Pokémon Red and Blue

And so, it finally begins: my foray into a certain video game phenomenon that's ballooned far past its Nintendo origins. In a development still eluding my inner seven-year-old, I've largely cooled on my Pokémon passion. This isn't to say we had a falling out -- my two visits to Pokémon: Symphonic Evolutions should be testament enough -- but that I've only just purchased Pokémon Let's Go: Pikachu! four months after release, still have yet to open it, and am currently resisting the smoldering coals of Pikachu's eyes as I type this prove it's no longer my No. 1 video game priority. I confess this as a young man whose Pokémon background mirrored that of every other young boy in 1999 America: I played Pokémon Red -- one of the two versions we're reviewing today -- to death, worshipped the localized cartoon daily, and collected countless cards, stuffed animals, books, and toys. Those, too, reflect the ravages of time: the teams I've forged in Pokémon Red are forgotten and erased, I've long since abandoned the (still-running!) anime, my old cards -- despite my best efforts in preservation binders -- still pop up in various nooks and crannies,  strategy guides and comic books lie torn and/or lost, the stuffed animals display worn seams and cat gnawed-tears, and toys lie broken, disassembled, and battery-drained.

That it took this long to cover a full-length review for Pokémon -- having previously only covered brief impressions for Pokémon Soul Silver and Pokémon White while only reviewing the Detective Pikachu spin-off -- most publicly proves this shift, but make no mistake: while we could chalk up any number of reasons why I've fallen off the Pokémon ride, my same passion for writing, game analysis, and historic study applied to its Game Boy roots. It is my dedication to nostalgia that keeps me on this path, and what better evidence than playing both Red and Blue versions via their 3DS Virtual Console re-releases to completion? This was completely unnecessary in itself -- both only differ in version-exclusive Pokémon to catch --  but their infamous balance sparked an insatiable curiosity. If there's any confirmation a deep love for Pikachu still beats in my heart, let it be that.

Biweekly Music Wednesday! No. 41 ~Rainbow Road~ (Mario Kart 64)

Origin: Mario Kart 64

Plays In: Rainbow Road
Status: Original Composition
Composed by: Kenta Nagata

In the past, I've used the following imagery to describe early nostalgia:

"I remember the starry luminous skies of the Rainbow Resort in Kirby's Adventure eliciting memories of when I was very young, strapped in the car's backseat as I stared in silent wonder at the luminous neon lights passing by."

While used to describe the ending levels in Kirby's Adventure, the imagery of cars and neon lights just as easily bring to mind Rainbow Road from any one Mario Kart. When it comes to my own nostalgia for that series, there's no other choice but  Mario Kart 64, the very first game I ever asked for at the age of 6. And I'm certainly not alone in my fond memories of the game; in particular, Mario Kart 64's Rainbow Road iteration elicits similar sentimentality to that aforementioned imagery: neon imagery of the game's roster up in the night sky, an endless guardrail of stars, that soothing music....

But can nostalgia speak for a game's actual quality? Diving deeper into Mario Kart 64 discussions will uncover many who feel that particular Rainbow Road far too long and boring; in fact, it often goes hand-in-hand with criticism of the game not aging too well. Even today, I wonder if that's true: whenever I'd briefly return to my first Mario Kart, it'd always feel so clunky and unfamiliar relative to the newer titles.

That should be decided through a Leave Luck to Heaven review, you may say, but there's another point I'd like to discuss for today: haven't you ever wanted to replay your favorite old games with the same exact sense of wonder you felt as a child?  It's tough to admit, but there's certainly been many times I've prepped my game sessions like that, and they were often abandoned in misery; for example, for the longest time I had difficulty replaying Super Mario 64 because I would never relive that wonderful sense of discovery.

Knowing that I would never relive my childhood years was one of the most difficult realizations I've ever had to endure. In itself, that is not wrong: you have to grow up to recognize and tackle the trials and tribulations around not just yourself, but of the world. But do we recognize that burden when we're just entering our teenage years, when our bodies undergo changes and we grow fickle over every little thing? Perhaps, but that only validates our fears and declining perspective of the world.

"That's how nostalgia gets to you. You're reminded of a familiar fragrance or feeling that perfectly mirrors how you felt during a certain period of your youth, and you desperately try in vain to contain it. You attempt to revel in it to make the feeling last a lifetime, and you think of everything that happened to you to contain it, whether it was your favorite cartoon or video game and all the friends you had. It's a several month, perhaps year-long experience all packed in a few seconds, and then it's gone."

Like it or not, cynicism takes over us as we grow older. It's why we grow so excited when A Link to the Past sequel is being made for 3DS, or grow misty-eyed at video game orchestras or when Super Smash Bros. arranges beloved EarthBound and Mega Man tunes, or simply stare in awe when Mario Kart 8 reimagines a fan-favorite course with an explosion of color. To us, it's as if developers are saying "we remember how you feel, too," and hold our halcyon-day memories to the highest regard.

