[GAME] Kirby's Dream Land (1992)
Kirby's Dream Land is a very solid platformer that suffers from a short length and a slightly too low difficulty. Interestingly, despite Kirby being known for being able to copy the abilities of his enemies, this feature is not present in the first game in the franchise. The rest of the moveset, however, is very much present, such as being able to float and blow projectiles at enemies. The controls in particular are extremely well put-together, and Kirby is a joy to control.
While I typically would never complain about reduced difficulty in a classic platformer, here the balance strays a little too close to being too easy. I found that a lot of levels could be beaten by simply floating to the top of the screen and moving to the right until you reach the exit. Thankfully the difficulty increases a little bit towards the end - the last stage is also where the best music in the game is located.
I did unlock a hard mode after beating the game once, but at that point I felt like I was mostly done with the game, although I bet that if I had owned this game as a child this would have largely remedied the length and difficulty concerns. I think it's important to have a person's first playthrough of a game be balanced appropriately, so either have the default mode be a little more challenging, or offer easy and normal modes from the start.
All in all, this was an interesting look at the origins of one of Nintendo's classic characters - I can see why this turned into a staple franchise for the company.