Honestly not the biggest Kirby fan. Love the character and love 64 and Super Star. I heard good things about this game! I didn’t play it on the 3ds and I heard they added some cool features to the switch version! So I boot it up and fell in love with it… for the first world. The music was catchy and I enjoyed having these super power ups that wipe a whole screen! It was fun! Then world 2 came and it was much of the same until the final couple worlds to be honest. The game went from fun to a slog really quick! I beat the game and unlocked extra mode and just couldn’t play it anymore. I know Kirby games are known for being very easy and this one is no exception. But I’ve played games that are easy but fun. I just didn’t have fun. Now the mini games they added were really fun!!! Kind of like the Pokémon stadium mini games. I loved the mini games and unlockable masks but that’s it. I regret playing this game as it feels like I wasted my time. As a man of 34 who loves games I’m learning to value my time. Play games that are good and don’t waste your time. I should’ve stopped playing the minute I stopped having fun. I’m honestly disappointed . Also this game is 60 bucks and I don’t think it’s worth that. It was 30 on the 3ds and I don’t see enough to justify a double price increase. If you can get this game for 30 bucks I’d say it’s worth it for the mini games. I don’t mean to be so negative I was just disappointed.

ngl at first the visuals put me off but after playing it for myself i can certainly say that this is on par, if not better than the original. sadly it costs $60, and while everything here certainly is great, i still don't think it warrants the pricetag, especially since its a remake. nonetheless tho still had just as great of a time with this as i did playing the original on wii months ago <3

on a more personal note, think im gonna be taking a break from gaming for a while. im going to devote my time to the most important thing in the world: watching south park. and also getting a job. two in the same, really.

What an achievement from HAL laboratory. Kirby’s Return to Dreamland Deluxe is not only the best of the (relatively few) Kirby games I have played but also one of my favorite platformers of all time. An absolute joy from start to start to finish, I found myself grinning throughout most of the game. From the super abilities to the puzzles to the soundtrack to one hell of a finale, I was consistently surprised by how unique and creative this game truly was. Each level was a pleasure to explore due to the beautiful cell-shaded art direction and brilliant level design. While the combat and platforming is relatively easy to complete, some of the gears and hidden Star levels provided more than enough of a challenge to keep me engaged, and I believe the Extra mode (i.e., hard difficulty) will provide the combat challenge that is lacking in the first playthrough. Beyond the absolutely excellent campaign (and the bonus 2+ hour epilogue that I haven’t gotten to yet), this version contains another mini campaign in the form of 10 minigames located in Merry Magoland, an amusement park style area that fills with NPCs from the campaign and Waddledees as you complete over 100 missions associated with the minigames. Challenging in their own right, these were so much fun to go through and master. Alongside challenge score-attack stages for 9 copy abilities (which get insanely difficult), a boss rush mode that is a pleasure to roll through, and the unlockable hard difficulty, I’m gonna be playing this game for a long time, and I’m really excited to eventually play this in co-op, because I can already tell my partner is absolutely going to adore this. I never thought that I would enjoy a Kirby game enough to understand the passionate fanbase that the series has. Kirby’s Return to Dreamland converted me, and I am excited for whatever the pink blob and the kings & queens at HAL Laboratory have in store.

If Sand Kirby has a million fans I am one of them.
If Sand Kirby has ten fans I am one of them.
If Sand Kirby has only one fan then that is me.
If Sand Kirby has no fans, that means I am dead.
If the world was against Sand Kirby, I am against the world.

Kirby games are ultimately fairly similar to one another, and they're typically very easy. For those reasons, I feel like I don't have too much to say about this. It's a really solid platforming game where the defining "twist," is that you can copy the ability of many enemies that block your way.

Different abilities in the game feel unique and there's a decent blend of obscure powers, classic favorites, and new entries. The challenges in the game never feel particularly difficult, but I don't think they feel mind-numbingly easy either. It's a general audience and feels approachable to everything, including children. Co-Op is super easy to jumping in and out, and everyone is able to enjoy trying abilities as Kirby. This made it a really fun time to play with my girlfriend.