In turn, their nostalgia introduced to a new generation, and the cycle continues.

Mario Kart 64 is the furthest form of nostalgia as it the most mysterious. It was a time where I thought the N64 controller was loosely based off of Mario's gloves, where the 3D models on the character select screen felt larger than life and that half-finished wall painting of Mario down in the basement, which my mother never finished. How much of that can be replicated? Not much, unless I want to stare at unfinished paintings in the filthy, dirty backside of the basement.

Point is, we can never replicate exactly how we felt when first playing a game, as they'd require outside influences to be replicated again and again (that, and do I really want my mother to make incomplete paintings of Mario?) Maybe Mario Kart 64 isn't all that hot now, but having replayed Super Mario 64 over three times in the past three years, it's stunning to me how that game holds up today despite its rudimentary nature. 

Take the old in with the new, and forge on. Criticize the new and the new, and accept their quality as they are. As a writer, it is my duty to record such experiences.

Final Thoughts: No, really, how does Mario Kart 64 hold up? Hmm...maybe it's time for a Mario Kart retrospective.

Star Fox 64

Star Fox 64 belongs to a genre I've hardly dabbled in, yet remain fascinated by: shoot-'em-ups. What was once a popular, omnipresent form of play has since been relegated to a niche following, overshadowed by the likes of AAA development and online gaming. Yet while people just aren't willing to put down money in the face of bigger, meatier experiences, shoot-'em-ups and rail shooters remain as intense as ever for those dedicated to the genre.

And yet despite my limited experience, would it be so bold if I were to claim Star Fox 64 is the greatest of them all? Perhaps it's just my bias speaking, and I'd be lying if the air-shooting sections in Kid Icarus: Uprising hadn't already surpassed it in both difficulty and design, but nearly twenty years of endlessly replaying this game will do that to you. It is, at the very least, one of the very best "pick up and play" games I have ever encountered: every run ends in less than a hour, I regularly shift routes in every playthrough, and I've practically memorized every line of dialogue, be it the cries of hapless wingmate Slippy Toad or the crusty train driver of Macbeth.

Even today, it has yet to grow old, but why? Like Super Mario 64 before it, Star Fox 64 is a full-fledged showcase of what the N64 can do. Oh, yes, I could point out the seams in the skyboxes, and maybe the Rumble Pak lacks the same thrilling punch it had back in 1997, but that the gameplay still holds up to this day is what matters. Beyond its bullet point of being the first Nintendo game to feature extensive voice acting, the likes of an elaborate scoring system that depends not just on your mastery of the shooting system's intricacies, but of the routes you embark on is endlessly fascinating to me. No longer are we limited to a route based our choice of difficulty (as per the original Star Fox for Super Nintendo), but we're encouraged to chart courses of mingling toughness.

This isn't done by the mere press of a button, either; you must work for it. Hidden trails and warps for your Arwing fighter to soar through are strewn across the planets of the Lylat System, and while they're not always thoroughly hidden, there's always a sense of accomplishment in that you, as a player, had successfully guided the Star Fox team into another course. For instance, the game doesn't always rely on extra passageways: if you fail to defend the bases at Katina or Fortuna, you can forget about heading to Solar.

You can, of course, retry, and while it prods at our egos that we do so, we're ever more grateful it allows such an option rather than committing an even worse sin: wasting our time. There's a delicious freedom to it all, and while it sadly lacks the option to replay any mission you'd like (a feature added to its 2011 3DS remake), it doesn't really matter when the entire game's great fun, or even that long. If anything, I find the anticipation of reaching certain planets only heightens their experiences. In particular, there's Macbeth, where you gradually destroy The Forever Train while piloting the Landmaster Tank; Zoness, a toxic ocean that requires swift destruction of incoming search lights, and Sector Y, an armada-filled battleground with shogun robots and one very obvious (but fun!) A New Hope reference. If the careful player plays their cards correctly, they can reach all three in one playthrough.

Naturally, there's more to Star Fox 64 than routes. For one, there's shooting. Lots of shooting. Good shoot-'em-ups provide countless options to rack up the highest score, and Star Fox 64 is no exception. Even now I juggle my split-second decisions in the opening level of Corneria: naturally, I know the hidden route achieved by flying under the stone arches leads to a higher score (and Sector Y, should I choose to go there), but what about everything else before then? Catching more than one enemy fighter in a charge shot acquires more points, so even now I aim my shots towards land-based units just as an air-bound one swoops down from the sky. It's harder than it sounds, but I know it's doable.

