Enjoy a Kirby series retrospective on Wii!
A celebration of all the fun we've had over Kirby's first two decades. Here's to many more!
— The description for this collection in the "Kirby's History" timeline
Released in 2012 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Kirby franchise, Kirby's Dream Collection Special Edition is a Compilation Re-release of six classic titles from the series' early days released for the Wii. It was developed by series owner HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo, and is notable for being the final first-party Wii title released in North America.
In addition to the classic games, Dream Collection features an exclusive seventh game in the form of New Challenge Stages. This mode features a collection of stages in the same vein as the challenge stages from Kirby's Return to Dream Land. The stages give the player a short time limit to reach the end by using all the features of their given Copy Ability, battling enemies and collecting coins along the way in order to earn as many points as possible. A few new types of stages are introduced, such as boss races against Magolor, the one who built the amusement park all of these stages are located in.
The game also features an interactive timeline of Kirby's History, with videos showing clips from every Kirby game released prior, and 3D models of each game's box. This timeline also includes other surprises, such as three full episodes of the Kirby: Right Back at Ya! animated series, and a video recording of a band performing some Kirby music. More Kirby history can be found in the collection's Feelies, which include a 45 track soundtrack CD with music taken from all across the series, as well as a 45-page celebratory booklet containing descriptions and behind-the scenes information for each game in the series.
The classic titles included in this collection:
- Kirby's Dream Land
- Kirby's Adventure
- Kirby's Dream Land 2
- Kirby Super Star
- Kirby's Dream Land 3
- Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards
Kirby's Dream Collection features examples of:
- Added Alliterative Appeal: The three worlds in New Challenge Stages all use alliteration in their names, which are Happiness Hall, Apricot Atrium, and Last Land.
- Arc Number: 20, in reference to the collection's status as a 20th anniversary celebration, naturally. The opening cutscene shows some Waddle Dees building the number 20 out of golden Star Blocks, the game's logo prominently features the number 20, and the Smash Combat Chambers end with a room with Star Blocks in the shape of the number 20 which you can destroy to collect the coins hidden inside, assuming you have time left to grab them all.
- Art Shift: The opening cutscene has Kirby, Meta Knight, and King Dedede appear onscreen as their 8-bit sprites from Kirby's Adventure before spotting a 3D-rendered Warp Star above them. Kirby inhales the Warp Star, which causes the three of them to change into their then-current designs.
- Border-Occupying Decorations: Because the two Game Boy games have resolutions too small to fill even a 4:3 monitor, a specially-designed border depicting sprites from them against a pink backdrop is used to fill the rest of the screen. If you're playing any of the other games on a 16:9 display, they will feature a baby blue version of the border. These borders can be replaced with a plain black one by pressing + and - together.
- Boss Bonanza: The Smash Combat Chamber has several mini-bosses fought throughout, including King Doo, Bonkers, Dubior, and a two-on-one fight with Kibble Blade and Gigant Edge.
- Boss Rush: After the first Smash Combat Chamber featured several of the mini-bosses from Return to Dream Land, the Smash Combat Chamber EX is almost exclusively dedicated to facing every single mini-boss from that game. It even throws Whispy Woods in at the end for good measure.
- Brutal Bonus Level: Upon clearing the third and seemingly final Magolor Race, you unlock two more stages, both of which are more difficult than any other thus far.
- Smash Combat Chamber EX, which challenges you to defeat every mini-boss from Return to Dream Land and Whispy Woods, all in a very tight time limit.
- Magolor Race EX, where Magolor is at his fastest and most relentless, showering the screen in attacks and giving you no time to breathe. The game acknowledges that you might even think the race is impossible at first.
- Company Cameo: The three worlds of New Challenge Stages are named Happiness Hall, Apricot Atrium, and Last Land. If you take the first letter of each world's alliteration and put them together, they spell H-A-L, a reference to HAL Laboratory, the developer of the Kirby series. A more traditional Kirby-style HAL room can be found in one of the secret rooms in the Normal Challenge.
- Dual Boss: One of the final opponents in the Smash Combat Chamber is a simultaneous battle against Gigant Edge and Kibble Blade. The EX version of the stage has Kibble Blade team up with Dubior instead.
- Early-Bird Cameo: Meta Knight's page in the celebration book includes, alongside concept art of Meta Knight himself, artwork of a similar knight with crimson armor and a prominent butterfly motif. This was a character design for the canceled Kirby GameCube game that ended up becoming Morpho Knight, a secret boss in Kirby Star Allies and Kirby and the Forgotten Land.
- Excuse Plot: New Challenge Stages begins with a short intro explaining that Magolor has built an amusement park where Kirby can play through a series of stages that challenge his Copy Ability prowess. There's no other cutscenes, and the plot never advances any further than that.
- Gameplay Grading: After clearing one of the New Challenge Stages, you receive a medal depending on how high your score was. From lowest to highest, you can get a bronze, silver, gold, or platinum medal.
- Go-Karting with Bowser: The boss battles in New Challenge Stages are friendly races against the reformed Magolor.
- Heel–Face Turn: Despite being the Hidden Villain of Return to Dream Land, Magolor returns with seemingly no more malicious intentions, and builds an amusement park for Kirby as an apology for his previous actions.
- Metal Slime: The Combat Chamber stages occasionally feature golden Waddle Dees that appear. You earn 1000 points for killing them, but they like to disappear offscreen almost as quickly as they appear, so you need to be quick and catch them before you miss your chance.
- Mission-Pack Sequel: The New Challenge Stages are built on the same gameplay engine as Kirby's Return to Dream Land and is based around the same gameplay as the challenge stages from that game, though there are a few new types of stages to spice things up.
- Multi-Mook Melee: A few of the New Challenge Stages are called Combat Chambers. Instead of using your Copy ability to progress through platforming challenges in different ways, these ones are more focused on combat, with waves of enemies you must defeat before you can move to the next room.
- New Work, Recycled Graphics: The game recycles many of its assets from Kirby's Return to Dream Land, including all of the character models and much of the music. Each game in Kirby's History plays a song from that game when you select it, and New Challenge Stages has a few songs from games besides Return to Dream Land, as well.
- No Ending: New Challenge Stages instantly moves on to the credits sequence after you clear the third Magolor race. Not that there was much of a story to resolve.
- Non-Indicative Name: Despite being subtitled "Special Edition", there was no "standard" edition. The Japanese name was Kirby 20th Anniversary Special Collection, which does not imply it was a limited edition.
- Scoring Points: The New Challenge Stages give you points for a variety of actions, such as grabbing coins, defeating enemies, and how much time you have upon clearing the stage. The number of points you earn will dictate what medal you get at the end of the stage, and your best score on each stage is added up to one overall score, which can allow you to earn trophies by getting it high enough.
- Timed Mission: Every one of the New Challenge Stages has a time limit that is shown to you before you start. You must clear the stage before time runs out, or else you will not be graded.
- Unexplained Recovery: Magolor returns following his appearance in Kirby's Return to Dream Land, despite the fact that the last we saw of him was him disappearing into another dimension following his defeat. It was later addressed on Miiverse that Magolor must have found a way out of another dimension, which was eventually properly shown in Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe.
- Visual Pun: The timeline ends with nothing but a bright light at the end. Kirby's future is looking bright!
- Weight Woe: After being turned 3D in the intro, King Dedede seems a bit disappointed with the way his large gut wobbles whenever he moves, looking down and poking it with his hammer and an annoyed look on his face.
