Kirby's Dream Land (Game Boy, 1992) - A Star is Born

HAL Laboratories' 1992 Game Boy classic Kirby's Dream Land introduced a puffy new superstar to the Nintendo family who would shine for decades across genres and styles. From platforming to mini-golf to Breakout to ball-rolling to goofing off as a pile of yarn, Kirby's always been a pretty experimental series, but let's take a look back at the original title that started it all.

Review - Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 (Game Boy, 1994)

I'm a big fan of both the absolutely weird Super Mario Land and the more conventional but still plenty wacky Super Mario Land 2. Wario Land, the third game in the series, ditches Mario as its hero in favor of Wario, has some truly goofy enemies, and lets you power up using garlic. While it hits a lot of the same odd notes as the previous Land games, Wario Land is absolutely its own beast.

Review - Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge (Game Boy, 1991)

Capcom's original Mega Man game, released on the NES in 1987, was a springboard for over two dozen sequels, spinoffs, and remakes. Many have been quite good, while a few are hilariously, strikingly terrible. I played and enjoyed all of the original six NES installments, most as they were released, but somehow managed to completely miss all five of the Game Boy games. Capcom recently added the first Game Boy Mega Man title, Dr. Wily's Revenge, to the 3DS Virtual Console, giving me a chance to catch up on some bygone Mega Man history. While it's not as good as any of the NES titles, Wily's Revenge is a serviceable Mega Man game that at the very least manages to be far superior to the terrible DOS version released around the same time.

Review - Metroid II: Return of Samus (Game Boy, 1991)

I remember playing Metroid II briefly when it was fairly new and having a pretty bad time. I got lost way more easily than I did in the original 1987 NES title, I had trouble seeing what was going on, and I didn't make it very far. That was 1991 on an old green screen Game Boy. Today, playing the game on better hardware, I can see what's happening a lot more clearly and have a lot more patience for figuring this game out. I still get lost way more often than I did in the original.

Review - Super Mario Land 2

Super Mario Land 2 continues its predecessor's tradition of taking a traditional Mario game in a weirder than usual direction. While Mario was off saving Princess Daisy in the previous game, a jerk named Wario came to Mario's private island (complete with its own gigantic, motorized statue), unleashed monsters, broke into his house, and took all his bling. There's no princess to save here, no Bowser to fight; this game's all about evicting Wario from your mansion.

Review - Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters

Published in the golden age of platformers, 1986's Kid Icarus remains one of my all time favorite Nintendo-made games. It's hard but fair with greatly rewarding gameplay and really nice art design. A sequel was published on the Game Boy in 1991 (strangely, it was never released in Japan on its native system) but in spite of my love for the original, I never picked it up until it was re-released on the 3DS e-store a couple of weeks ago. It's a solid title, but it chooses to rehash the original rather than be its own beautifully bizarre spin-off like Super Mario Land.

Review - Super Mario Land

Almost all of the Mario Bros platformers are high quality games, but I've got a special fondness for some of the weirder ones. Without a doubt, my favorite Mario game is Super Mario Bros 2 (The good one, not "The Lost Levels") but I place Super Mario Land, which debuted with the Game Boy in 1989, pretty close to the top of my list. It's as well designed as any Mario Bros game but with a special coat of strangeness on top of it.

Review - Burger Time

BurgerTime (1982) is probably my favorite arcade game that I'm terrible at. I can survive pretty well in Pengo, Xevious, Dig Dug, and other arcade games that I play whenever I find a machine, but BurgerTime kills me horribly. I still love it.