This is not to say Star Fox 64 is an overly difficult campaign in itself; really, any retro shoot-'em-up can give it a run for its money in that area, as I can practically storm through it on autopilot. It's how I choose to play that provides an enticing challenge, as I can either aim for a new total high score or improve a kill count for any single planet (and even then, there's an unlockable Extra Mode if I desire a tougher challenge. Venom is just nasty).

I could go on, such as how every enemy is expertly telegraphed, the intensity of the Star Wolf dogfights and  how much fun it is to bomb things, but it'd all just feed into my ultimate point of how some of Nintendo's best games deeply respect the creed of "easy to learn, hard to master", and Star Fox 64 is among their company. However, while I still to this day aim for bigger and better scores, I am hardly any such example of said creed. Really, I suspect that it's framed just perfectly enough within its presentation that ultimately appeals to me. The story and world operate like a distilled Star Wars (albeit with an anthromorphic population), never intruding upon gameplay progression but instead as a form of accompaniment. Being distilled Star Wars means it's presented with typical camp and cheese, yet it's never bloated to the point where I can't take it seriously.

Case in point: the voice acting, which is largely comprised of local, unknown talent. Not "bad" talent, mind, but mainly actors you'd see in your downtown theater or whose voice talents are largely reserved for radio, audiobooks and commercials. Perfect for the short, memorable quips of Mario and his friends, but let it be known voice direction has always been the NOA Treehouse's Achilles' heel, and that can prove to be largely disastrous in dialogue-heavy games. Later examples like Metroid: Other M and Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance attest to this, but in what's nothing less than a miracle, you'd hardly know it from Star Fox 64.

See, it'd be all too easy to cite nostalgia as the reason why, but it wasn't until the game's 3DS remake that I realized the secret sauce: it's all performed genuinely. This isn't a case of the directors and voice actors obnoxiously doubling down on the camp present in the game's script, nor is it a case of the latter coming in to deliver half-hearted performances for what they--and perhaps the directors involved-- perceive to be another dinky children's computer game. No, this is the result of a circle of individuals who came together to produce a living, breathing sci-fi adventure, who understand that this is a world that requires a delicate balance in tone; it's not nearly as raw as Metroid or Fire Emblem, but not nearly as squeaky clean as Super Mario or Kirby. A world where a fox seeks to avenge his father, a falcon can be brash and cocky, a hare gives sagely advice, and a frog can be endearingly clumsy.

Fox McCloud (Mike West), the team leader, is oddly the member with the least number of lines, but that's no excuse for West to get sloppy; he's played as the youthful leader, but he's performed seriously enough so that lines like "Let's rock and roll!" don't come across as overly comic. Meanwhile, through some careful guidance from the Japanese development team, Falco Lombardi (Bill Johns) is successfully played as the Han Solo to Fox's Luke Skywalker: quick to bark at Fox for his mistakes, but sets his sass aside for moments of true camaraderie...even if it's bitter sarcasm ("Gee, I've been saved by Fox, how swell").

Of course, the real star is Rick May's Peppy Hare, and I'm not just saying that because his words of wisdom ("Do a barrel roll!") have been repeated on internet forums everywhere since 1997. Even with a slight Southern accent, he's portrayed as the most grounded character (as it should be, considering he's the veteran who laid witness to Fox's father's death). I said earlier that Star Fox 64 never gets raw, yet it's amazing how his passionate cries for help tiptoe on that line; check out how he screams "What's taking you so long, Fox?!?" when chased by an enemy fighter.

The villains are no slouch, either: the delicious British accents for Jock Blaney's Wolf  and Jay Green's Leon are easily the highlight of the opposing Star Wolf team, although I'm particularly fond of Pigma Dengar's  whiny jackassery. Meanwhile, the delicious cheese of the various bosses are infinitely quotable in themselves, particularly Sector Y's Shogun ("COCKY LITTLE FREAKS!") and the Macbeth train driver ("Step on da gas!"). There's also Andross (Rick May), the big bad whose synthesized voice continues to haunt me with one line: the echo of his thundering giggle that pervades the final battle.

 The only weak link I can spot is Lyssa Browne's Slippy Toad, and it's not that she does the job poorly as it that she's, well, miscast. A recent all-cast interview reveals she was directed to channel the voice of a boy, but that's clearly not what we have here: it's a voice very much that of a woman, and it's caused no shortage of gender confusion (for the record, Slippy is male). And yet, I cannot bring myself to hate her performance. She's miscast, yes, but nostalgia be damned! Her performance is just as genuine as the rest, and it's become just as much a cherished part of Star Fox 64 as anything else.

