Summary

Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land is a remake of the NES title Kirby's Adventure. It was released on the Nintendo GBA in 2002, and on Wii U Virtual Console in 2014.

Version Differences

Kirby's Adventure vs. Nightmare in Dream Land

Kirby Nightmare in Dream Land is a remake built entirely from the ground up. It has completely different physics, mechanics, graphics, and an entirely remade soundtrack. No glitches or tech carries over from Kirby's Adventure, and Nightmare in Dream Land has its own new tech.

Other Main Differences

  • Some Invisibility candies are placed by Meta Knight in Adventure. All candies are already placed in Nightmare in Dream Land
  • The Rolling Turtle midboss is replaced with Phan Phan
  • When swallowing an enemy with an ability, the "demonstration" does not have a hitbox. Meaning Kirby can't kill enemies with it or burn ropes while underwater for example

Stage Differences

  • In 1-2, the Ice Cream Island theme plays instead of the Airship theme
  • In 1-4, The second room has additional platforms
  • In 2-2, The area after Grand Wheelie is separated into its own room. The room extends into a vertical section and the final room from KA is not present
  • In 2-4, the laser ball room is extended
  • The rotating tower rooms in 3-2, 3-3, 3-5, and 3-6 have been removed. The tower rooms in 3-3 and 3-6 are replaced by fog rooms that gradually fade away over time
  • In 3-2, a room is added after Bugzy
  • In 3-6, the final room is extended
  • In 4-4 and 4-5, the first rooms are completely different. The last room of 4-5 is also different
  • In 5-3, the last set of spikes in the final room are much easier to pass in Knidl
  • In 6-3, the end of the first room is changed
  • In 7-3, the final room is changed
  • In 7-4, a final room is added

English vs. Japanese

There are two main differences between the English and Japanese versions that are significant for speedrunning

  1. Soft reseting is around 0.5s faster on the Japanese version
  2. The Japanese version has a bug where if you combine your discarded ability with 2 other enemies holding abilities, the mix roulette will always start 1 ability after your discarded ability. On English, your discarded ability is completely ignored.

There are no known differences between the US and EU versions of the game.

Wii U VC

Wii U VC has a few differences compared to playing on Console. There is a gray filter to help protect players eyes from the flashing affects, as well the flashing effects of midbosses and bosses being mostly removed. This means each time you kill a boss, you save time on Wii U VC. That being said Wii U VC has slower load times, and also runs at a slower framerate. This means Wii U VC is overall less than a second faster than console versions.

Framerates

Knidl Framerate comparison by swordsmankirby

Loading times

KNIDL 60 door test Master

Rules & Categories

Rules & Categories

Emulator Rules

The only allowed emulators are mGBA and BizHawk with mGBA core. Runs using these must also use the BIOS file, and show the GBA startup screen via a hard reset before or after the run.

Movement & Tech

Jumping

Your speed is barely faster while in air compared to just running on the floor. The difference is extremly minimal unlike Kirby & the Amazing Mirror.

Sliding off edges

By pressing Down+A (or Down+B), Kirby will preform a slide. Sliding speed starts off fast and gradually slows down. By sliding near an edge, you can cancel the slide meaning you get a speed boost from the beginning of the slide while skipping the slower part of the slide. The only real disadvantage is that you need to restart your dash once touching the floor, but generally you want to slide off edges as much as possible with most abilities.

sliding_off.gif

Eaten Inputs

There's two Primary ways your inputs will get eaten in Knidl.

  1. Trying to do anything during hitlag
  2. Trying to jump while turning around around as normal Kirby (? Fact check)

Ability Tech

Wheel

Wheel is the most used ability in Knidl as it is the fastest and most versatile in horizontal mobility. Wheel can also break metal blocks

Wheel Cancel

wheel_cancel.gif

Wheel Turn Cancel(?)

wtf is the name of this tech?

wheel_turns.gif

Reverse Bonk

You always bonk away from the direction you are facing. By turning before bonking off a wall, you will bounce forward allowing you to reach locations otherwise impossible to reach without floating.

reversebonk.gif

Hi-Jump

Best vertical mobility and high damage output.

Hi-Jump Cancel

To use Hi-Jump, press B. If you want to cancel your Hi-Jump you can press B again to immediately start falling. You won't be able to use Hi-Jump again until you touch the ground again.

hj_cancels.gif

Also shown in this gif, you can do a short hop before using hi-jump by sliding your fingers from A to B. This grants you a bit more extra height before you begin to slow down.

Hi-Jump Hitbox

Hi-Jump has a both a strong and weak hitbox. HiJump's strength depends on how close you are to the target.

hj.gif

  • This gif uses Autofire in Bizhawk

Ball

Burning

Burning is an ability where you shoot forward as a fireball every time you press B. Here's two important things to note with Burning:

  1. When bonking off of a wall, your distance traveled after the bonk can be influenced by holding a direction on the dpad
  2. When burning into a slope, your burn will be canceled instead of bonking off of the slope like in Katam

UFO

UFO is a strong ability where Kirby can fly in all directions without being affected by gravity. UFO is also unique in that you lose the ability upon clearing a stage

UFO Framedata
Frame Description
1-13 Beam
14-48 Small Laser
49-108 Medium Laser
109+ Big Laser

Mixing

When inhaling two enemies with abilities, a mix will be preformed upon swallowing them. The starting position of the roulette is one ability after the first enemy you inhale. The order of abilities is shown below:

 

  • The Japanese version has a bug where if you combine your discarded ability with 2 other enemies holding abilities, the mix roulette will always start 1 ability after your discarded ability. On English, your discarded ability is completely ignored.

Goal Game Info

Knidl's goal game is simple: Press A or B the moment Kirby touches the cloud. Optimally you want to jump on the earliest possible frame, but you have 3 frames to get a standing 7 which is still good. The 4th frame will be a climbing 6, which is a long animation. Since you can use both A or B for the goal game, a common strategy is to slide your finger across A and B. This way you essentially have two chances on hitting the earliest possible frame.

Below is a table with information on how much time you lose depending on how late you jump off the cloud.

Frame Cloud Frames lost
1st 7 (Fast) 0
2nd 7 (Mid) 11
3rd 7 (Slow) 22
4th 6 (Climb) 96
5th 6 (Fast) 15


Route Information & Guides

Meta Knightmare

Meta Knightmare

Level Editor Information

Map Deluxe

See Also

Beginner Tutorial (2019) by MKCocoon

7-2 Advanced Tutorial by MKCocoon

Goal Game Tutorial by Halodude826


Cool Ass Dedede Gif

de3.gif