Zodi Plays: Kirby Nightmare in Dream Land (Dreams Missing! Cause: Rude Penguin)

Let's Plays Completed Let's Plays
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#1

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Super huge Kirb-banner by my good friend Pinkhair. Yikes, that’s a little big! Gonna see about getting a smaller version but he’s biiiiz-aaay.

Hello and welcome to this, the beginning of my next LP. Today we’re playing the second ever Kirby game, Kirby’s Adventure. Except not. We’re actually playing it’s remake, Kirby Nightmare in Dream Land, an enhanced version of the original game made for the GBA. The original was for the NES, and it pushed that system to the utmost limits of what it was capable of. While we will be playing the GBA remake, I’ll definitely be showing off differences between the original and this one, if only for completion sake. It’s Kirby, so we should be having some fun with it, after all.

I know that, given it’s a Kirby game there isn’t much TOO spoil, but let’s try to keep what surprises there are secret until they show up, shall we? With that said, let’s jump right in to Kirby Nightmare in Dreamland!

Zodi Plays: Kirby Nightmare in Dream Land [1] Eat Your Greens

Video Length: 14:31

Oh no! The people of Dream Land have found themselves unable to dream all of a sudden! Kirby, being the good and helpful boy that he is, heads out to the Fountain of Dreams to see what is the issue. There he sees mean ole King Dedede, the guy who stole all the world’s food like a week ago, swimming in the Fountain! He stole the magic star rod that controls the fountain and broke it into pieces, giving the pieces to all his friends. It’s up to Kirby to beat up Dedede’s good friends and get the star rod back together, for the sake of good naps everywhere!

So! Kirby is an action platformer, as I’m sure you’re all no doubt aware. You can run and jump, and since Kirby is a big ole puffball he can fly indefinitely! However, new to Kirby’s Adventure/Nightmare in Dream Land, Kirby has gained the ability to slide, which does some minor damage to non boss enemies, and more importantly he can now eat his foes to gain their special abilities! This will become the mainstay of Kirby, his bread and butter, but for now this system is still in it’s early phases. Each power has only one type of attack it can do when you push that button, and it does NOTHING else. The only things with more than one use are Sword, Hammer, and a friendly power we pick up in this video that’s a super special secret. Sword and Hammer’s attack is slightly different in the air, but otherwise each power only does the one thing. A very simple system, but it works. Also, unlike the original Kirby’s Dream Land, which was a stage by stage progression thing, this new game has a sort of level hub that you can run around in to test powers and get familiar with the controls with! Every level you beat unlocks more of the current world’s hub, as well as unlocking a few special bonus doors that let us play silly minigames for lives, or access art galleries to get a free power, or access gladiator arena’s to fight an enemy to the death to obtain their power and a full heal, but more on that one later.

The first world is Vegetable Valley, a cute little plains like area full of simple enemies and simple navigation. It’s a really good way to ease the player into playing the game, and encouraging them to experiment with all the new powers at their disposal. Almost every power in the game appears in the first stage, including the illusive and immaterial UFO power! It’s a very solid set of levels, slowly ramping up to that old standard Kirby boss, Wispy Woods. Wisp Woods is a boss that shows up in basically every Kirby game, in one form or another. They even manage to make him a threat in some of them! In this game he is decidedly not threatening. A part of me feels like this was intentional, make those who’ve played the first game realize just HOW powerful Kirby’s copy abilities are by making them able to chump the first boss so effectively. With Wispy defeated, it’s onto the next world! But that’ll be for next time. Hope you all enjoyed, I’ll see you all then!

#2

Nightmare in Dreamland was my first Kirby game, which I think I bought even before I saw the commercial for it. While I mostly prefer this version to the original, I think the backgrounds, of all things, are kinda lackluster in comparison. Adventure has some really nice art.
Also, in order to change the direction you hit the bomb during Bomb Rally, you have to press A before it comes to you. It’s kind of annoying to do because you have to press the button every time you want to send it to the right, but you can do it at any point, even if your Kirby isn’t on screen.

