The SNES Classic had a sterling assortment of games from Nintendo's 16-bit star console, but it's hardly all that system has to offer a modern audience. In each installment of this fortnightly feature, I judge two games for their suitability for a Classic successor based on four criteria, with the ultimate goal of assembling another collection of 25 SNES games that not only shine as brightly as those in the first SNES Classic, but have equally stood the test of time. The rules, list of games considered so far, and links to previous episodes can all be found at The SNES Classic Mk II Intro and Contents.

Episode XVII: Dream Bream Machine

The Candidate: HAL Lab's Kirby's Dream Land 3

Here we have another of what I tend to call the "oh, duh" submissions for a future iteration of the SNES Classic. A second-party SNES game that would've been on the original device if they hadn't filled up their non-existent limited capacity, and is probably first in line for a hypothetical successor. Kirby's Dream Land 3 is a case like Mega Man 7 where, despite the franchise triumphantly debuting on the 16-bit system with a special new sub-series (for Kirby that would be Kirby Super Star, for Mega Man that's Mega Man X), they would nonetheless revert to a sequel for the older franchise a few years later. Kirby's Dream Land 3 is a very late SNES game too, to the extent that it's not surprising that anyone - including myself, though that's mostly because it wasn't released in Europe - missed out on it. To put its tardy November 1997 launch in perspective, that's more than two years after the respective launches of the North American Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn and over a year since the launch of the SNES's own successor: the Nintendo 64.

Still, the late arrival and return to Kirby's roots aren't the only surprising elements about the game. The most immediately striking is its new art style, which takes on a sort of watercolor vibe with softer colors and contours for the sprites and backgrounds. I remember thinking when I saw these sprites show up on Nintendo Badge Arcade that they seemed out of place compared to the pixellated characters from Kirby Super Star or the two Dream Land predecessors for the Game Boy. In the context of the game, however, they look amazing. I can only assume the decision was made to go this direction after a similar visual treatment made 1995's Yoshi's Island so picturesque (which would then lead to an arms race of sorts between the two franchises to weaponize whimsy better than the other - we'd see this back and forth rivalry again with Kirby's Epic Yarn and Yoshi's Woolly World).

There's some significant gameplay differences too. Not so much with the level design - despite the attractive levels, there's very little deviation from "here's a long corridor full of enemies, just get to the door at the end" - but in the way Kirby's "copy" power-up system performs. Kirby only has a handful of his more well-known abilities to acquire this time - Cutter, Spark, Fire, Ice, Rock, Parasol, Needle, and the new Broom - but their respective effects are greatly expanded upon by the game's new companion system. If he can find them, Kirby can team up with six different animal companions - Rick, the big hamster; ChuChu, the octopus/slime; Nago, the tall cat; Coo, the bird of prey; Pitch, the little green songbird; and Kine, the vacant-looking fish. In addition to changing the way Kirby moves around - Kine is fast underwater but slow on land, while Coo changes Kirby's movement so that he's always flying - each one has their own "interpretation" of the eight copy abilities. Fire causes a few companions to breathe fire (if Kirby's alone, it'll turn him into a fireball briefly) but it'll inflate ChuChu like a hot air balloon for easy vertical movement and causes Coo to do these flaming dive kicks which can be dangerous over open pits but greatly increases his speed over land. A big part of the game is figuring out how each companion takes to each ability, and you'll even see old favorites like Tornado (Coo + Parasol), Plasma (ChuChu + Spark), and Beam (Rick + Spark) as variations. Then there's Gooey, who acts more like the helper characters from Super Star: he just goes about doing his own thing once summoned. If a second player is around to help out with some co-op, Gooey is who they control.

This variance directly ties into the way you unlock the game's true ending. In each stage there is a friendly NPC who will grant you a heart item if you are nice to them. The method to accomplish this is different for every NPC, so you have to pay attention to what it is they could want. For some, it's obvious from their picture on the map screen: a female version of Pitch, for instance, would like to see you finish the stage with Pitch as your companion. Some NPCs you'll encounter in mini-games midway through the level, where successfully completing three rounds of the mini-game is enough to win their favor. Others are more ambiguous, like flowers (they'd rather you don't stomp their friends as you pass), oddly-shaped blocky guys (they want you to carve out their likeness in stone) and characters who want specific objects from the course that might require a specific helper + ability combo to reach. There's even a few Nintendo characters who pop up for cameos, like Samus Aran and the metroids, R.O.B. and Professor Hector from Gyromite/Stack-Up, or Donbe and Hikari from Shin Onigashima (a NES adventure game based on Japanese folklore that never left its native land, and its SFC remaster was another second-party game to appear in 1997).

