Dream Land 2 is the love child of Kirby's Dream Land and Adventure, and definitely a quality time to be had
GRAPHICS:
The graphics style is basicaly the same as Dream Land, but being longer it has a bigger variety in levels. One thing that hurts this game is the lack of color, since the levels are trying very hard to exude a lot of personality in black and white, and while sometimes you still see a lot of creativity and wit, it often just blends in together. A nice looking game, but nothing too spectacular. 3.5/5
SOUND:
While Super Star will forever have my favourite Kirby soundtrack, I have to say that Dream Land 2 surprised me with how good its songs are. It has the classic GameBoy problem of not a big variety, and songs looping way too much, but they still all sound phenomenal, especially the theme for the animal friends that you get. It is so catchy, so upbeat, and just gets you in the mood to play the game. Definitely a stand out not only on the series, but on the platform as well. 5/5
GAMEPLAY:
This is a 2D plataformer. You play as Kirby, on a quest to do... stuff. Well, the game really doesn't tell you what has happened so that you have to go out on an adventure, but it really doesn't matter, since you are just going from world to world beating enemies.
Unlike Dream Land, this game features the copy ability introduced in Adventure. And thank god, as it gives the game a lot more variety. Sure, there are nowhere near the amount of power ups as there are on Adventure, and against bosses they do much less damage than just throwing stars, but it still is really good to have for the levels, and they are well integrated with the gimmick of this game.
The gimmick in question are Kirby's animal friends. Think of them as the animal buddies from the Donkey Kong Country series, only you can take them from level to level. There are three: Rick the hamster, Coo the owl and Kine the fish. They all have special abilities that compliment the action. Coo can fly, Kine swims very well and Rick is faster. Better than just that, they all have a different version of the power up you are using. So say you have Fire. Well, you will use it in certain way as just Kirby, a way with Coo, a diferent way with Rik and with Kine. It adds to the variety of ways to play the game, and serves as a replacement to many of the power ups. For example, using Parasol with Coo is the same as the Tornado and Ice with Kine is the same as Freeze (from Adventure).
While the Kirby series is generaly criticized for being too easy and simple, this game can get quite tricky at times. Sure, it isn't hard or anything, but one careless movement can ensure your doom. Jumping and running still feels great, althought coming from Super Star, it takes a while to ajust to having to press up to float. There are seven worlds, each varying in size, and with their own themes, like fire or snow, and each introducing the diferent power ups gradually. Add great level design that rewards you for using an animal friend but is not mandatory to the list of positives of this game. It will take you are three to four hours to beat them. But, as a first for the series, this game has real ending that requires you to find seven Rainbow Drops, one in each world. And they can honestly be quite dificult to find, so there is incentive to explore a lot and replay levels to find theme. And thank god it is not as much a pain in the crack to get 100% as in Dream Land 3.
4/5
OVERALL:
After being disapointed in Dream Land 3, I was surprised how much I liked this game. The music, level design and just overall fun factor kept me going in this one. I had a lot of fun here, and I can definitely recomend this great portable adventure to anyone. Be it an original cartrige, the eventual rerelease on the Virtual Console or on the Dream Colection on Wii, this game will ensure a great time.
The good:
-Solid graphics
-Fantastic soundtrack
-Great to see the copy ability working really well on a portable game
-Animal friends add a nice variety to the gameplay
-Is not too incredibly easy
The bad:
-You really wish this game was in color
-Like most other games in the series, is quite short