Let's not forget the music, either. Legendary game composer Koji Kondo, who did sound effects for the original Star Fox, promotes himself to composing the game's peripheral pieces (as in, the opening/title themes, menu, game over, etc.). The main theme--a recurring motif which became the series theme from hereon--is more of a military march than the grand orchestra of Star Fox's SNES days. While it's a song that's proven its compatibility for orchestra in future appearances, that it hues closer to a Saturday Morning action cartoon is what reigns in the game's tonal balance.

We see the motif repeat in the ending theme, but though the (also great) Level Clear theme takes most of the spotlight, it's actually host to one of my favorite Nintendo ending/credits sequences. Yes, the awkward dialogue between Fox and General Pepper is hilariously abrupt, but it never interrupts the catharsis of the final two scenes: the Star Fox Team triumphantly sprinting across rocky terrain as the Great Fox mothership slowly soars into the setting sun, ending the credits with a percussion-filled choir. Be for it for the purposes of a nostalgic revisit, the thrill of a high-score run or simply playing for pleasure, I'm hard-pressed to think of many game endings this rewarding. (As an aside, I've found it's grown ever more powerful since former Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi, whose credit as Executive Producer covers the sun right as the choir kicks in, passed away in 2013).

This isn't necessarily a surprising direction, as such prestige rolls back to the Menu Theme, a favorite of mine which I've written about before. Echoing that of a museum, it's one of my favorite Nintendo menu themes in that it always compels me to sit down and reflect on a journey I've taken hundreds of times. Be it before I've even started a new campaign or when I'm entering a new score at the end, it successfully frames Star Fox 64 as the vindicated sci-fi tale it wants to be, as evidenced by how it segues into the "military briefing" style of the Prologue/Map theme.

But let us not heap all the praise on Kondo, for Hajime Wakai is the game's leading composer. His debut work for Nintendo, Wakai helms the game's levels to varying success. That's not to knock on his composition skills; everything from the Fortuna/Sector Z theme to the dream-like Warp zones expertly capture dogfight battlegrounds and the mystery of space. No, it's the sound quality where things tend to slip a little. I'm not sure why it's mainly just on Wakai's end while Kondo's pieces are stronger in this area (especially when Kondo had similar fumbles in Zelda: Ocarina of Time), but regardless, it's worth an  analysis.

Corneria is a great example in showing Star Fox 64's instrumentation falters in one area: percussion. Not the booming ones from the aforementioned credits, but the lighter kind meant to accompany the main tune. It's pitifully tinny, and it's particularly dreadful when there's no actual tune to mask it. One can also spot this in the fast-paced Star Wolf theme.

Here's the good news, though: much of this weakness are in the beginning percussion, and you tend to forget about as the main tune kicks in. What's actually bizarre is that I hardly notice this when playing it, as it's drowned out by the Arwing engines and the superb voice work before I have a chance to notice. Here, examples like the theme for Sector Y and Solar, where the percussion briefly carries the opening segment, are obscured by the onscreen action.

Of course, this isn't a problem for themes like Venom where it springs out the gate with a different instrument. Percussion's vital here too, but the other instruments at work ensure the song--a nightmare-ish dive into the world that killed Fox's father--capture the player instantly. For the record, even though this plays in the route that leads to the false ending, this song alone is why I actually prefer this version of Venom to the hard path one.

Really, if I must name one flaw from a design standpoint, it's the multiplayer. There can be some fun mined from it, sure, but there's no getting around that it's woefully barebones. I could certainly envision a multiplayer mode with Star Fox 64's engine being a grand ol' time, but certainly not with only two stages and the barest of environmental interaction. Not even the novelty of opting to have your character walk around with bazookas can salvage it from mediocrity.

But let us not tarry on such blemishes. Let it be known that while I enjoyed the divisive follow-ups to the Star Fox brand (barring Rare's adventure-based turd), none of them have a patch on what I, once again, personally deem to be the very finest of its genre. There's no half-baked gimmicks jumbling out a mess of ideas; no repetitive concepts overshadowing a tried-and-true gameplay model. It's simply Star Fox 64: a game with lightning-fast pacing confined to an afternoon's delight. It remains not just one of the Nintendo 64's best, but an exemplary standard of the aerial combat fighter.

Ten Years of Kirby ~Reverie 6~ Kirby's Dream Land 3

Not even a week after Kirby Super Star's release in North America in September 1996, the Nintendo 64 launched with the revolution that was Super Mario 64. While not the first of its kind (that is, a 3-D game), it was certainly what turned people's eyes around to the endless possibilities of the new genres. No longer were developers shackled to the confines of two-dimensional space, as the awe-inspiring scope of Bob-omb Battlefield proved that game direction could be taken as far as the imagination allowed it. Companies quickly shifted gears in their development processes, whether it be direct knock-offs of Mario 64 or reconstructing obscure genres (such as Metal Gear Solid's take on stealth). Stragglers such as Klonoa and Mega Man attempted to prove 2-D gaming still had its place, but the public's captivation said otherwise.

