Kirby's Dream Land

Kirby's Dream Land (known in Japan as 星のカービィ, transliterating to Hoshi no Kābī, translating to "Kirby of the Stars"), is the very first game in the Kirby series. The game was for the Game Boy and was followed by two similarly named games, Kirby's Dream Land 2 and Kirby's Dream Land 3.

Story
In this game, King Dedede has stolen all the food in Dream Land for himself, and Kirby has to get it back before everyone starves to death.



Gameplay
Kirby's Dream Land operates similarly to other platformers during the 8-bit and 16-bit era of video games: Kirby must head right toward the goal at the end of each level while jumping over obstacles and defeating enemies. Kirby can also fly but cannot leave the screen through doing so.

Like most games in the 80's and early 90's the player can accumulate points as they defeat enemies, and collect items and an extra life is granted once the player has enough points. However, the game lacks a save function so scores are not recorded.

All levels are played on a two dimensional plane, allowing the player to move only left, right, up, and down.

Kirby's main offensive technique is his ability to inhale enemies, objects, or food. Kirby can indefinitely inhale, and if an enemy, object, or food is in range, Kirby will eat it. When food is inhaled, it is automatically swallowed and will heal Kirby if he has any damage. When Kirby inhales an enemy or object, it remains in his mouth. At this point, Kirby can either shoot it out as a star that causes damage to anything in its path, or simply swallow it and destroy it altogether. Unlike in future games, Kirby does not gain new powers upon swallowing enemies.

Mint Leaves are also present in several locations in the game, such as right before the fight with Kaboola. This allows Kirby to fire air puffs repeatedly without inhaling.

Green Greens
The first level in the game, Green Greens is a land with big grasslands and forests.


 * Mini-boss: Poppy Bros. Sr.
 * Boss: Whispy Woods (This boss is the first instinct of battle in the game, it is also the easiest to defeat. All you have to do is dodge the apples, suck them in and fire them back at Whispy Woods, this is effective if you stand directly in the middle of the arena and then duck when he blows air puffs every so often.)

Castle Lololo
A haunted castle owned by Lololo, who is based off the main character in the Adventures of Lolo series, which HAL Laboratory has also worked on.


 * Mini-boss: Lololo
 * Boss: Lololo and Lalala

Float Islands
A chain of small tropical islands, with a cavern system and a ship.


 * Mini-boss: None
 * Boss: Kaboola

Bubbly Clouds
A level taking place up in the clouds.


 * Mini-boss: Kracko Jr.
 * Boss: Kracko

Mt. Dedede
King Dedede's castle on the top of a mountain. Kirby has to fight all of the game's previous bosses again, each time going through rooms based on the stage the boss first appeared in before he can fight King Dedede.


 * Mini-bosses: All the previous stage bosses (mini-bosses are excluded).
 * Boss: King Dedede (This is the final battle. When he is defeated, Kirby performs his victory dance.)

Legacy
Kirby's Dream Land started the entire Kirby franchise, introducing characters and ideas that would appear in future instalments. Sequels to Kirby's Dream Land have appeared on more than a half-dozen video game consoles the first of which was Kirby's Adventure for the Nintendo Entertainment System.

In addition to being the first game, there are strong references to it in its sequels. In Stage 7-6 of Kirby's Adventure (and its remake), the various rooms of the stage are modeled off of various places in Kirby's Dream Land; the stage has Green Greens music, and is even in black-and-white (except for Kirby, and also, in Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land, only the background is black-and-white). In Kirby Super Star (and its remake), one sub-game is based on Kirby's Dream Land, called Spring Breeze. It retains the same plot, but is now much shorter, removes many of the original enemies, and also has some considerable changes in level design. The main two changes are:


 * Castle Lololo is removed, and parts of it are merged with Float Islands. Lololo & Lalala are now the bosses of Float Islands, while Kaboola is removed altogether.
 * On Mount Dedede, there are only two rooms, one of which you fight Dedede in a modernized fighting ring, and the other links directly to the same ring. You no longer have to fight the previous stage bosses, likely in favor of Kirby Super Star's boss endurance, known as The Arena.

In Kirby Super Star Ultra, there is also a harder version of Spring Breeze called Revenge of the King, which acts quite like the extra game, with some of the orignal level design put back in.