Original release date: April 27th, 1992 [JP] - August 3rd, 1992 [EU + AUS] - August 1st, 1992 [NA]
Studio: HAL Laboratories, Nintendo
Director: Masahiro Sakurai
Original platform: Nintendo Game Boy
Platform I played on: Nintendo Switch [Nintendo Switch Online - Game Boy]
Date finished: July 3rd, 2023
Completion: Beaten main story, played a tiny bit of the extra mode as well

Plot + Gameplay

King Dedede has stolen all the food in Dream Land, and you've taken it upon yourself to kick his ass and redistribute the food back to Dream Land's residents. And you do just that.
Kirby games tend to have relatively simple stories (at least at the start of the game), and the first one in the series is no exception as you can see.

The game itself is pretty short, you can easily beat it in an hour, especially if you've played it before, but it's still pretty fun, despite it's length.
There is an extra mode available after you beat the game which makes the game harder. I got swept by Poppy Bro Sr. twice in a row in extra mode and decided that's enough of KDL for the day.
The controls are a touch more slippery than in modern Kirby games and may cause you to take some damage you wouldn't have taken otherwise, but ultimately aren't too frustrating. I thought you had to press A + Up to float during my initial playthrough some month ago, which upset me more than it probably should have, but turns out you can just hold Up, so, negative nitpick averted. The hitboxes can be a bit funky at times though.
Oh yeah, you don't have access to copy abilities in this game, you can inhale enemies, and spit them back out as star bullets as well as let out an air bullet when you stop floating. Those are your main forms of attack. You can also walk into your enemies for mutually assured destruction if that's more your style for some reason. Outside of that, you can get temporary invincibility with the Invincibility Candy, the ability to automatically float and shoot air bullets with Mint Leaf, the ability to move faster and spit tiny fireballs with Spicy Curry or a single use screen wipe with Mike.
The game has 1 mid boss, 4 regular bosses and the final boss, Dedede. Personally, the most difficult out of these for me was Lololo and Lalala, mostly just due to timing stuff and messing up with the controls. Kabula can be an issue, although on this playthrough it really didn't bother me much at all. Whispy Woods and Kracko, and even Dedede to an extent, have pretty easily cheesable attack patterns.
For Poppy Bro Sr., just stand more or less in the spot you spawn in on on the screen, inhale the bombs and shoot them back at him, and don't freak out when he bounces from one end of the screen to the other. There's a pretty sizable safe space to stand in.
For Whispy, stand on the left side of the screen and duck under the little puffs he blows out of his mouth (you may not even have to do that), inhale the apples when they fall (be careful to give yourself a bit of space to inhale them) and shoot them at Whispy's face. If you're careless, you can get smacked by the apples.
As for Kracko, make sure to stand on the opposite side of the screen to Kracko so that you can't get hit by it's beam attack, inhale the Waddle Doos and jump and shoot them back at it. Move to the other side if it moves to your side. I don't have advice for the down sweep though, that one'll you'll have to figure out yourself.
And then there's Dedede. If he's running at you, float over him, if he's running at you with a hammer, let him get close enough before moving out of the way and turn around to immediately inhale the star that pops out when he hits the floor with the hammer. The stars don't stick around for very long so you gotta be quick. When he super jumps, just do more or less the same thing, just move out of the way, but not too far, so that you can get the stars and send them back his way.

Graphics + Music + Sound Design

Considering the console the game released on, it doesn't look bad at all. Granted, it's not the best looker in the franchise, but that's not exactly a big issue considering Kirby games have been consistently pretty good looking through the franchise's entire existence.
While there wasn't much in terms of space backgrounds, something Kirby games excell at, and the graphics are limited, what is there still looks realtively nice.
Overall, the pixel art is very nice and it's pretty easy to tell what's what.

The soundtrack of Kirby's Dream Land is iconic, and for good reason. Considering the audio limitations that the Game Boy had, the composer, Jun Ishikawa, did a wonderful job. Some parts of the music may get cut out if you're, say, riding the warp star to a different area, but even then, you can still pretty easily recognize what song is playing, and may even add to the area transition.
Honestly, I don't know what else to say about the soundtrack. It debuted many of the classic Kirby songs you can hear remixes of even in the newer games, and it's really good. That's all I got really.

The sound design is simple, but it works. Something this simple wouldn't work in a modern Kirby title, but for a Game Boy game, it's more than enough. Honestly, not much else to say about that.

Easter Eggs + Other Fun Stuff

There's going to be a Pointless Kirby Trivia entry about this later but, if you pause the game, and wait for a bit, Kirby starts dancing on the pause screen.
There's also several hidden areas that you can find, such as entering the moon. Hidden rooms are a staple in Kirby games and show up in the newer games as well.
A few of you probably knew this already, but Lololo and Lalala are basically just the Kirby-universe versions of Lolo and Lala from HAL's earlier game franchise Adventures of Lolo.
Another thing you may know about, if you've watched Sakurai's videos on YouTube, is that there were some mechanics that were originally planned to be in Kirby's Dream Land that ended up in Smash Bros. instead. I recommend checking out this video if you want to know more about that. :)
While Kirby is white on the western box art, he's actually his signature pink on the JP box art.

Other Stuff

I may try to get around to beating extra mode some day, and if I do, I may add some small bits here and there, but it shouldn't affect the overall review too much.

My Enjoyment of the Game/Thoughts

It's not my favourite game in the franchise by a big stretch, but it's enjoyable enough and definitely has that nice Kirby-charm, if you will. I have it as a solid B-tier on my Kirby Games tier list.
I'd recommend at least trying it out if you're a Kirby fan, it's good know where the thing you like started from.

Score: 7-7,5/10

Images are from Wikirby and belong to Nintendo/HAL Laboratories