Talking of appealing, small, round things, it's time to see what P.O.G.S. has to say about all this floating and inhaling business:

• Preservation: I mean, Kirby's persisted with more or less the same gameplay format for decades now. The games are always predicated on a lot of freedom in how you approach levels - preferred copy abilities and whatnot - with a relatively low difficulty level. The distinctive art style of the game has also helped minimize its aging, but the lack of frills and bonuses - or anything like the versatility between Kirby Super Star's many "episodes" - might make it a little too basic for today's audience to be on board with. 4.
• Originality: This is another area where it falters with the inevitable direct comparisons with Kirby Super Star, the only other traditional Kirby game (as in, no bean-stacking or golf) on the SNES. Beyond the animal companion system and the clever way that interacts with the extant copy ability system to produce a multitude of results, it doesn't really get exploited by the game as much as you would like. Levels are set up in such a way that you have a limited selection of both companions and abilities, so you'll end up seeing most of the combinations by the end, but there aren't too many specific challenges in the level design that uses them. Most of the time it's just passing through long rooms tackling enemies and evading traps to the next area in a linear fashion. There's a few instances where that's not the case, but overall it feels like they didn't give this new ability system the workout it deserved. 3.
• Gameplay: Despite the simplicity, I really like Kirby games. I like having that freedom to play the levels however I wish with the varied power-ups available and, despite some irritating spots where I had to restart a level because I was lacking key components, the NPC heart business side-quests create a set of bonus objectives that can be compelling to suss out. Fortunately, the game saves your status if you decide to exit a level prematurely, so it's no big deal to hop back into an earlier level and grab what you need before jumping back to where you left off. It feels satisfying to find a companion/ability combo that works for you (I was really into Nago + Parasol and Pitch + Cutter). I just wish they'd done more with the level design; so many areas just feel like lifeless gauntlets through the same batch of foes. 4.
• Style: In its element, the watercolor look and the slightly abstract backgrounds really work in the game's favor. Any given Kirby game is pleasant enough between its recurring tracks like Gourmet Race (the one that mashes up with Snoop's "Drop It Like Its Hot" really well) or Dedede's Theme and its bright pastel palettes, but the painter-like quality of the game's graphics elevate it even further. Some characters can look a little off-model though, especially King Dedede. I also like the appearance of the animal companions and the way the game injects them with personality: if you're riding a different companion, they give you these hurt/annoyed expressions, and they all have a different victory dance with Kirby. I particularly liked the way animal companions would interact with Kirby when "joined": Kine puts Kirby in his mouth, Nago rolls him around like a ball of yarn, and ChuChu sort of sits on his head massaging it as he walks. It's all very, very cute. 5.

Total: 16.

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The Nominee: Studio Saizensen's Umihara Kawase

Umihara Kawase isn't the sort of name that rolls off the tongue for English speakers, but it's an unusual little game that's had an equally unusual history. Developed by Studio Saizensen, a very small team of developers, for publisher TNN (and some sound design help from Atelier Double, a busy contract developer who was behind the SNES Ranma 1/2 games among others), the game is all about a student sushi chef using a hookshot device to get around some abstract 2D platforming levels while avoiding hostile sealife. After this entry, the series would end up on PlayStation with Umihara Kawase Shun and eventually 3DS and PC with the semi-recent Sayonara Umihara Kawase/Yumi's Odd Odyssey. Bizarrely, this would also lead to the original Super Famicom game releasing on Steam - making it one of, if not the, most accessible SNES game right now. You might then argue that it perhaps doesn't need a spot on the next SNES Classic, but I like to be thorough all the same.

