{"id":4162,"date":"2025-02-14T15:00:13","date_gmt":"2025-02-14T22:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/?p=4162"},"modified":"2025-01-03T22:16:30","modified_gmt":"2025-01-04T05:16:30","slug":"video-game-kirbys-return-to-dream-land-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/14\/video-game-kirbys-return-to-dream-land-2011\/","title":{"rendered":"VIDEO GAME: Kirby&#8217;s Return to Dream Land (2011)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><u><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/en\/thumb\/d\/d4\/Kirbys_return_to_dreamland_boxart.jpg\/220px-Kirbys_return_to_dreamland_boxart.jpg\" alt=\"Kirby's Return to Dream Land\" width=\"220\" height=\"315\" \/>Kirby&#8217;s Return to Dream Land<br \/><\/u><\/strong>Year: 2011<br \/>Rating: E10+<br \/>Time Played: ~6.50 hours<\/p>\n<p>While I&#8217;m all for franchises trying out new things, there&#8217;s something about returning to the core mechanic that makes a great game. <em>Kirby&#8217;s Return to Dream Land <\/em>took the fundamentals of a <em>Kirby<\/em> game and amped up the cool factor while still maintaining that classic <em>Kirby<\/em> feel. Granted, as Nintendo delved further into gimmicks on their consoles, their franchises had to adapt as well. <em>Return to Dream Land <\/em>is no exception, but at least the base game is the standard <em>Kirby<\/em> formula.<\/p>\n<p>Admittedly, one of the more &#8220;fun&#8221; aspects of this game is the super-powered abilities Kirby can use. While they do often require shaking the Wiimote to use, their increased power put a smile on my face. As far as couch co-op goes, this game is better than most. My daughter played a lot of this game with me as Meta Knight, and there wasn&#8217;t much of an issue where she needed to move along with me to advance in the level. That there could be up to four players at once is a nice evolution to the 2-player mechanic introduced back in the Super Nintendo era.<\/p>\n<p>The thing that struck me with this game and felt a little off was some of the difficulty spikes. Granted, I can see how a series like <em>Kirby<\/em>\u2014which isn&#8217;t necessarily known for being geared toward &#8220;gamers&#8221;\u2014should provide some challenge for those who grew up with these games. Still, the amount of bosses and secret levels that I felt I barely survived seemed to be higher than most <em>Kirby<\/em> games. That I even had to go ahead and beat the game&#8217;s final boss without my daughter&#8217;s help just so I could lock in and focus shows that the &#8220;defeating god&#8221; meme for this franchise is in full effect here.<\/p>\n<p>A classic <em>Kirby<\/em> formula that might be just a tad too hard, I give <em>Kirby&#8217;s Return to Dream Land<\/em> 4.0 stars out of 5.<\/p>\n<h2><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/>\u00a0<strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/>\u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/>\u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/bmw-the-critic\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"820\" height=\"312\" src=\"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/BMW-the-Critic-v3.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-4100\" srcset=\"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/BMW-the-Critic-v3.png 820w, https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/BMW-the-Critic-v3-300x114.png 300w, https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/BMW-the-Critic-v3-768x292.png 768w, https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/BMW-the-Critic-v3-640x244.png 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kirby&#8217;s Return to Dream LandYear: 2011Rating: E10+Time Played: ~6.50 hours While I&#8217;m all for franchises trying out new things, there&#8217;s something about returning to the core mechanic that makes a great game. Kirby&#8217;s Return to Dream Land took the fundamentals of a Kirby game and amped up the cool factor while still maintaining that classic [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,1900],"tags":[50,3991,2748,3988,3990,2186,3989,1903,3992,8,906,3114],"class_list":["post-4162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-4-0-stars","category-video-game","tag-50","tag-co-op","tag-kirby","tag-kirbys-return-to-dream-land","tag-motion-controls","tag-nintendo","tag-nintendo-wii","tag-platformer","tag-power-ups","tag-review","tag-video-game","tag-wii"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4162"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4166,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4162\/revisions\/4166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}