First released in 1995 for the original Game Boy, Kirby’s Dream Land 2 continues the adventures of Kirby – after Kirby’s Dream Land and Kirby’s Adventure – adding three new animal friends to help Kirby as he sets out on a quest to restore seven stolen rainbow bridges and defeat the evil force known as “Dark Matter“.

Like the previous Dream Land adventure, this is a platform game where the aim is to walk, swim or fly through a series of levels – unlocking doors as you progress – in order to reach (and defeat) the boss at the end of each stage. All the while avoiding hazards, traps and enemies which will either outright kill or otherwise harm Kirby. Kirby can again inhale enemies and spit them back out as projectiles. Inhaling, then swallowing, certain enemies confers their abilities to Kirby, such as ice breath, spikes, fireballs or poisonous farts (actually I just made that last one up, but Kirby does inhale so much air that it must come out at both ends… :-D). This ‘copy’ ability is a vital aspect of the gameplay and can be used to your advantage. If you want to change a copy ability you must first dump the one you have active by pressing Select. This will release a star that you can re-ingest to regain the dropped ability, or you can ignore the star and swallow a different enemy to copy their ability instead.

Kirby‘s health is represented as a six-piece bar at the bottom of the screen and contact with anything hostile will lose him one of those six pieces. Inhaling food will restore a portion of Kirby‘s health, but if he loses all six pieces in the bar then he’ll lose one of his remaining lives. Losing all of Kirby‘s lives inevitably results in ‘game over’.

Kirby‘s animal friends are: Rick the hamster, who runs faster, and doesn’t slip on ice; Coo the owl, who can fly quickly even through harsh winds, and allows Kirby to inhale while flying; and Kine the ocean sunfish, who can swim underwater – even against currents – although he performs poorly on land.

Kirby‘s animal friends are always found in small rooms, hanging from the roof inside a sack. In order to free them Kirby must defeat all the enemies in the room, including any sub-bosses. If Kirby clears a room where he is supposed to get an animal friend he’s already with, the sack will instead contain “Gooey“, a friendly blob who will heal Kirby instead. On rare occasions a female version of Gooey will appear, who will give Kirby a 1UP. Her appearance adds 1% to the completion of the game.

Collecting seven small stars will activate a special Kirby power for a limited amount of time. Whenever Kirby is helped by one of his animal friends, his current power is altered. For example: if Kirby has the ‘Spark’ ability active, riding on Rick will change it to the ‘Beam Attack’ from Kirby’s Adventure; riding with Coo allows Kirby to shoot down lightning bolts from the sky, and riding with Kine will let Kirby shoot lightbulbs at his enemies.

Overall, Kirby’s Dream Land 2 is another delightful game in the Kirby series, with just enough different to make it a step up from the first Dream Land adventure, while keeping the gameplay familiar enough to please the fans. The graphics, sound and gameplay are all top-quality, which is no surprise when you consider that the game was produced by Satoru Iwata and Shigeru Miyamoto.

Kirby’s Dream Land 2 can also be played on the Super Game Boy adapter for the SNES, which provides some enhancements to the game, such as enhanced colour, a special game border, and new sound effects. There’s also an amazing fan-made hack called Kirby’s Dream Land 2 DX, which converts the game for play on the Game Boy Color and is currently (at the time of writing) the best way to play KDL2.

A sequel to this game – called Kirby’s Dream Land 3 – was released for the Super Nintendo in 1997. It features similar gameplay to this, but with six animal friends to team up with.

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