The extra content outside of the main game is plentiful, but not interesting enough to get me to interact with some of it. Namely the boss rush and the mirror mode, both of which are exactly what they sound like (bosses back-to-back and playing the game again but right-to-left instead of left-to-right) The minigames were very fun however, and I have to give really big props to the Magolor epilogue.

The epilogue chapter was plenty of fun and gives you control over a character with so many awesome abilities that you can further upgrade. The character goes from performing like a wet paper towel to becoming a crazy shooting, teleporting, back-hole opening god. It's a shame that the levels in this were so much shorter and that the campaign doesn't last for more time. By the end of this, I enjoyed the gameplay style more then the main campaign, but I should just play something other than a Kirby game if that's what I'm looking for.

Ultimately, it's a Kirby game. Far from the best one, but a very good one. It's relaxing, super cute, supports some really fun and un-intrusive co-op and is worth playing. An awesome way to introduce people to video games too.

This is a stellar, perfect remake, straight up.

Return to Dreamland is a game I've always adored, it's been a comfort game of mine, though it never stood as my absolute favorite in the series, it always stood high among the series, but after playing it around 4 or so times total the game had begun to slightly lose its luster.

Going into this remake I expected a slightly better version of a game I already loved, what I didn't expect was for it to become the genuine definitive edition of the game without a thought.

RTDL Deluxe improves upon what is left and proceeds to add even more. The main game is kept almost exactly as is, just beautifully revamped with the new wonderful artstyle and higher fidelity visuals. This game is stunning, with the already pretty backgrounds of the original being incredibly revamped to look even better. All of the copy abilities have received their new attacks seen in future games, the new copy abilities of Sand & Mecha are all fun to use and implemented quite well and their Ability Rooms are pretty cool (getting Platinum Ranks in Ability Rooms is still a huge fucking pain tho), feeling like they fit right into the original game, and there's occasional additions of new music from future entries that fit in better.

All the new content however, is what really pulled me in. Magolor Epilogue was a surprisingly fun, with its more combo-oriented gameplay mode, ranking system, and moveset upgrading making for a fun mode to play through and master (I actually Platinum Ranked everything before even getting close to fully upgrading my moveset so I'll have to grind some stages to get the final upgrades now lol).

Merry Magoland was so much better than I anticipated. Even as someone who actually does get a huge kick out of Kirby Subgames, I wasn't expecting to get as much of a kick out of it as I did. Magoland will unironically give this game a huge amount of longevity with me & my little sister and my friend group, as the quick, chaotic, kinetic fun they offer are a blast. Honestly if anything, Magoland only proves that if they ever made a Kirby equivalent to Mario Party it would literally thrash 90% of the entries in that series. Seeing so many classics revamped and just as fun, if not even better than they were, alongside several new ones that were also a complete blast put a huge smile on my face. Them bringing back Checkerboard Chase and making it even better made me inordinately happy, as that might just be my favorite party minigame ever lol. I'm planning to work on getting all Missions overtime as I can.

Also no spoilers but the new / revamped EX bosses in this game are some of the coolest goddamn fights in the series, with the final fight in the True Arena being an easy contender for a Top 5 fight in the entire franchise. Not to mention all of the lore additions being surprisingly fucking staggering and adding a lot to the story & expanding Kirby's world further.

One of my only issues with the remake is the one, sole aspect it removed, the original Scope Shot minigame. Yes, they replaced it with a new, also fun and chaotic scope minigame, and the original Scope Shot minigame really isn't all that replayable, it was a super fun rush of 3 different bosses with really fun patterns that was a blast with friends. It's not even an issue with not having pointer controls, as Kirby on the Draw showed that pointer based shooting minigames could be brought back with stick based aiming just as fine. Though maybe having a stick based aiming game + a scope shot minigame made bringing back the original Scope Shot minigame seem unneccesary. Ultimately, its not a major loss, as we gained a replacement minigame, Ninja Dojo was kept, and we got 8 other great ones as well (well, that Magolor Tome one is pretty mid but the other 7 are great), so it's really a miniscule, minor loss if anything.

