Kirby’s Dream Land 2

I consider myself a Kirby fan, but only when the series is partaking in gimmicky cartoon weirdness. The titles that try to be regular platformers, like Kirby’s Dream Land 2, just feel generic and empty. The fan-dubbed “Dark Matter Trilogy,” of which this was the first release, is supposedly meant to be slower and more puzzle-focused, but it’s really only the former, as guessing which copy ability will allow access to a secret area does not count as a puzzle. The copy abilities as a whole represent an enduring problem for the franchise. They were the contribution of Kirby’s Adventure to the “gimmicky cartoon weirdness” category, but now they just stick around, erasing the last glimmers of structure that the power of flight in a 2D platformer didn’t already destroy.

The only “unique” feature here is rideable animal partners, if you ignore that it’s just copying Donkey Kong Country. The rare instances where levels are designed with these characters in mind cause the game to come alive for a bit, but for the most part, they work much like the copy abilities – tossed in wherever and without reason. The twist in this case was supposed to be that each of the three animals would provide variations of each copy ability, but that’s only the case a third of the time. Mostly, it’s just the same ability being executed by the animal instead of Kirby.