#3

Kirby’s adventure is amazing and I always question my own memory whenever I recall it was on the NES because holy shit is this game big and full of tons of memorable bosses and areas and abilities and secrets and music and ahhhh it’s just pure wizardry that they managed to pull it off, it was STILL a great game when it was released on the GBA and it’s STILL a great game today, one of the few games I’m willing to buy on oldschool virtual console.

That being said I don’t know how you can hate on my guy cutter, sure it’s not the best but I’d take it any day over bomb (which admittedly isn’t in here but takes too long to aim for my boom boom swish fast kirby playing style) or needle which is just boring or stone which has no utility except attacking down in this game (though it is better in later titles). Cutter’s nice and fast and has good horizontal range and if you miss it might hit something coming back instead, it’s great!

1 Like
#4

Whoa, thanks. I feel like that muuust of been in the instruction book because I swear I knew that, but I had no idea. Thanks!

Kirby in general is, I think, due to it’s simple gameplay and focus on trying to make a game that is really cute and fun, ironically one of the “stress tests” that the console goes through. If a console has a really high power and super cool Kirby, it’s been pushed to the limit of what it can do.

Because really like you said, all the stuff that the NES version did is…I mean it’s a NES game and it honestly feels like a SNES game in terms of just all it does.

#5

So this is the game that made Kirby a Tyranid?

#6

Yup! In more ways than one considering what other trend this game starts…

#7

Ooops forgot to answer this I was tired when I posted last night! I don’t hate em I just like Cutter the least of the powers in this game. Sir Kibble is a true and honest friend, I just think it’s not quite as long range as I’d like it to be. It’s pretty fast though!

#8

Okay, time for more of this.

[B][URL=“https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQst7yXO5HY”]Zodi Plays: Kirby Nightmare in Dream Land [2] Ice Cream Fun Day[/URL][/B]

[B]Video Length: 14:44[/B]

Today, we tackle world 2, Ice Cream Island! That seems like a pretty rad place to hang out doesn’t it? I think so anyway. We encounter our fair share of new powers in the lovely islands, most having some kind of movement related thing to them. Parasol, which lets us bat people over the head with an umbrella as well as drift gently down on the breeze. Wheel, which let’s us turn into a super fast, hard to control wheel that burns through all obstacles and enemies. And Tornado, which lets us spin around at high speeds to beat up enemies, and which is arguably more uncontrollable than Wheel. We also see a personal favorite power of mine, Stone, and get to use the power of Mike to shout enemies to death. Thanks Mike, you’re a real pal (seriously I’ve never seen the word mike used to shorten Microphone at all what is up with that? Same with Hi-Jump instead of High Jump, though that one is clearly explained by text size limit.) We also get High Jump, a power that sends Kirby rocketing into the air like a super hero! Oh we also get LASER, which is just a simple long range blast except it bounces off curved surfaces, a rarely used but nice to have quirk. And, of course, we also find Sleep, the best power in the game. All in all, quite a good roster of powers in this game.

Also featured this episode, winning Bomb Rally through advice given in the LP Zone version of this thread, and showing off the second minigame, Air Grinding! It’s…quite a bit more challenging than bomb tossing, but I swear I usually score pretty well on it. We also see the Kirby’s Adventure version of Air Grinding, which is Kirby catching eggs in his mouth while trying to avoid bombs. If you avoid all the bombs the bombs the eggs hatch out of Kirby’s mouth in a…very weird animation. This minigame is weird as heck yo.

As for challenges we face today, we get our first encounter (technically second if you count the invincible candy) with the mysterious masked man and his armed forces! A skull with an axe, a trident throwing jerk, and a mace swinging guy! This miniboss is a re-occuring group throughout the game, seemingly trying to stop us in our quest. But their leader occasionally throws invincible candy and other nice stuff at us…how strange. After all is said and done we find ourselves at Paint Roller, the first actual boss of the game if you discount Wispy Woods. Paint Roller…well, rolls around on his skates to the four corners of the arena, drawing living art that he throws at us. We can eat the art for powers depending on what he throws out, but overall if you come into here with a good solid power he’s not that tricky to take down. Which is why I used High Jump, of course. We bop Paint Roller until he gives us his part of the Star Rod, and make our way to the next world, Butter Building. I hope you all enjoyed, I’ll see you guys next time!

