Kirby's Dream Land 3

Kirby's Dream Land 3 (星のカービィ3/Kirby of the Stars 3) is a 1997 platform game developed by HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System; it is the fifth entry in the mainline Kirby series and acts as the second game in the "Dark Matter saga", which covers Dream Land 2, 3 and 64; Dream Land 3 follows Kirby and his friends as they attempt to defeat Dark Matter who has taken over King Dedede.

Kirby's Dream Land 3 ended up being the last first-party Super Nintendo title published in North America on November 27, 1997, with a early 1998 release in Japan; the game never saw a physical European or Australian release, instead first being released digitally via the Wii Virtual Console on July 24, 2009.

The game received mixed to positive reviews from critics who criticised the overall lack of difficulty, but praised the graphics for being detailed for late Super Nintendo standards; the game is also notable for being one of the earliest first-party Nintendo games to show actual graphic violence, with blood coming out of Zero's sclera.

Gameplay
Kirby's Dream Land 3 follows the traditional Kirby gameplay where the player must control Kirby until they reach a star at the end; Kirby is also able to copy the abilities of his enemies and call his friends for help.

Zero is the true final boss of the game; to unlock him the player has to collect all the stars hidden within levels, otherwise the game will end early with Zero preparing the Dark Matter Army to invade Planet Popstar; Zero takes the form of a giant eyeball with a red iris, and fights by opening cuts on his sclera and spewing blood out of them; the final phase has Zero attempting to ram himself into Kirby; the story is later continued in Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards where he's called 02 (pronounced zero two).

Reception
Kirby's Dream Land 3 received mixed to positive reviews from critics; on GameRankings the game had a score of 66.25% based on four reviews.

Marcel van Duyn of Nintendo Life scored a game 6/10 or a "Not Bad", stating "Diehard Kirby fans will no doubt get some enjoyment out of this title, but it isn't very hard to see why it's usually considered the worst Kirby game together with Kirby 64.", criticising the lack of difficulty and off-tone music. Lucas Thomas of IGN was more positive in his review for the Virtual Console release, saying "It's not Super Star. But once you get past that, you can appreciate Dream Land 3 for what it is -- a direct, numbered follow-up to the series that started on the Game Boy."