The mechanics of the game are easier than they seem at first, but turn out to be difficult to master, especially for the sake of moving quickly. Kawase uses a fishing line and hook to grasp onto the walls around her, and then either uses the line to reach where the hook was placed or the whole apparatus to swing across gaps. She can also lift herself up and over the edges of platforms and use the hook to stun and "collect" fish enemies to eliminate them from the stage. The other mechanic is being able to reel in or out the line, which is what allows her to ascend to where the hook was placed, or lets her drop to a lower platform by hooking to a nearby wall and reeling out as far as possible to abseil down, or producing a lot of springy swinging by quickly reeling out and in. It's a difficult process to put into words, as so much of it relies on intuition and practice, but it becomes more natural the more you play.

The game's masterstroke is that the game's progression is specifically built around this slow acclimatization and mastery of the hook and line mechanics. In the early stages your goal is to reach a door as quickly as possible - the level gives you several minutes, and a large (but very finite) stock of lives. Eventually, though, you'll start seeing alternative exits. If you continue through the game on the path of least resistance, it'll suddenly end and give you a friendly splash screen message recommending to start over. Rather than the difficult-to-reach doors being secret warps, it's actually the reverse: they lead to the next level in the sequence, while the easy doors warp ahead, the idea being that the best endings are reserved for those who beat the game via longer and/or more difficult routes. What's more, there's a 30-minute game-wide time limit in addition to the individual stage time limits, and if the current session passes that invisible deadline it'll boot you to one of the lesser "end stages" with another "try again" message to follow. As you learn about the game's routes and endings, you find that your grappling technique continues to improve by leaps and bounds (so to speak) and that you're reaching those exits in shorter lengths of time. Future games aren't quite as fiendish when it comes to their level design - there are still alternative paths, but I think the game-wide time limit is gone - but the original Umihara Kawase tricks you into thinking it's a contemplative, tricky-to-master rope physics game when it's actually a speedrun game that demands ever better performances out of you. This makes it a lot more intense than its surreal but chill vibe would otherwise suggest.

It kicked my ass repeatedly, but now it must face the insurmountable tower of judgement that is the P.O.G.S. system:

• Preservation: Umihara Kawase was, it could be argued, way ahead of its time. You didn't see too many video games built for speed in the 16-bit era beyond racing games - after all, developers would prefer you took your time and didn't feel cheated by short experiences - but in this modern age of speedrunning and GDQ streams, it's become a very popular facet of video gaming, to the extent that a lot of otherwise standard games might include a speedrunning mode or achievement. The idea of starting a game over and over again and doing better each time, as well as those with bizarre physics-based mechanics that take a while to master, are exemplified by the shockingly popular Getting Over It With Bennett Foddy and Human: Fall Flat. Steam was a natural place for Umihara Kawase to end up. 5.
• Originality: If you could say anything else positive about Umihara Kawase, it would be just how unusual it is from its aesthetic down to the way it plays and progresses. It's a nice looking game if nothing special graphically, but the bizarre emphasis on stationary and saltwater fish is the kind of imagery that sticks with you, making you wonder if this isn't some fevered daydream Kawase is having in the middle of her lessons. The hook and line physics, the speedrunning aspects, the alternative paths and abrupt endings; Umihara Kawase, were it not for its sequels, would definitely be one of a kind. 5.
• Gameplay: Right, so this is where I express my general dissatisfaction for this type of game to rain on this current parade of "5" scores. For as much as I respect what Umihara Kawase does, I find everything about it - the aforementioned time limit and quirky physics - unbearable in longer stretches. I did eventually find myself getting better at the game, as evinced by how quickly I could get through the early stages and the shortcuts I was prepared to risk, but having to repeat the entire thing over and over was too much to bear. The game does have a replay saving feature, but I was never able to figure out how it works, and chances are you could always shave off valuable seconds on those stages the next time you restart anyway. It takes a speedrunner's obstinate and dedicated mindset to truly appreciate a game like this, and that's something I lack. 3.
• Style: As I stated earlier, the only thing this game really has going for it graphically is the bizarre visuals. There's a decent amount of animation - Kawase swings a lot, pulls herself up onto platforms, and dramatically collapses and vaporizes upon death - but not much else going on visually. Likewise, the music is almost amusingly bland; the sort of easy-listening, player-frustration-assuaging music you'd expect from a puzzle game (or a visual novel, or an 80s shoujo anime for that matter). The game's appeal is found in its surrealism and game mechanics, with the presentation being a lesser consideration. 3.

Total: 16.

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