1 Like
#9

“I’m usually good at this one”

eats shit on 70% of the spikes

show, don’t tell, mate :allears:

#10

I always preferred the Wave Rider minigame in Amazing Mirror. For some reason I didn’t quite understand the “stop holding A over spikes” thing. I think I tried to tap A over them for some reason? Either way, I’ve never been good at the Egg minigame so I’m kinda glad it got replaced.

#11

I…did say usually >_>[quote=“Fefnir, post:10, topic:1861, full:true”]
I always preferred the Wave Rider minigame in Amazing Mirror. For some reason I didn’t quite understand the “stop holding A over spikes” thing. I think I tried to tap A over them for some reason? Either way, I’ve never been good at the Egg minigame so I’m kinda glad it got replaced.
[/quote]

I don’t remember ANY of the minigames in Amazing Mirror, jeez. I’m…better at Egg than Air Grind, but I’m going to at least try to beat Air Grind. Eventually. Just to show it off.

#12

Kiiirby.

[B][URL=“https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyJNk2SZGsA”]Zodi Plays: Kirby Nightmare in Dream Land [3] Buttery Goodness[/URL][/B]

[B]Video Length: 16:18[/B]

In this episode, Kirby climbs the massive tower that is the Butter Building. This is the first world where every level kind of plays into a theme. For then last two worlds, it’s mostly just been random environments. Switching between plains to the sky to deserts to islands, without much concern on where we are actually going. Some of them could of been linked together into one long stage that’d work like how the original Kirby’s Dream Land did it, but for the most part it was just random. In this world, every stage could be linked from end to end and be one giant stage and it’d all fit. With that said, let’s climb the tower! It’s full of minibosses and challenging enemy encounters, and is overall a pretty fun set of levels. More importantly however, this is the first world to have the secret Switches! Every so often a level will have a secret Switch inside of it that opens up more of the hub, and requires some fancy thinking to get to. It’s a fun little bit of bonus for the player, an extra bit of gameplay that’s quite appreciated, and is the first signs of Kirby getting fancy with what it does with these levels. Because remember, this was original a NES game. Not many games had secrets in their levels like this.

Speaking of being on the NES, this world actually features from changes from the original that are kind of shocking. Now, normally, when there is a change to the actual level itself I don’t really intend to show it off since it’s often just a minor thing. Last video, you remember that area with the Burning power and the steel boxes and stuff? That’s just a straight hallway in Kirby’s Adventure, there’s nothing fun to show about that. But here, there’s actually a pretty massive change. In the original, a couple areas of the tower where these rather cool “run along the ground and it causes the tower to rotate in a sort of mock Mode 7 like effect” which was SUPER impressive at the time because, again, this was a NES game. If you didn’t have sprite flicker you were like, super fancy. And yet on the GBA version, these areas are replaced with, in the first instance a long upward climb, and with the other two a mysterious misty area that basically serves no purpose at all. And that’s just kind of baffling to me because the GBA is basically just a miniature SNES, effectively? So the fact that they couldn’t get it to do the fancy mode seven esque thing that the NES did is just weird to me.

Anyway, let’s talk about powers, cause we see a bunch more today. We’ve almost seen every one! Today we get to see Ice, which is the cold equivalent of Fire. We spray out a frosty breath of ice that freezes everything it touches! We also encounter the Light power, which is such a non power that I may as well not mention it cause all it does is brighten up the room you find it in, and there’s like only two rooms in the entire game that have this and only one needs it, and even then only if you don’t remember where a door is. We also get Hammer, the strongest power in all of Kirby, though in this game it’s just a stronger, slower Sword due to powers just being more simple here. Still, quite strong! And of course, last but not least in the slightest, we get Back Drop. Still not called Suplex in this, but I don’t mind. It’s still amazing and I love it. In the original Kirby you’d suck up enemies to do the tossing around, but in the GBA version you do a little dash to grab enemies, and it makes it a LOT more usable, offense wise. You’re indestructible while throwing things, and everything in your path gets destroyed! It’s one of my favorite powers in terms of sheer just “I like to play with it” ness.

