20 Game Boy games in 20 Days* Day 6

*days may or may not be concurrent.

You ask most Nintendo fanboys who their favorite Nintendo character is, chances are most will say Mario, Link, Samus, Yoshi or so on. However as much as I like those characters (with the exception of that damn stupid green dinosaur) and as awesome as their games are, my all time favorite character is one who got his gaming start on the Game Boy. A character who is little more then a pink blob with a happy go lucky smile and one of gamings biggest appetites.



First of the bat I love how the US Box Art has Kirby as white and not as pink as we know him today. Of course in Japan the box art depicted him as his natural pink. Now if the reason from him being white was due to the Game Boy game being black and white (or green and black as it was with the original Game Boy) or due to Nintendo of America being worried a pink character would not do well I don't know. However we are talking about NOA here who did decided to give Kirby angry eyes to make him look more tough on most of his box art, I'm think the latter may be the case.



I really enjoy playing Kirby games, theres just something about that little pink blob I love and its odd when I think about it that up until recently the only 2 Kirby games I would of played prior to Super Smash Bros would have been this game and Dreamcourse. Yet for some reason I love the guy, theres just something about him that I'm draw to. Maybe its the child like innocence the character has, his joyful outlook on the world, I dunno. I've loved every Kirby game I've gotten my hands on and I wold class Canvas Curse for the DS as not only the best Kirby game, but also the best game to grace the Nintendo DS. When you think about it, hes also a very adaptable character in that they can custom shape him to fit into almost any game type be it platformer, pinball, puzzle, racing, fighting, mini games and so on. He fits more or less any genre you put him in almost perfectly (man now I want to see a Kirby RTS).



Anyway lets get to talking about Kirby's Dream Land on the Game Boy. Playing it now by todays standards of Kirby games the game is very basic. You can't absorb abilities like you can in the later games. All you can do is Inhale them, spit them out and puff yourself up and float around. Thats it. The game is very easy and its not one thats gonna take you a long time to finish. You jump around in the amazingly cute looking Dream Land eating and floating your way through various stages. At the end of the stages as with most platforming games is the end of level boss, beat them and then on to the next area. Its Platforming 101 at its most basic. Having said that the gimmick of being able to eat your foes and fly around does a fair bit to shake the game up and make it feel different enough so it doesn't feel like another generic platformer (ie yesterdays game).


Man I love that blank stare Kirby has in most of his games, looks awesome

I guess its the whole feel and look of the game that makes it such an endearing one, as with most HAL games its hard to find a fault with it. And honestly if you've never played a Kirby game before your not gonna miss the absorb ability your gonna enjoy it as a fun little game featuring one of gamings greatest little characters. If you started playing Kirby with Adventure on the NES or any of the later ones, it will seem a little dated I guess but its a great little game to play that doesn't take itself too seriously and if you want something that you can just play while you zone out then this is the perfect choice. I honestly feel like I'm not doing the game justice with this write up, I think I might need to go more in depth with the game at another point in time. If your having a hankering to check out some old 8bit Game Boy love, I would say give this a go, just for all times sake.