best kirby game since robobot; the mouthful mode sections remind me of the robot ones in that they change the pace for a bit and allow you to go outside the formula. that combined with being able to upgrade copy abilities to change their impact makes it a very refreshing experience.

as usual with kirby games, waddle dee town and the game in general is full of little details and tidbits, the levels reward exploration but also looking around the overworld map yields extra rewards. there's also the many minigames (i love they added fishing) and even extra content after you beat the game.

it's a very good first entry into 3d, it has everything you should expect from a kirby game, and i'm glad they also put in co-op to play with others.

Quite liked the latest joy-athon from the videogame industry's House of Mouse. Probably the most important distinction that wasn't hugely apparent to me in the leadup to Kirby Automata's release is that this game wouldn't take quite as many leaves out of Mario Odyssey's book as it would Super Mario 3D World. Not a problem to me, I personally (much) prefer the latter, and even think the bespoke isolated rollercoaster level format suits Kirby much better.

Where Forgotten Land falls short for me is that it really just doesn't do enough to prove that the additional control axis does a whole lot in Kirby's favor. While movement is a joy, as well as laying waste to flora and fauna while spewing bottomless bombs and flames, it all feels like a typical scrimblo affair - uncannily like Crash Bandicoot 3 at times specifically lol.
This game has 12 copy abilities. Twelve. If Kirby's Adventure on the NES has you beat by over double, you know something's up. The low ability count in turn means that there just isn't a whole lot of enemy variety, exemplified thru the fact that the game boasts a similar number of boss battles of varying size it spreads thinly across its many repeating arena sections. This also means that the environmental puzzles are hilariously rudimentary this time around too. The most you could expect your brain to be teased would be trying to find a Waddle Dee hidden in some offscreen obtuse nook, rather than needing to intuit the environment & scavenge the key ability needed. The abilities themselves are also stripped down to bare essentials too. Gone are the surprisingly complex input movelists of Triple Deluxe and Robobot; mastery of Forgotten Land comes from going to the town hub to menu-somely upgrade your copy abilities to objectively better versions with rather dull statistical upgrades.

Should stress that this is Fine. I don't exactly need Kirby games to be roving epicks of skill and wit, but Forgotten Land is sorely missing the subtle sleight of hand tricks I'd call a series mainstay. Even the title's proud Mouthful Mode gimmick is fully explored in the first world. The variety isn't present where it would be in prior Kirby games and it leaves many checkpoints feeling tiresome and rote.

Still, rly pretty and rly cute with gr8 musique. Not enough games let you breath life back into a devastated town.

The true final boss is fucking sick though. Maliketh, The Black Blade wishes it could.

The absolute breath of fresh air Kirby needed. Everything about it is new, there are very few references to older games with only one feeling like the type of callbacks that the series became oversaturated with by Star Allies but they still put a unique spin on it! The gameplay of course is the most new thing of all, and while I worried there'd be growing pains no, it felt like the series had already (fully) taken this 3D step years ago. The 3D mechanics are solid, the action is great, dodging in boss battles and that little bit of Witch Time Kirby gets is oh so satisfying.

Ability developing is a fantastic solution to the new issue of limited movesets and low amount of abilities (only 10) by giving them many variants you can play with which is fantastic. Puzzles feel like they took the feedback of Star Allies' puzzles being just "get ability/combo do thing" to heart, as now you at least need to use one brain cell, and limiting co-op to 2 players also kept it from suffering that game's issues. They listened to feedback and as a result this whole game's fantastic.

The only boring part is Elfilin. They talk about Kirby and him being friends going on a journey but they made the mistake of not really showing it. And they have done this before, part of what sells Kirby and Ribbon in 64 is all the scenes they had as a group of friends, but Elfilin doesn't get that unfortunately. Also minor nitpick, but I wish some bosses had more voice acting, Sillydillo is oddly silent for how whacky of a design he is.

But I got incredibly excited as a Kirby fan for this and feel that 5 stars is only appropriate and this is just what the doctor ordered. Of course, I still have to go for 100% completion and it's Kirby so the story and adventure isn't even done!

Kirby's one of those series that's impossible to play without a smile on your face - and Forgotten Land is definitely no exception.