Other things to just talk about in this episode: we get the final minigame unlocked! Quick Draw, a game that is basically identical in both NES and GBA versions of the game. The only difference being the NES one is cowboys, and the GBA one is samurai. So like I said, basically identical. These games are…REALLY hard because it’s just a timing/reaction thing, and due to framerates on emulators being kinda weird and just the general idea that my reaction time has slowed slightly over the years, I’m not actually sure I’ll be able to show off a win for these! But we’ll see.

At any rate let’s finish this stage up because I’ve written far more about this big ole building than I expected. At the very tippity top of the tower is a boss, and as you’d expect it’s Kracko in the clouds except for some reason NO, IT’S NOT, and that feels really weird to me? Instead the top of the tower is a simple hill/field and the bosses are Mr Shine and Mr Bright, animated representations of the Moon and Sun. So apparently they’re just friends of the King! Mr Shine and Mr Bright effectively share a health bar, each having half the health of a regular boss, and can only be damaged while animated. Their attacks are of course different depending on if they’re animated or not. An animated Mr Shine throws boomerangs at you that I think you can eat to gain Cutter, and does a rolling spin dash at you. An animated Mr Bright shoots fireballs at you, and does a fiery charge. While in the sky Mr Shine can make it rain shooting stars, while Mr Bright can fire a laser beam of white hot fire at you. Mr Bright’s kind of ridiculous? But yeah, as I show, the Wheel power kind of makes quick work of them. Being invincible for most of the fight tends to do that. With them defeated, we can move on to the next area, the Grape Garden! It’s time for some wine tasting with Kirby. I hope you all enjoyed, I’ll see you then.

#13

I was all ready to ream you out for not putting the butter building nes intro in this one, why’d you have to remember :gonk:

Also them removing the butter building rotation sucks! There was even one bit in the original where you hop on a warp star and fly up and AROUND the building a bunch of times and it looked sick as hell and unless I missed it they removed that too??? Boo hissss

1 Like
#14

That’s still in this version, but the tower itself doesn’t rotate in either version.

And don’t worry, I’m away from my way of recording the NES game footage for awhile so I might not be able to show off the intro to then other stages! I might…you know, fix that, but for at least the…second next one, I probably won’t be able to show it. Maybe. So you’ll get your chance to dunk on me.

#15

oh shit it is, at 7:17. The tower looks so different and non-buttery it didn’t even register in my mind as the same scene.

#16

All the changes in this world and the next are really strange to me. Like, were they really unable to replicate mode 7 for this, or did they just not have the time to do it?
I’ve not been able to beat Quick Draw since I first played the game, even on Level 1. One Level 3, I don’t even think I can get past the Chef.

#17

Onward, to the garden of fine wine.

[B][URL=“https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ezs-W9FKjk8”]Zodi Plays: Kirby Nightmare in Dream Land [4] Stop Wine-ing[/URL][/B]

[B]Video Length: 19:50[/B]

In this one, we tackle the Grape Garden, an interesting set of levels. Unlike the Butter Building, which had a fairly consistent theme throughout, this one has less connecting themes and more unique individual themes. We’ve got the goofy and fun Poppy House, full of basically nothing but Poppy Bros. We’ve got a fleet of airships (who have the location of their propellers changed in the GBA version, and also has the propellers rotating, showing they could of done Butter Building’s rotating!) and a huge overgrown forest of grapes, the titular Garden. It’s a pretty cool set of stages, though some of them are a bit shorter than they really have any right to be. This was originally a NES game but it feels like being on a portable system like the GBA was always what it was meant to be. Perhaps since this is the second game in the series they built it with the same handheld mindset Kirby’s Dream Land had? Who knows!

