Kirby's Dream Land 3 doesn't capture the excitment of its previous outings, and is just overall a rather unferior game
GRAPHICS:
Unlike the cartoony style of Super Star, this game has a much simpler style, which resembles drawings with crayons. And while the series nailed a creative artwork with Epic Yarn, this game looks... alright. It is a bit too simplictic, and the backgrounds lack a bit of life to them, and the colors are not too prounounced. It is cute, but overall a bit underwhelming. 3.2/5
SOUND:
The music in this game is composed of remixes of older tunes, like most other Kirby games, and some original ones. It is... also just alright. The remixes are not the best versions of the songs, and the original music is rather forgettable. Like a lot of other things that bug me about this game, it feels a bit too cute, and can get pretty annoying at times. It fits, but that is about it. 2.8/5
GAMEPLAY:
The game is a 2D plataformer. You play as kirby, going all though his home planet of Pop Star, to defeat some evil forces and whatnot. It really doesn't matter what the story of this game is, since the gameplay is what matters in the series.
Kirby still has his trademark sucking powers, but they are much more nerffed compared to the previous game. You can only use one move with each ability, unlike the crazy things you could do in Super Star, and they feel incredibly slow paced. One of the major problems with the game is that too many of the power ups require Kirby to stop in order to use them, like needle and stone. Granted, some like fire and parasol are a bit more dynamic, but they are quite underwhelming to use. None really give out much of a punch when you use 'em, and there are many less than the previous game, and there isn't the creativity of, say, yo-yo or suplex. Emitions of classics bomb and sword power ups are also a downfall. The only new addition is the cleaning/bromstick power, which is by far the worst on the game, and is extremely silly just to look at.
The level design follows Dream Land 2, as the game is divided in worlds, and they have a set amount of levels you have to beat. There actually is quite a bit to this game, with each world having about 7/8 levels, and being 5 worlds and that they vary in size, but are generaly pretty long, it amounts for a nicely sized adventure. However, this game has something that unfortunately caried to the next game in the series (64), which is the necessity to complete a certain task in all levels in order to fight the final boss. They range from clever, such as a Metroid cameo where, as a nod to those games, you have to freeze them, to goofy fun, like a minigame you have to play, to simply the game not telling you what to do. And the majority are like that. At the end of every level, you will see a character, and somewhere of the level you would have to have gotten or done something for them, but there is no indication in the majority of them. And since you have to do that in order to completely beat the game, that is a huge problem.
One thing that was brought back from Dream Land 2 are Kirby's animal friends, such as a little bird, an owl and a raccon. Their objective is to give some variety as to how you beat the levels and play the game, but, to put it bluntly, most of them aren't very interesting. The can change what your power up do, sure, but they themselves do not do too much, other than obviously the birds flying, something Kirby could do naturally. So, while a nice addition, they aren't much very worth bothering with.
The game is also rather easy, like most other Kirby games are, but this game is not as easy as some others. And that is beacuse the controls of the game can get a bit weird at times. Not so much the controls, but more so the actions, like Kirby flies at an incredibly slow pace, and that will get you off guard on the begining. His speed is also ridiculously slow at first, but you can run, but it is possible to control of him and run into enemies when you don't want to.
So, in the end, there is nothing compelling to this game. It is very slow paced, and it's new features aren't that interesting.
2.8/5
OVERALL:
Kirby's Dream Land 3 is a Kirby game definitely with the younger crowd in mind. It is much simpler than Super Star, and not quite as fun. In fact, this game is quite boring at times. I guess young kids might enjoy this game, but for older Kirby fans, such as myself, there is nothing compeling to this game. I get that this game was made as a throwback to the other Dream Land games, but it still is not excuse for such an uniniteresting title.
The good:
-Visuals are clean
-Music fits the levels very well
-Gameplay is simple to grasp
-Nicely challenging
The bad:
-Visuals are pretty underwhelming compared to what we had seen
-Music is nothing special
-Very slow paced, and quite boring overall
-Power ups are generaly uninteresting
-Annoying, unclear objectives to get the real ending