GAME CLEAR No. 142 -- Kirby's Dream Land 3

Kirby’s Dream Land 3 (1997, SNES)

Developer: HAL Laboratory
Publisher: Nintendo
Clear Date: 8/14/23
Clear Platform: Switch via Nintendo Switch Online

Spring Breeze

Boy have I gotten behind on my little blog! Part of the reason for that is that I played Kirby’s Dream Land 3 on Nintendo’s little SNES emulator app and I have a lot of bad things to say about that app. So many, in fact, that I’ve drafted a whole big post about Nintendo’s emulation failures in general. I haven’t finished yet, though, and I don’t know if I will. What’s important now is to talk about Kirby’s Dream Land 3 on its own merits.

And it has some! Well, at least it has most of the ones you would expect of a Kirby game. It was a bit odd to play this after having pretty recently played Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe, though. That game is just about the pinnacle of 2D Kirby gameplay, and Kirby’s Dream Land 3 certainly is not. I terribly missed the dash attacks and combo attacks of Return to Dream Land, not to mention its super tight controls and bevvy of copy abilities. I also didn’t care for the fact that I had to do a missable little challenge in every single stage of Dream Land 3 in order to fight the true final boss. Fortunately, a guide makes pretty easy work of most of them, but it still sucks!

But there are some nice things, too, such as the return of Kirby’s allies from Dream Land 2 (alongside some new ones), which mixes things up a bit. The fact that each partner modifies each copy ability differently also makes the rather small selection thereof feel a bit more robust. The game’s also got some nice, stylized graphics and a pleasant soundtrack (including “Gourmet Race”).

Kirby’s Dream Land 3 is the kind of game to play while watching baseball. Or maybe to pass the time on a long-distance flight. There’s definitely better stuff you could be playing, but it’s easy and comfortable. Something to consider, but not too strongly.