Super Famicom - Hoshi no Kirby 3 (Kirby's Dream Land 3)
Title: Hoshi no Kirby 3 / 星のカービィ3
Developer/Publisher: Nintendo / HAL Laboratory Inc.
Release date: 27 March 1998
Catalogue Code: SHVC-AFJJ-JPN
Genre: Platformer
What a way to sunset the Super Famicom's run in style.
The Kirby series by HAL Laboratory has made its mark with fun, inventive, and amiable titles, even if they are somewhat challenge-challenged. 1997’s offering, Kirby’s Dream Land 3, continues in that tradition, though somewhat disappointingly. Like its predecessors, it was released at the tail end of the SNES’s commercial lifecycle (and by extension the SFC's commercial lifecycle when it comes to cartridge releases) and sticks very close to the Kirby formula.
Kirby’s Dream Land 3 may at first seem like an unassuming continuation of the excellent design direction of games like Kirby’s Adventure, but there’s much more going on if you give it a closer look. Levels are solidly designed and offer up many opportunities to swap out copy powers and Animal Friends to see the full breadth of an incredible amount of combat options, the game giving you plenty to work with but also making sure its layouts are challenging without alienating the younger players who will be enraptured by the cute and colorful pastel art style. The real thrill waiting behind the finely tuned platforming and copy system, though, is the Heart Star quest, an optional objective existing in each level that asks the player to figure out what’s being asked of them and successfully execute it, often requiring them to play in interesting and more challenging ways. It nails what a linear Kirby adventure title should be: packed with powers and fun for players of all ages.