With this in mind, it immediately strikes the retrospective game historian as being rather odd that Nintendo would continue bothering with the already-archaic 2D-focused Super Nintendo. Do not misinterpret me: I am not with any shortage of love for Nintendo's greatest home console, but why focus on an ancient console when your current one is struggling to gain a successful foothold? It's possible they assumed the two systems would be joint successes such as how the NES/SNES were previously, but with third-parties rapidly jumping ship to a more compatible contender (the disc-based Sony Playstation), it would seem rather obvious the N64 would need all the support it could get.

But as still remains the case today, debating the origins of Nintendo's infamous stubbornness will yield not answers but instead endless headaches, so we may as well accept and analyze the cards we were dealt. From a purely Japanese perspective, the aging Super Famicom was still quite healthy. Game distribution remained active through online (the expensive Satellaview add-on) and mail order (The Nintendo Power service; not to be confused with the American magazine of the same name), the most notable games including a Mario-themed Excitebike title, a Kirby spin-off, and a notoriously difficult Fire Emblem.

I cannot speak for Japan on their opinion for what seemed to be a rather inconvenient method of acquiring games (although said inconvenience and the failure of Famicom Stories: The Forest of Beginnings to bear potential financial fruit may be satisfactory hints alone), but regardless it stands in rather stark contrast to the bare lineup of American SNES titles; in particular, the circumstances surrounding Kirby's Dream Land 3 stump me. This is not to slight the game's quality, but I absolutely cannot imagine this being released in the same year (1997) when the N64 set the standards for the home console shooter via the instant popularity of Goldeneye 007, when the Zelda faithful were salivating over every shred of detail surrounding the upcoming Ocarina of Time, and--most damningly of all--within the very same month where Diddy Kong Racing was set to break the then-world record of being the fastest selling game ever released. As expected, despite sharing the name of the popular Dream Land Game Boy games, the game was forgotten as quickly as it came.

 It's due to this obscurity (among several other factors I'll discuss shortly) that Dream Land 3 was branded as something of a "black sheep" within the Kirby family tree--not something I entirely agree with, mind you, but it's not so surprising as to why it received that unfortunate label. First and foremost: the "crayon" graphics, while certainly ambitious in its own right, instantly divided players in a manner akin to the much more infamous Yoshi's Story; in other words, one either adored Dream Land 3's unique charm or found it not only too childish but also rather alien to the previous Kirby aesthetics they had grown accustomed to. I can understand these opinions (though sadly I still struggle comprehending anyone who despises the similar Kirby's Epic Yarn), for the game is not without its problems but it is this very alien nature that draws me to it.

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One reason why Kirby's Dream Land 3 struggles to maintain a positive public identity is that of its successful predecessor: Kirby Super Star. The mechanically ambitious 1996 title was designed around the ideal of constructing the grandest Kirby game yet on 16-bit hardware and had satisfied all its fans on that front, so to develop a title with a lesser focus on gameplay renders it rather off-putting to more than a few people. Given that I had played the two games within the relatively same time period at a young age (beyond their years of release, at that), I found no difficulty in separately enjoying the games on their own; in particular, the graphical direction of Dream Land 3 was more than enough to hook me. Now that I'm a young adult can see their differences, and my research of the series points to one very obvious culprit: the change of director.

As established within my Dream Land 2 editorial, Shinichi Shimomura is by no means a Masahiro Sakurai. How he got away with the bizarre juxtaposition of the two worst introductory worlds ever crafted within the 2D platforming genre and a gradual ascension into a near-masterpiece is beyond me, and during my venture within the Dream Collection I was dreading the same mistake would pervade his later two games. While Dream Land 3 isn't nearly as bad as its Game Boy brother in this regard, there is a definite tedium within its early stages that's obviously not present within Sakurai's Kirby titles. But if the SNES title truly has anything over Dream Land 2, it is its possession of the single ambition that matches Kirby Super Star:  its aesthetics.

Utilizing the very same SA-1 graphical chip that lent Super Star its graphical prowess, Dream Land 3 makes use of what's apparently dubbed "pseudo high-resolution", cleverly building upon the dithering effect (a graphical technique that pushes systems beyond primary color boundaries by "blending" opposing colors) normally reserved for Sega Genesis games. By blending adjacent pixels, the normally bright colors that populated Kirby's world are faded into a style that cleverly mimics a unique mixture of pastel drawings and sketchy scribbles. The detail-strewn backgrounds and exuberant character animations of Super Star are nowhere to be seen: everything is kept simple.

