 2. That title, like Kirby’s Adventure, was a far lengthier affair than its predecessor, but it didn’t just try to do Kirby’s Adventure, now in handheld form. The copy powers were retained, but expanded upon, with Kirby now also having a bunch of animal friends he could ride on or in, and those animal buds could utilize Kirby’s copy powers, too.

In addition to the slate of animal buds, Kirby’s Dream Land 2 also expanded upon completion percentage being a thing that changed the game in some way. Kirby’s Adventure introduced the concept to the series by having you press every big switch in the game, unlocking an Extra Mode where you have fewer extra lives, half the health, and healing items granted you less health. For Kirby’s Dream Land 2, instead of a reworked and more difficult version of the game, getting to 100 percent completion instead unlocks a boss rush, where you have to face all eight of the game’s bosses, in order, with just two opportunities to heal throughout, and only one chance to acquire a copy power.

One of the things you need to do to get to 100 percent, however, is to collect all of the Rainbow Shards — there’s one per world, so seven in total — which is the only way that you can get the good ending of Kirby’s Dream Land 2. If you don’t collect all of the Rainbow Shards, you’ll defeat King Dedede and the game will end, but not be finished. It turns out that Dedede isn’t the bad guy here at all like he was in the original Dream Land. Instead, he’s been possessed by Dark Matter, the true antagonist of Dream Land 2, but you’ll only get to face him if you’ve picked up all those Rainbow Shards leading up to the fight with Dedede.

A similar setup was used in Kirby’s Dream Land 3, as well as Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards. There’s a connection among those three games beyond this central conceit of not seeing the true ending unless you manage to accomplish 100 percent of a specific task, and that’s the director of the games: Shinichi Shimomura. Masahiro Sakurai might have originated Kirby and served as the director for both Dream Land and Adventure (as well as the game designer on the former), but he wouldn’t approach a Kirby again until Super Star on the SNES in 1996, when he once again plopped down in the director’s chair. For the second half of the 90s, Kirby was mostly Shimomura’s series, until he exited HAL Laboratory following the remake of Kirby’s Adventure for the Game Boy Advance, known as Nightmare in Dream Land.

Now, Kirby’s Dream Land 2 is much larger than Kirby’s Dream Land, but there’s less to it than Kirby’s Adventure in a few ways. It’s not as marvelous from a graphical standpoint or even in its design — the Game Boy was a bit more minimalist, and Kirby’s Adventure was something of an astounding achievement for visuals on hardware whose origins were in 1983. It’s very easy to get through if you aren’t trying to get 100 percent, to the point you can kind of sleepwalk through it given health is abundant and enemies aren’t numerous and overpowering, while the levels are often short, too. However! Getting to 100 percent is an actual accomplishment, as the Rainbow Shards are (1) hidden, (2) often require a specific animal friend to even be able to access the room where it is, and (3) you need a specific power in order to get past the blocks the shards are hidden behind.

Which means you might need to replay a level and, instead of tossing away that fire ability, hold on to it for melting ice blocks later. Or, even if it’s a pain to try to move your fish friend, Kine, on land compared to under the water, you have to go through with it, anyway, or else not be able to access this specific hidden room. Oh, and while there aren’t a ton of enemies or many difficult ones, there are bombs you can active that have propellers on them, that can take as much of a beating as a mini boss, and if they hit you while you’re partnered up with an animal friend, you automatically lose them. These are, of course, placed strategically where they’re going to be just the most enormous pain in your pink… huh, does Kirby have a butt?

You can defeat Dark Matter without getting 100 percent, but you can’t get 100 percent without defeating Dark Matter, since the Rainbow Shards are a requirement. Here’s the breakdown for 100 percent completion, courtesy WiKirby: 62 percent for the game’s levels (2 percent per stage), 14 percent for the bosses, 14 percent for the Rainbow Shards, three percent for defeating Dark Matter, six percent for perfect Bonus Chances, and the last percentage point is for rescuing “Girl blob” in the North American version, and Chao in the Japanese one.

Those last two bits require more explanation. After you defeat a boss, if you return to their stage, there’s a sub-game to complete. For example, the Whispy Woods boss fight becomes a challenge where you have to collect the stars the tree shoots out at you, while avoiding taking damage from the apples. Collect all the stars, and you’ve got a perfect on the bonus chance there. Successfully complete all six of these sub-games, perfectly, and you’ve got your additional six percent. As for the blob/Chao rescue. If you already have an animal friend with you when you get the chance to rescue another — animals are held in bags, captured, until you defeat the mini boss guarding them — then Kirby’s bud Gooey is in there instead. Gooey isn’t playable here, but he does refill some of your health. There’s a one-in-eight chance that, instead of Gooey showing up in the bag, though, you’ll instead get “Girl blob,” who no, does not have an actual name, so, sorry about calling even a little slime lady “Girl blob.”