Unfortunately, the remake's intention to be as faithful as possible with the original content does result in EX Mode still remaining as a relatively uninteresting revisit, with the only changes being halved health, less healing items, increased & slightly changed enemy locations, and the admittedly good revamped bosses, just as they were in the original game. Simply put, EX Mode doesn't add much to a playthrough outside of the bosses to warrant playing through the entire game again just to unlock the True Arena. Every future game handled the replay modes significantly better (Dedede Tour, Meta Knightmare & Guest Star are all just better), and it would have been preferable if something could have been done to make EX Mode more interesting, but being left as is ultimately isn't the worst thing, maybe just don't play it so close to playing the main story, or bring some friends along if possible.

Overall though, minor nitpicks aside, Return to Dreamland Deluxe is an incredible remake completely worth picking it up again. It's a perfect remake and the superior way to play RTDL, that preserves everything wonderful from the original but improved, and only adds star studded new content. If you're a Kirby fan or just someone who's interested, please pick this title up.

I had played the original Kirby's Return to Dreamland and I honestly enjoyed the game for what it was, but I remember as years would go by, it was one of the game I'd least talk about due to it's only gimmick in my mind being that it was a 4 player Kirby game at the time with some new abilities in spots.

Now after playing this version, I'm not sure if it's because of the beautiful art style or the solid 60 fps frame rate, but I really enjoyed playing and 100% completing this game. Actually now that I think about it, I believe it might be because of the 3DS Kirby games were so great, it made me appreciate what this game actually did.

This game's main story didn't really change at all, but it did add the Magolor Epilogue which I have to say is a very nice addition to the game and kinda brings fresh feel to the game since in the past games when you had "Helper Hero" or you ran the game with Meta Knight or King Dedede they kinda felt like extensions of the abilities Kirby already had (example: Sword and Hammer abilities) while in this story Maglor plays VERY different and feels much like his own character with his own stages and overall adventure. This alone for me felt like a great addition and was worth the purchase.

The rest of the game while updating the graphics and music, also added tons of stuff referencing the past games and this honestly felt like a giant love letter to the franchise disguised as a remake, yet it's so much more than that. I loved every second of playing the game, I can definitely recommend it to Kirby fans and those who haven't played Return to Dreamland this is the perfect game to get because it has pretty much everything the original plush fine tuned. I will say it's hard to recommend if you've played the original before and/or recently, because it's not a huge amount of changes at once, so may wait to get it cheaper if that's your situation, but any other scenario, get it! It's amazing.

Yeah definitely one of my favorite entries in the franchise by far. I always loved Return to Dreamland on Wii and I’ll log that soon but with the exception of getting rid of the Scope Shot minigame this is a vast improvement. The new art style makes the game pop visually more than ever before, I love Merry Magoland, Mecha and Sand are fantastic new abilities, there’s even a few gameplay improvements I love, and Magolor Epilogue is by far my favorite character exclusive mode in the series. It’s just straight up addictive upgrading Magolor as much as you can and it’s a fantastic ending for Return to Dreamland. Definitely pick this up when you have the chance, easily Nintendo’s best Switch remake by a landslide.

To my way of thinking, this is a straight improvement over the original game. The only thing missing is Scope Shot; otherwise you have everything that made the original Return to Dream Land what it was and then some.

I do think most of my issues with base Return to Dream Land went unaddressed. This is understandable; most of my issues with RtDL (disposable level design, Super Abilities drawing too much focus from other design considerations, Extra Mode feeling pretty superfluous, etc) were pretty core to the game's identity, and to change them would make this an inaccurate remake. Still, it's weird to see (for example) Extra Mode feel even more superfluous to the experience of the game this time around, since Magolor Epilogue feels more in-line with Modern Kirby's idea of a post-game.

But all the new stuff adds a bit! Magolor Epilogue is a very, very cool experiment, adding a River City Ransom-esque upgrade/progression system to Modern Kirby's beat-'em-up approach. It's the sort of thing I'd love to see done in the scope of a larger game, though the Magolor Epilogue itself is about the right size for what it's going for. Magolor himself gets a lot of fun characterization here through his upgrade screen commentary - I've never had the same no-holds-barred adoration for Mags many Japanese fans do, going by character popularity polls, but I'm starting to see it now.