Of course before we dive into the game proper, I wanna show off the mysterious masked man throwing candy at us. Just for then sake of showing it. Anyway, let’s talk powers! This is the first time UFO appears in a level where it’s not hidden in some shape or form, so that’s cool. Sadly, before we can really make use of it, we encounter a new power: Ball. Ball is…tricky to use. It gains momentum weird, and loses momentum weird, and depending on how fast it’s going either it’s up and/or bottom movement will cause damage, and you’re invincible during it but not completely during it so it’s hard to actually use offensively, and it doesn’t break blocks except from the side so it’s hard to actually progress using it sometimes, especially where we first find it, and where we first find it has no floors it’s just blocks so it’s super easy to suicide yourself here. All in all, Ball is…one hell of a power. I’m sure it’s got it’s uses, but I am not a fan. I am a fan of the next power we found, Throw! Throw, like Back Drop, has us grab enemies. Though unlike the GBA version of Back Drop, you do the regular Kirby inhale to get em. Once in your hands, Kirby can throw them forward, diagonally up, or diagonally down, causing an intense amount of damage! When shooting stuff at enemies from your mouth, if you inhale two or more things you get a powerful star that cuts through enemies and blocks. Throw’s projectile is always at that strength. It’s pretty powerful, and is one of my favorite powers due to just how fun it is. Maybe I’m biased because I just like throwing things?

Anyway, unlockables and stuff. We find a museum full of Ball and Sleep, probably the toughest power choice you could possibly make in one of these. We find an Arena that yes, finally, gives me a perfect and immediate source of Suplex for when I want or need it. Or when the game decides I’m allowed to have it. Nice. That’s really all that’s notable about the stuff we unlock, but some of the stuff we need to do to GET them is pretty cool. Even if it’s as simple as “go slightly further to get the right door” in the airship area, or using Light to reveal a door hidden in the darkness. It’s just fun little puzzles and challenges that are neat. Like with the Wheelie Race and burning the rope for the canon, it’s these iconic little mind teaser challenges that really sell Kirby as a game that is easy to beat but challenging to complete, if that makes sense.

Finally, after punching our way through the garden, we make our way up to the clouds to fight everyone’s favorite crackling sky demon, Kracko! This time we kind of interrupt him mid pants changing, so we’ve got to leap our way into the clouds as he blows them up, until we finally reach the top to have the fight proper. I don’t really get why this is a thing beyond faking us out about Kracko Jr from Kirby’s Dream Land. I guess that’s really it? But yeah, like I show here, High Jump is real good against Kracko just kind of in general due to the lengthy invincibility frames it grants. Ball and Tornado would suffice as well, but I’ve always liked using High Jump because it feels real satisfying to slam your face into a cloud. We dispatch the jerk, obtaining the green part of the Star Rod, do a little dance, and head off to the Yogurt Yard for our next bit of adventure. Hope you all enjoyed, I’ll see you guys next time.

#18

I think you can light fuses with the Crash ability, which is what I always do when I carry it into 4-3 because I like overdoing things, I guess.
I don’t know why they got rid of the airship at the beginning of 4-4. It’s a pretty cool setpiece that I’m pretty sure could have been done in the GBA version.

#19

Huh, didn’t know that. I’ll have to try that out later.

Also yeah removing the airship part is just…weird. Thinking about this game and some of it’s design decisions is fascinating.

#20

I’ll never understand the kirb obsession with hiding secret things behind singular weird pixels. At least for important stuff like switches I think the stage doors have two different colors to show if you’ve got anything left to find (that was in this game right???) but some of the “here’s a secret power” stuff are just like, how did anyone find this?

It’s there through the series, I remember a bunch of it in Planet Robobot just made me go “why even HAVE the smash power if the only way to find it is to smush your face against every pixel in the stage?”

(also if you rewatch the bronto bit you’ll see there were two of them, you spat out your mouth thingie at one, the second one didn’t die but was covered up by the explosion sprite, you sucked that one up and bum badum badumbum, ba dum, BUM.)