As much as I adore Super Star's explosion of colors and usage of CGI, there is no denying Dream Land 3 held the crown for being the most visually distinctive Kirby game for thirteen years. What amazes me most about the game is that it yet another juxtaposition: it pushes the Super Nintendo to its limits with a creative graphical process, but what is ultimately presented is something so purposely, deliberately soft that it looks as easy as a child's daydream. One may instantly think of the similarly pastel-driven nature of Yoshi's Island, but the two games only share similar backgrounds; the lively, animated spritework of Yoshi's Island are independent of the immaculate detail found in the background/foreground, while Dream Land 3 applies its blend of crayon and pastel to everything on the screen (aside from several of the pick-ups, which take on a simple 8-bit look). Dream Land 3's aesthetics have more in common with an infant's Winnie the Pooh blanket--subdued colors, traces of pastel, and character designs that instantly appeal on being "cute" as opposed to the more stocky, expression-driven characters of the past.

This is not to downplay the cuteness found in Kirby's first four years, but those games (save Super Star) were no different than the deformed, ambiguous 8-bit sprites of yesteryear. With Dream Land 3 arriving in an era where an abundance of detail left little imagination to the player, there is a very obvious aesthetic direction into the realm of overt cuteness that was never present before in the series -- forget the artstyle, just look at the beadiness of Rick the Hamster's eyes (or any character, really) or the lovey-dovey nature of Kirby and Chuchu's parasol cruise! Of course, Dream Land 3's irrelevance rendered any irritation vastly inferior to the vast disappointment met with Yoshi's Story -- another ill-fated cutesy platformer that came out not long afterwards--but I still imagine some frustration with the game was met with older audiences (even I confess to having my limits: I object to the name "Love-Love Stick", granted to the weapon Kirby wields to battle the final boss. I mean, seriously?)

Any qualms with cuteness are, however, ultimately nitpicks, for I find Dream Land 3 to be quite a charming looker. The backgrounds in particular I find interesting: a good chunk of  'em are no more detailed than the settings found in toddlers' picture books, but others get away with some surprising artistic choices, such as exclusively using watercolors to depict the molten-rock laden underground...

...to the pale birch trees resting near a shore. I've always associated these trees with something akin to sickly depression--peeling bark, y'know--and yet their presence within Dream Land 3 feels completely natural thanks to the similarly light pastel.

Indeed, the aquatic Ripple Fields world is host to some of Dream Land 3's strongest designs: including the aforementioned birch trees, the game presents more foreign locales with realistic lakesides and islands dotting the distance. It's the closest the series has ever traversed outside the boundaries of fantasy, providing a taste of something more akin to Donkey Kong Country 3 than anything in a bubbly children's game. The only representatives of the imagination are a stunning ocean-scenic temple home to cascading waterfalls--the veteran Nintendo fan can't help but ponder how such a concept could work in Zelda--and a pair of muffin-shaped islands surrounded by puffy clouds. As powerful as the temple level is solely on the grounds that its design has yet to be mimicked in future titles, the puffy islands remain my personal favorite background piece solely due an incredibly minor detail of absolutely no significance to the game itself, and yet my nostalgia for it is fierce.

Check out that house. Players have witnessed a similar detail in Kirby Super Star, but that ended up being the location of the heavily abridged Castle Lololo. Here? We never get a chance to drop in, and yet my young imagination was held captive by it. Who lives there? Why did they choose to live in the middle of an ocean? Was it a homage to Muten-Roshi's island in Dragon Ball? It is only a speck in the distance, yet it is the only drop of character placed within Dream Land 3's background props. Super Star's backgrounds were so luscious and beautiful that I immediately dove into the reverie they produced, yet here I contemplated and imagined. It bears for me the same enticing mystery of Super Mario Sunshine's book, one where I can have an eternity to craft an answer; an answer that I can continue to compose and revise much as I please.

So while the background don't get quite as CGI-intensive as Super Star, there are still some impressive effects going on with the foreground. Nothing that usually affects the actual game (unfortunate, but we'll get to that particular problem later), but still nice to look at. By far the most impressive is the forest level at the end of Grass Land, where the tree bushes transparently cover the level.

Complementing the muted graphics is an equally muted sound direction. I state the word "muted" with some difficulty, as the soundtrack frequently shifts between soft lullabies and hyper-frantic marathons, yet I can't help but notice just how soft the sound effects are. The explosions and rumbles that proliferated throughout Super Star are now relegated to simple pops and snaps, further reducing the frantic nature found before. The Shotzo cannons that frequently plague players are the best example of this; it's not like their barrage of cannonballs detonated with fury before, and yet it's suddenly so distinct when they audibly fire with all the force of a pebble dropping to the ground. The way Dream Land 3 commits to this soft nature--sound and graphics and even the impact of Kirby and co.'s attacks--is no doubt the reason why the game is so divisive, yet you cannot deny its dedication to remain that way throughout. My personal take? It's not perfect--I care not for the cheerier songs of the soundtrack--but I love the overall execution.