In the original Japanese version of Kirby’s Dream Land 2, instead of this alternate for Gooey, you could discover Chao, who hails from a Famicom text adventure game from 1989, Yūyūki. Because that game didn’t leave Japan, someone in localization decided “girl Gooey?” was a better choice. Chao does show up in Kirby’s Dream Land 3, however, alongside a martial arts-knowing monkey man based on Sun Wokung, who is named in Japanese translations as, I kid you not, Son Goku. This pair also appears in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate as a spirit, thanks to its dedication to including anything it could squeeze in. Which is a compliment, for the record.

As for how Kirby’s Dream Land 2 plays, again, it’s not as impressive if you just fly through it to fly through it. Appreciation for the game comes through only if you engage with what it wants you to do, which is to be more thoughtful and careful, to replay things until you get them just right, to get that 100 percent (or at least the Rainbow Shards in order to face Dark Matter and get the real ending). The animal friends are a wonderful addition: Rick the Hamster gives you an animal to ride on, Kine the fish lets you move underwater with ease while comfortably (?) tucked inside his mouth, and Coo is a bird who grips Kirby in his talons while flying around. Kirby can run, he can swim, he can even float, so why the animal friends? The thing is that they’re basically ways to augment his copy ability. You throw one cutter blade as Kirby — while you’re being carted around by Coo, you’ll instead fire off three razor-sharp feathers in a multi-shot pattern, which can be far more dangerous and powerful. And that’s in addition to how they do help you reach areas you might not otherwise be able to get to — Kirby can swim, sure, but he can’t swim against the currents easily or at all, depending on how strong they are. He can float, but he’s easily pushed around in high winds, whereas Coo can fight against the wind with his wings.

The soundtrack was not composed by Jun Ishikawa, who handled the original Kirby’s Dream Land, but instead, Hirokazu Ando — who composed Kirby’s Adventure — partnered up with Tadashi Ikegami, whose previous work on the series had been in Kirby’s Pinball Land. The soundtrack is, arguably, the best part about the entire game, which isn’t a knock on said rest of the game. It’s just a super lively soundtrack that plays to the strengths of the Game Boy, and sounds wonderful despite being designed on such low-power hardware with that little speaker on it. The music also changes when you’re with an animal friend, as each of them has their own theme, even at this early stage of their existence. It’s not like in Super Mario World, where Yoshi brings a different version of the same theme, but is instead a song specific to that animal friend that overrides the level music.

The only real issue with Kirby’s Dream Land 2 is that its best ideas are implemented better in some games that came out after it. It’s a perfectly cromulent Kirby game, but it’s no Kirby’s Dream Land 3, for instance, which expanded upon the number of animal friends, included co-op, and added some much-needed variety to not just how the game looked, but the level design itself, as well as what you had to do in order to make actual big bad Dark Matter show his evil… well, face for lack of a better end to that phrase. Hell, even Kirby’s Dream Land 3’s soundtrack is superior. If you’ve never played before but are interested in seeing all there is to see, Kirby’s Dream Land 2 is going to feel perfectly fine to play. Just don’t expect to be wowed by it.

Of course, you don’t have to be wowed to make it worthwhile, and it is nifty going back to see the origins of quite a few Kirby standards, as well as a reminder that the Game Boy was capable of so much more than some developers put into it — if not for the release date, this very well could have been an NES title in terms of its scope and size. You can also manage experiencing all of this without having to pay for Kirby’s Dream Land 2 these days, since Nintendo added it to the Game Boy edition of Nintendo Switch Online (assuming you already have a subscription to that service, naturally). Previously, it was available on the 3DS’ Virtual Console, but unless you got that before the eShop shut down, you’re out of luck there. If you’ve still got a Wii and a desire to spend $54, you could also buy Kirby’s Dream Collection, an anthology that includes the 90s’ six standard Kirby platformers, released for the Game Boy, NES, and SNES. Just try not to think about how it was originally priced for $39.99 while you do that.

There’s even less of a potential market for this particular idea, but if you’re intent on owning a copy of Kirby’s Dream Land 2 in 2025, the best way to play it is actually with its Game Boy cartridge through a Super Game Boy on the SNES, as it leaned heavily into the ability to not just have color, but to use far more colors, while also leaning on the enhancements to sound that attachment to the SNES hardware made possible. Of course, you’ve already blown by the secondhand cost of Kirby’s Dream Collection to get the cartridge and Super Game Boy, never mind an SNES, if you happen to lack these necessary items.

Nintendo really should release a Super Game Boy-specific variation of all of these compatible titles. Where’s the superior version of Donkey Kong ‘94 when you need it, you know, the one designed specifically to sell Super Game Boys in the first place?

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