Kirby's Dream Land DX (Game Boy Color Hack)

   

It's the 30 year anniversary (Jesus) of me getting this, my first game. School had just let out and it was time to finally get a game system. To commemorate this, I'm running several Kirby games this week. Starting with the color remake of Kirby's Dream Land, made by intrepid fans. I haven't played this since the first time I covered it, almost a decade ago, so we'll see how it triggers my memory.

This very first stage intro is SO ICONIC. And yeah, this hack looks quite nice. Like an NES game, kind of.

This was perfect as my first game purchase. The big challenge of the first world? A pit.

I remember Poppy Bro here being an actual threat on a first-time play, before I realized that you could catch the bombs and throw them back.

As a kid, I remember checking this wall to see if there were any hidden passages. Levels in games having actual walls and borders was pretty new to me and I thought some walls could have something on the other side of them like the real world.

Doesn't help that the next room actually does have breakable walls that let you go outside the tree... and there's nothing out there. As a kid I probably pressed "up" on every tile looking for a secret room.

I'm gonna go ahead and say that Whispy Woods might be the greatest "first boss" in video game history.

Castle Lololo is a stage I really got to know well because it's as far as I could get for like the first two weeks that I had this game. Couldn't beat the boss so I mainly just played this stage over and over. It looks particularly great with these GBC graphics.

I remember trying to figure out how to open these ? blocks. They don't do anything! What is this trickery? You don't put Mario blocks in a game and have them not Mario block!

Miniboss. They went all out with the color of the tiling here.

Here's the fight that ended my first bunch of runs at the game.

The keys to winning: Get behind them and yoink the crates away from them, or from the front yoink a crate, run away, and turn/fire quickly. All of this was a bit much for me in 1993, so I couldn't get past this until my hot babysitter did it for me. She was a veteran of Super Mario Bros 3 so this was easy.

Look at the colors! My God!

I remember this part being a bit of a problem in 1993 because the floor is a DEATH PIT.

This game is notably missing Kirby's copy ability from later games, but at least you can get some temporary abilities like the fireball. You can see the genesis of Kirby eating his foes to copy their moves here, as the fireball power is derived from eating a plate of spicy food.

Here's Kaboola, who has an unusually large life meter. Feels like Kaboola got pretty shortchanged in later Kirby games, barely shows up anywhere compared to other bosses like Whispy and Kracko. Only other game I can think of with Kaboola in this design is Kirby's Block Ball. A couple of later games in the series have "Kabula" as a boss with a different look/design.

Right about now I'm missing the copy ability. GIVE ME THE BOOMERANG.

Kracko. Miniboss version of this guy is actually more dangerous than the boss version IMO, probably the deadliest foe since the twins. The quad-shot of cannonballs is a real issue.

Here's a walk-through wall that took me ages to find, and it leads to a 1-Up. Looks like most of the hidden stuff is in this cloud level, or at least the hidden stuff I know about.

The most memorable hidden door is found by flying in front of the moon here, right before the boss.

This is probably the game's craziest hidden area, with a couple of 1-Ups and a few powerups raining down from space.

Kracko isn't nearly as bad as I remember from 1993, and teaches you how to jump.

Here's Dedede's Castle, not sure how the hell anyone gets up there with no roads. Not even a stairwell? Does flying around on stars function as everyone's transit in this world? Are they like LimeBikes?

My hot babysitter may have bested level 2 for me, but I remember at this point I was pretty much on my own against the boss rematches.

This stage took me a bunch of tries back then, mainly because of THIS damn rematch. It took a whole afternoon, but I pretty much slew the rest of the game once I finally got past level 2.

I can still feel the 1993 fear at having to fly under barriers with a DEATH PIT close by.

They crank up the amount of spikes in this last level...luckily they're all pointed downward.

Well, almost all of them. Here's the most dangerous hallway in the entire game.

After knocking out all the bosses, it's time for the MAIN EVENT.

Kirby vs Dedede. God Bless The Ring.

Hold on lemme die real quick

ALRIGHT HERE WE GO. Dedede with the sledgehammer!

FIVE STAR FROG SPLASH OFF THE TOP ROPE!

Kirby wins, no damage run.

In this game Dedede isn't being controlled by Dark Matter or anything, so for once he's his own man.

Well, this was pretty awesome to revisit. The color adds just enough life to make this the definitive version.

Seeing these credits was a massive achievement back in 1993, and now I'm seeing them come to life.

Well, that was very cool, and like I said, the new definitive version.

More Kirby to come this week. Gonna take a quick look at a few of the weirder sports spinoffs, and - if time permits - play the last main series regular Kirby game that I've never played before: Mass Attack for the DS.

Check out the original Kirby's Dream Land post from like a decade ago HERE.