This unusually soft sound direction is why I've always been awed by the powerful roar that accompanies the game's level select screen, which presents Kirby's home planet Pop Star in the reaches of space. It's something that should be completely at odds for the setting: like everything else in Dream Land 3, the pastel-inspired stars would be more at home with glow in the dark stars decorating a baby's ceiling (the limited movement also calls to mind that of crib mobiles) than the eternally cold abyss of space. I've actually always been a little creeped out by how the game can instantaneously traverse on the boundaries of darkness--whether it be this sound or the theme of the final level--before going back its kid-friendly them as if nothing happened (going back to the final boss again: did I mention the boss in question spills and attacks with a red substance that's alluded to being blood? Yeah.)

Jun Ishikawa takes the helm once again for the soundtrack, though shifts the music style in accordance to traditional Kirby flair and the unprecedented soft aesthetic. Often Ishikawa appeals to the latter to some level of success -- the stronger emphasis on softer, relaxing tones leaves little room for the catchy hyperactivity of the past (as opposed to the balance found in earlier titles), but the soundtrack here emphasis a different sort of pleasantness hardly echoed before in Kirby. The softer themes found in, for example, Adventure's Rainbow Resort and Dream Land 2's Cloudy Park were deliberately majestic in their heart-soothing melodies that they were bound to make an impact on the player, yet Ishikawa takes a different route with Dream Land 3.

The theme of Dream Land 3's opening level--which you could label as the main theme of the game--is optimal for explaining this. While there are clear inspirations from Dream Land's Green Greens theme, (particularly the beginning), it's more lax than the typical cheery flair of Kirby. A good chunk of Dream Land 3's songs produce a more atmospheric quality that fit rather well within its aesthetic brand of watercolors and pastel. Atmospheric game music typically suffers from the unfortunate side-effect of being readily forgotten soon after playing (looking at you, Skyrim); make no mistake, while Dream Land 3 has the same issue, there are some standouts within its soundtracks. This particular song has always been one of my favorites, calling to mind a child merrily running through a wide, open field of dandelions.

I've also always been fond of this Ripple Field theme which, you guessed it, plays in the level starring the aforementioned house. It possesses a sense of urgency not unlike the island portion of Super Star's Revenge of Meta Knight, yet I further appreciate its echo to Dream Land's Float Islands's permeated nostalgia. However, I associate this song less with Dream Land's gooey warmness and more with a fleeting reminiscence: chasing for a hint of memory down the beach, something to jar the memory. Searching, finding for answers to a life-changing mystery. The house, maybe?

With this emphasis on softness through both graphics and music, the series' trademark sense of hyperactivity is lost to a more deliberate tranquility. I take no issue with this languidness by itself; indeed, I adore the graphics and I like the music well enough, and I appreciate what they set out to do. It can't be said that any other platformer in its age exuded this much pleasantness--however alien, yet perfectly natural to the world of Kirby--and the way it instills peace into the player is to be commended.

The problem here is the effect on gameplay. 

Back when I reviewed Kirby's Epic Yarn upon its release over three years ago, I described it as something of a "relaxation simulator", as the game's alluring yarn-inspired visuals send the player into a blissful, nostalgic state. If that sounds familiar, it's because Dream Land 3 works the same way; unfortunately, it is only to a considerably lesser degree. Given the premises involved with Epic Yarn (Kirby's transformation into yarn, the technological advancements relative to the time of its release (gorgeous felt effects) and what was expected of the series (Kirby's transformations), the Wii game had to innovate with foreground to prove its new aesthetic would provide a compelling game experience. Dream Land 3 isn’t required to do so and takes little risk to expand on its own identity, which admittedly would be fine if it didn't result in weaker platforming.

In fact, it can actually get downright lazy. The perfect example is found at the first level of Cloudy Park; take a gander at that screenshot above and note the barren, vastly uninteresting landscape and boring background that composes its beginning. It remains sterile throughout, only bothering to add in pointless dips in the landscape and a wholly uninteresting outdoor tunnel sequence. What makes it even worse is the level waits until the very end to utilize the world's "sky" theme (the transparency of the clouds in the picture above shift into solid versions, obscuring Kirby's location from the player), rendering the level a rather bad first impression for the new world.

So yes, it does have the same stage design problems as Dream Land 2, but doesn't start out as being nearly as brain dead. Unlike that game's gradual ascension into quality, Dream Land 3 suffers from uneven level design throughout and never lands on a consistent state until the late-game Iceberg world (which is great). We can be thankful it also never reaches a consistency of tedium, but for as much as the game commits to simplicity, one can't help but wish Dream Land 3 pushed the admirable effort found in its graphics fully across the board.