Magolor Epilogue means the True Arena's been expanded, and quite a bit at that. An issue I have with Arenas after Super Star is that they feel so small in comparison - something I'll touch upon when I get around to a Super Star write-up - but this game's True Arena finally feels like a suitable match in scope, juxtaposing the EX fights with the Magolor Epilogue fights. Not to give too much away, but I was hoping to see the game experiment a bit more than the base game's surprise run-in with Galacta Knight, and I was pleased to see it did.

Merry Magoland is a terrific addition, too. Nostalgia's always been a huge part of Modern Kirby's identity, and this is an especially sweet manifestation of it, pulling mini-games from all across the series. I'm not completely on-board with all these picks - Crackity Hack over Megaton Punch makes sense from a representation standpoint (Amazing Mirror rep, 4-player's baked in) but I would've preferred to see the original, I would've pulled Air Grind from Nightmare in Dream Land over Bomb Rally - but it's a really fun compilation nonetheless. I'm particularly impressed they didn't chose to import Chop Champs or Star Slam Heroes from Star Allies - I would've enjoyed either of those here, too, but it goes to show how dedicated they were to reconstructing all these mini-games from the ground up. And every time I thought I'd caught Magoland in an arbitrarily restrictive decision I didn't like, I'd be proven wrong. Checkerboard Chase is slower than the original? That's just for kids to get comfortable with, you can unlock a version that's FASTER than the original. Samurai Kirby 100 only lets you play once a day? Nah, it only lets you RANK once a day, you can play as many times as you want. You can only clear a certain amount of missions per day? What are you talking about, the only other daily restriction is the Hidden Magolors, which get shuffled around.

It's small potatoes compared to everything else, but it bears mention - Kirby's spot dodge was backported from Triple Deluxe. Completely changes the mechanical flow of battles and allows the new fights to test Kirby with even more complicated patterns. It's at the cost of making certain fights, like Landia, even easier - but I don't feel too bad about that. Spot dodges require some mastery to use well, and they're my bread-and-butter for Modern Kirby anyway.

Return to Dream Land is a watershed game for the Kirby series, albeit one I don't get, or I at least don't feel what the Wii generation feels about it. Return to Dream Land Deluxe, I suspect, will not be that same watershed game for the Switch generation (after all, Star Allies and Forgotten Land are on the same hardware) - but I hope it is for some kids. There's sooooo much to do with friends and family, and much as I love Star Allies, this is a far more complete package. If I were 20 years younger, I might've spent years mastering this.

If Star Allies was a showcase of how much modern Kirby had grown since RtDL through a new take on the standard Kirby story. This game is that again but through taking that Wii game and putting as much of the style, polish and charm present in their later titles without compromising the original game’s identity

It took a game whose my last experience with it felt exhausting and turned it into a much more fulfilling romp that made me discover and appreciate the merits it has over it’s successors; how Super Abilities never overstay their welcome, how the portal segments are some of the few modern instances of Kirby stages being exclusively designed after inhaling and spitting, or how the super inhale makes regular Kirby more versatile

And then there’s Magolor Epilogue, it’s concept alone is already the coolest thing (getting to see a cool event you previously only heard described), something straight out of a fan-comic, and then the execution is a experiment with one of the biggest hack-n’-slash element the series had yet to play with; the combo system makes the combat feels so much more involved, encouraging you to beat up as many little creatures as far beyond needed as you can in succession

Reading the new pause descriptions made realize how they just hit different compared to the gachapons’ description in Forgotten Land. Really this remake had a lot stuff I missed in FL, cool remixes, lore reveals that leaves you asking more questions, callbacks to previous games, so much of what I love about Kirby

I don’t think they’ll remake the 3DS games anytime within this decade so instead; Gosh could you imagine if the modern Kirby staff tried their hand at a Super Star-type game? Just a bunch of small separate stories like Magolor Epilogue that explore different parts Kirby’s world, each treated like their own games and experimenting with some unique gameplay element, that would be so exciting to see