Leger vs. Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land (Game Boy Advance)

Kirby's Adventure did really bring the NES down on its knees.

Beautiful, colourful, great sounding and unique in its gameplay it somehow managed to sell well and become a classic even though the year was 1993 and the SNES already had become the center of attention.

But, no.

It is not pleasant to play today.

And what a difference a complete lack of slowdowns can make, which the updated 3DS version shows. Pretty much the original game, more or less, and suddenly it feels fresh again.

Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land, on the other hand, do change things up quite a bit while at the same time staying surprisingly true to the original even though the new graphics at first makes me wonder if it really is a remake I am playing or a completely new Kirby game.

Somehow feeling like a part of a trilogy, including Kirby Super Star and Kirby and the Amazing Mirror, just by the looks of it. Leaning more towards graphics that seem hand drawn and then scanned more so than having been put together pixel by pixel.

While looking good, I can not help but feel that it somehow lacks the pixel perfect attitude of the original and without a doubt the aesthetics have little to do with what once was.

Thus, an explanation to why I at first did not recognize the layout of the levels.

More intact we do find the abilites Kirby is able to copy by inhaling enemies and the gameplay in general even though a gazillion small changes are to be found everywhere you look.

Like the fact that the handling of Kirby differs a bit, that some characteristics of the abilites have been adjused and that the bosses are bigger and sometimes easier (the moon and the sun went down even before they had a chance to attack).

Breathing fire, swinging the sword, going electric or making ice cubes. Yep, still a thing, although sometimes attacking feels much more sluggish and delayed. However, breaking certain harder blocks now seems a bit easier and having to backtrack to reach the correct ability to do this feels much less of a hassle.

Bigger changes would be the inclusion of two new mini-games (a line grinding one and one where you throw around a bomb amongst competitors until it explodes) and a revamped version of the classic western themed quick draw), the option of going multiplayer through the adventure and the harder Extra mode which now upon beating also unlock the option of playing through the adventure as Meta Knight.

For some reason I have played Kirby's Nightmare in Dream Land quite a few times now over the years with the intention of having something to say about it, but as it turned out a review never came to be.

Not until now.

I think I had to realise why this is, and now I have.

The reason?

I can for the life of me not become emotionally attached to the experience. Long before the adventure is over I start to think of what to play next.

I can not really bother about the production values when the aesthetics fail to attract (but is by no means an ugly game, it looks truly lovely at times, just kind of "generic" Kirby if that makes sense), things that annoyed me to a small degree in the original (many boss fights keep Kirby waiting for an opening to attack, so much so that the tempo of the game crawls to a halt, to mention one of these annoynances) feels out of place and annoys me more in this later production from 2003 and what is on offer in the Extra mode amplifies many of these annoyances.

Not because the Extra mode is all that hard, but because I just can not find motivation to play as concentrated as I have to do to get through the game with the frustrating parts amped up.

Like the somewhat laggy and slippery controls.

Oh, and removing the save function from the final mode, playing as a sword swinging Meta Knight not being able to copy abilites, seems like nothing more than a desperate attempt to make more out of nothing.

Running in an environment where the endless continues can be used and not having to start all over after shutting down the hardware (say, running via Virtual Console on the Wii U) renders this issue non existent, however.

Now, not to say that I actually DISLIKE Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land.

I do not.

I think it is a perfectly fine little adventure and a curious remake of a much more intriguing and fascinating original.

It is just that it to me lacks any kind of OOOMPH and as a game feels more outdated in this new outfit on the Game Boy Advance than the original without slowdowns on the 3DS.

More of a "What if Kirby's Adventure had been released on the SNES instead of the NES?" thing.

And as such it is an entirely different thing.

A quite good thing, yes.

But not like, say, the reimagining of 8-bit Metroid in Metroid: Zero Mission on the GBA.

No.