Unlike its Game Boy predecessor, however, I am quicker to forgive Dream Land 3 not entirely on the basis of its glorious art, but for expanding upon what was fun in the previous title: the partner system. Rick, Coo, and Kine all return to grant Kirby their power-siphoning prowess, complete with the same repertoire of powers found in Dream Land 2 that, while limited in number (particular when, again, compared to Super Star), are a blast to use. While they're still a blast to use, they find themselves outshone by three more newcomers: Nago the Cat, Pitch the Bird, and Chuchu the...Octopus? Squid? Blob?

As the three original partners still retain their Game Boy abilities, the Super Nintendo-powered feats of Kirby's new friends provide far more attractive choices. Rather than simply exuding Copy Abilities from their bodies, the newer trio instantly appeal on their colorful takes on old favorites, whether it be joyful playness(Kirby and Chuchu merry-go-round in an upside-down spinning parasol), comedic (Nago repeatedly slams the shit out of Stone Kirby, a personal favorite of mine despite its short range), or just plain cool (Kirby manually guides an electrified Pitch via remote control).

Dream Land 3 is also host to its own unique Copy Ability: Clean, in which Kirby sweeps up foes with a broom. Much like Parasol, its tongue-in-cheek nature makes for some great laughs, as used by itself or through Kirby's partners when they're mercilessly slaughtering Waddle Dees. Particular standouts include Nago (who utilizes Kirby as a washing rag and slides on the ground), Kine (who turns Kirby into a plunger just because), and Chuchu (who rides on Kirby transformed into a magic broom).
 

The only faulty newcomer in Kirby's camaderie is the CPU/2P-controlled counterpart Gooey, who I still struggle to make sense of. The character is a visually endearing counterpart to Kirby--what with the dopey countenance on his doughy round shape, yet I care not for the gameplay execution; single-player wise, anyway. He's useful for 2P play since he can mimic Kirby's Copy Abilities, but as a summoned CPU, he's an inconvenient burden that divides half of Kirby's health. This would be a fair trade-off if he wasn't constantly gobbling up everything in Kirby's path (thus stealing any potential Copy Abilities you'd want to obtain), and he can't even utilize Copy Abilities when in the control of the CPU. He was better left in Dream Land 2's bag.
 
Yet I still occasionally summon him for kicks, regardless. Part of why Dream Land 3's aesthetic ultimately charms me despite its mistakes is that I find the uncanny jolliness of its cast--whether it's the aforementioned merry-go-round parasol of Kirby/Chuchu and pretty much anything related to Nago or Kine--rather hysterical when contrasted to the game's bleaker scenery. Dream Land 3 can toss avalanches or giants boulders at me and I simply just don't give a shit about the danger presented because I'm waddling away inside the intestines of a fish while taking the form of a plunger.

Indeed, many of the powers granted to Kirby and pals never reach the heights of flashiness found in Super Star, but that's okay. Dream Land 3's slower pace works very well to the advantage of its graphical/sound themes in framing the game as an epic adventure but something more like a walk in the park. A dash along the beach. A trip to the sky. Another lazy Sunday afternoon. It's languid, but it's a soothing sort of languid that echoes the faint nostalgia within the deeper recesses of your brain. For me, I'm reminded of the blank, silent observations during my adventures in the outdoors, or the one family walk I had some fifteen years back.

It's why I'm so fond of the game's sub-quest regarding the collectible Heart Stars, which involve solving stage-specific tasks such as reuniting a toad family, retrieving a juggler's blocks, and helping an angel find her wings. The results are genuinely charming in the same manner of Zelda: The Minish Cap's Kinstones in establishing a connection during a chance encounter with a familiar face (Nintendo cameos such as running into Samus from Metroid) or expanding upon the game's cast (Rick the Hamster has a girlfriend?). Even from a pure gameplay perspective they can actually get rather difficult, and Dream Land 3 is at its strongest when the levels revolve around them. A personal favorite involves a cameo of the NES R.O.B peripheral, where you have to search and assemble its parts within a pyramid that's host to backgrounds straight out of Earthbound's battle sequences. You could always just ignore them, I suppose, but then you get the Bad Ending and those always make you feel guilty.

By itself, Dream Land 3 is merely an interesting experiment that's sole ambition revolves around its aesthetics, which even on their own accord have succeeded in turning off a fair number of Kirby fans. Much like Dream Land 2, I cannot ignore the flaws that could potentially break an earnest game, yet I cannot bring myself to take them too seriously. Whatever laziness it produces within its own aspiration is overriden by just how damn pleasant it is to play and even witness, and I am unable to resist its unique brand of watercolor placidity. An objective evaluation could settle for it being just another good Kirby romp, yet I'll admit my own bias in what it sets out to do elevates my opinion to Dream Land 3 achieving the barest minimum of greatness.