This review was from somebody named Alexander:
Fans of Kirby, the seductive pink puffball, lament no more... The second-string Nintendo mascot, last seen in a glorified cameo in the Big N’s excellent Super Smash Bros., has finally been given his 64-bit due in Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards. Kirby 64 should swiftly please two audiences--those that fell in love with the Kirbster’s nifty NES and SNES side-scrolling adventures, and those who haven’t subscribed to the Cro-Magnon school of thought, “3-D good! 2-D bad!”
This operatic adventure puts Kirby at the center of an intergalactic conflict, one in which good and evil wear similar faces. Put that through the PR descrambler, and you have this: Armies of baddies no cuter than Kirby himself are protecting the pieces of a shattered crystal. Why? To restore peace to a planet of fairies, of course. Kirby must then travel across several pastel worlds and collect the missing shards before bedtime. And how does Kirby dispatch these nogoodniks? With his trademark vacuum power--his name’s Kirby not for nothing, you know!
Of course, Kirby’s talent doesn't just lie in sucking up bad guys, but also in stealing their powers and turning those powers against them. There are seven different abilities (stone, fire, ice, spark, cutter, needle and bomb) that Kirby can acquire, but the game truly takes off when he starts combining said powers into deliriously goofy attacks. When Kirby swallows a foe with the rock power, for instance, he can turn into a lumbering golem. Add the fire power, and Kirby’s a walking Vesuvius, dispensing molten justice on those who stand in his way. Pick up the electric power, and unload 1.21 gigawatts on any googly-eyed minion nearby. Swallow two needle powers and Kirby can transform into a gonzo Swiss Army knife befitting of the finest Wanrer Bros. cartoon. Combine that with the ice power, and Kirby becomes a refrigerator, able to spit out deadly frozen produce. It’s the madness of finding the proper powers--not only dispose of baddies, but also to retrieve lost crystals hidden behind obstacles--that propels Kirby 64 into greatness.
Because this is a platformer at heart, there's a great deal of running and jumping involved, as well. In addition to sucking his enemies up, Kirby can swallow air and float for a limited time, then narrowly escape trouble and reach remote spots--of which there are plenty. There's no analog support for the game, which is unfortunate for the sake of completeness, but the D-pad's really the only way to go in a 2-D-ish platformer anyway.
Thanks to HAL's wisdom, gamers can complete Kirby 64 in two fashions... Players can simply run through the entire game, unconcerned with collecting all the crystals, but if you want to seriously brag at the water cooler Monday morning, you’ll need to hunt down every single shard--which can take plenty of time. If Kirby 64 wasn’t so much fun and such an ease to control, I’d be ranting and raving about the unfortunate trend of ‘platformer as scavenger hunt,’ but the loving spoonful of nostalgia and solid gameplay saves the day.
Kirby’s perspective has always been decidedly flat, but HAL Labs (the cats behind Smash) has inflated Kirby 64 to 2 1/2-D, much like the darling Disney’s Tarzan; Kirby himself travels in a straight line, but the world around him, which is made up of polygons, bobs and weaves depending on where he stands. Rarely does the camera swing around for a full headshot of the pink punk, but the different angles work to heighten the drama. Meanwhile, the worlds themselves are so beautifully realized and so wonderfully cartoon-y that you tend to forget that this really isn’t unexplored territory. Again, this game's a platformer at heart, so we’re subject to many of the laundry-list locations required for every side-scroller. Ice level? Check. Fire world? Check? Jungle scene? Check. Mine cart level? You bet your doughy behind. Likewise, the music's exactly what you’d expect from a Nintendo platformer--silly. Silly isn’t always bad, mind you... I’m just about numb from the requisite techno soundtracks of late-nineties gaming, so Kirby 64’s soundtrack is indeed a welcome respite.
Kirby 64 has ignited the sales charts in his homeland, and with a little luck and faith in the gamers over here, he should enjoy a repeat performance. Don’t let the game’s cutie-pie first impression put you off... There was a time when games like these ruled the roost, not because they offered more blood and boobs than a grade-Z horror flick, but because they were addictive, challenging and, most importantly, fun. Kirby 64 is a stunning example of unadulterated fun from yesteryear, tweaked only to take advantage of today’s technology; the Nintendo 64 itself may age like vinegar, but the minds behind it continue to churn out fine wine.
- Alexander
This Review was from Ryan Mac Donald.
After announcing the game about three years ago, Nintendo has finally released a Kirby game for the N64 in the form of Kirby's Dreamland 64. Our first reaction was of jubilation - our beloved Kirby had finally returned! But after spending a good deal of time with the game, it's plainly apparent that Kirby's Dreamland 64 is just like it was so many years ago on the NES: a platform game, pure and simple, with no major changes. Depending on your point of view, this can be a good or bad thing.
The story is told in a short cinema sequence that shows some mysterious creatures attacking a planet while in search of a large crystal. In their attempt to grab the crystal, it's broken into tiny shards. One of the planet's happy little fairy inhabitants has a piece of the crystal and just happens to bump into Kirby. Kirby, being the kind soul he is, offers to help the little fairy creature collect all of the pieces to the crystal.
The control in Kirby's Dreamland 64 is extremely simple. You use the D-pad to move Kirby (no analog necessary), the B button to attack, the A button to jump, and one of the C buttons to carry items. The only real big appeal of Kirby is his special abilities. Kirby can suck up nearby enemies and eat them or spit them out at other enemies. If he eats an enemy with a special ability he'll learn that ability. You can have different combinations of abilities, giving you different results. For example, if he eats a bomb-wielding enemy, Kirby will have the ability to throw bombs. If he eats a bomb-wielding enemy and a electricity-emitting enemy, Kirby's will have the ability to turn into a bomb-shaped ball of electricity that shocks everyone he comes into contact with. This mixing and matching of weapons is by far the coolest part about the game, especially if you eat two bomb guys, which lets Kirby shoot heat-seeking missiles. But other than that, you're just pushing to the right, jumping, and progressing.
It seems as though Nintendo is putting minigames into every game it releases these days - Kirby is no exception. The games are typical button-mashing and timing-based affairs, much like the stuff found in Mario Party and Pokemon Stadium.
Visually, the game is nice in areas, but overall, it looks rather plain. A few levels, such as the underwater world and the underground sand world, look pretty nice. The game uses camera angles and changes, similar to other 2D/3D games such as Pandemonium or Klonoa. Some neat stuff pops up every once in a while such as a painter who paints monsters that jump right off his canvas to attack you. The creatures look 2D, and they are colored and shaded as if they were on pieces of paper colored with crayon, making them really stand out. Aside from little things like that, there's nothing worth mentioning, except the real-time cinemas that run at a really high frame rate, giving them a unique and colorful look.
Ultimately, Kirby's Dreamland 64 is a game that is ideal for inexperienced players, young children, or big kids who still have fond memories of Kirby's NES adventures. Although the game is unbelievably simplistic, the game does have that classic platform style. As such, other recent 2D/3D platformers such as Klonoa and Yoshi's Story seem infinitely more advanced by comparison. The game doesn't have any frills, no butt stomps, no analog control, nothing. All it has is running to the right, platform jumping, and lots of enemies that walk back and forth and die when you hit them. If you're still into this type of gameplay, then Kirby's Dreamland 64 is a good game to consider picking up. However, you'd be better off waiting until June for the US version, as going through all of the trouble of picking up the import version of the game just to find out that you've outgrown 2D side-scrolling is a harsh lesson.
 More to come!
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