The perplexing idea turned many gamers off at the time, but those willing to give the game a try will be very pleased.
User Rating: 8.4 | Kirby Bowl SNES
Kirby games have recently waned in quality as their transformation to this generation. As many gamers could have remembered, that Kirby games used to hold a level of quality and classic fun. Kirby's Dream Course brings back these days, with its extremely innovative and original game play, brought forth by a pretty nice presentation with a few hitches. What makes Kirby's Dream Course so innovative is the game play itself. It's like an interactive Kirby game. The object of each course is to kill all the enemies, and to afterwards or at the same time, put Kirby in the hole in a certain amount of strokes. What makes this arbitrarily simple concept so innovative is that, for every enemy you kill, you steal their power to use at the touch of a button. As you can see, this plays out for some pretty intricate puzzle like courses that are anything but golf like. The isometric view is probably the smartest choice the designers made for this one I'd have to say. The aiming system, fairly well calculates exactly how many bounces, and how Kirby will bounce, fly, and/or roll around for a certain amount of distance, depending on the angle, force, and forward or back spin that you wish to launch with. When I say fairly, that means that the system doesn't always perfectly show you how Kirby will bounce, but I'd say it's about 95% accurate pretty much all the time. The presentation that Kirby's Dream Course sports is overall a pleasant surprise that mixes in the cartoony feel of the old school Kirby franchise into an isometric field of play. Though the backgrounds are non existent, and each course is plainly marked out by a grid like tile layout. Though each course is anything but flat and tile like, there is no rounded edges, which makes the levels just seem manufactured like. Overall it doesn't hurt the game though, because they flat angled squares are easier to use for calculating shots that are too far away for the game to calculate for you. The sound however, is another story...The music is practically your standard Kirby fare, with greats like the King Dedede boss fight. But the sound doesn't really have much of a range, since the game is turned based like your average golf game, though this is obviously not your average golf game. With skin tight, idiot proof controls that even Jessica Simpson could love, and an immensely original idea that blends Kirby and golf, this game has got serious game. The only gripe I'd say to watch out for, would have to be the game's short length. 8 superbly crafted courses, each with totally original layouts that utilize the game play in different aspects, both insane accuracy, and puzzle aspects. If the short length turns you off, at least know that by obtaining gold medals on these courses you can earn features in the game (very hard to do though). So for the old-schooler who never gave this game a chance, I'd definitely recommend the title, even over its short length, mainly because the difficulty will melt away that short length and make the title seem a little longer than once thought.