Star Allies was fine, but nothing too spectacular, so I didn't have particularly high expectations; but I was really glad to see this game exceed those and then some.
Genuinely my favorite level design and bosses in the series yet, so I had a blast all the way through.

Only thing that disappoints me is that multiplayer feels like an afterthought; with player 2 only being able to control Bandana Dee (who really can't do much during most of the Mouthful Mode parts either) so if you're hoping for this to be as fun for multiple players as Star Allies or Return to Dream Land for the Wii was, that's sadly not the case.
That's genuinely the only flaw I had with the game though, everything else was fantastic.

If you love Kirby, you'll love this one too - that's how it always goes. But even then, I was amazed by the creativity Forgotten Land had to offer. It's such a great experience.

For the series' first venture into 3D, I'm thoroughly impressed - can't wait to see where the pink puffball's headed in the future, I'm sure it'll be great.

Kirby Forgotten Land is my favorite Kirby game of all time, and I'm not even done with the post-game content. This game has so much charm and a lot of love put into it by HAL. The only thing I didn't really like about this game was the lack of copy abilities (12 of them) and the amount of moves removed from them. I was surprised at the amount of abilities that were in the game, even some staples like Stone, Fighter, and Beam were removed.

Other than that I didn't have any problems with this game because it only goes up, there are no down moments in the game at all. Like when I found out that with the d-pad you could get Kirby to say hi to you or the Waddles Dee's, and the Waddle Dee's I love them. There are over 250+ Dee's in the game but you only need 1/16th of that to actually beat the game, BUT. If you miss out on any Waddle Dee's out in the open or are so obvious to collect, you are a monster and no matter how hard you pray you will find yourself in hell when you die.

Waddle Dee Town is one of my favorite areas in the game. You can say hello to Waddle Dee's and they'll say hi back, you can knock one down and they'll get back up looking sad, it's such a neat detail and I love it. The more Dee's you collect the bigger the town grows and you unlock more buildings that will and can help you in the game. How HAL worked the Star Coins and Waddle Dee's is so good because it gives players an incentive to look around the area for hidden rooms rather than just speed blitzing through levels.

I don't have much to say about the level design rather than I enjoyed just about all of them and I like how detailed each level is, they all have their own story to tell.

Kirby had a stellar transition into 3D and I can't wait for more games like this one.

Good enough that I beat it in two days! Great Kirby outing — likely my favorite yet. Takes a lot of cues from Mario 3D Land/World in that it’s a 3D platformer space that utilizes 2D-style platformer design. The big new features, Mouthful Mode and copy ability level ups, are grand slams. I would argue this is the most fun Kirby has ever been, and will likely turn some Kirby naysayers into believers.

Cons: I played on Wild Mode (the harder difficulty) and Im not sure I actually even died once on a normal level. Came close a couple times though. It alleviates a lot of Kirby pain points, but the stuff you might not love about Kirby is still here; namely, its a pretty easy game and the levels are a bit too long for their own good sometimes (Crash 4’s problem). Also, the game loses some steam in the second half when it stops throwing major new features at you.

Even with these critiques, I strongly recommend Forgotten Land. You can see a lot of foundational ideas here that will create a truly magnificent game with a bit of iteration. As it stands, it’s “merely” great to excellent.

Other observations:
-The Nier Automata-style worlds are so cool to look at.
-Reminds me of New Pokemon Snap and Metroid Dread where it takes 10-15 hours to beat but is extremely dense with content.

never thought i'd see a Kirby game that surpasses both Kirby 64 and SuperStar Ultra yet this game manages to do it

its so fun man the levels are so big and fun to explore and every boss fight is amazing

just fucking play it

Kirby is the the Bret Hart of video game characters... The best there is, the best there was, and the best there ever will be.

It wasn't until the last three chapters that Kirby's latest adventure really hit me, as the first good chunk of areas feel a bit... aimless and the challenges grindy, but as I played more of Kirby and the Forgotten Land and got into deeper into the characters and narrative focus of the game, I fell completely in for the Kirby magic.

Kirby has, and always will be, the most jubilant and wholesome character in the medium of gaming, and he returns in that role to the fullest extent in the Forgotten Land. You'll hear more of his trademark "Hiiiii," see more of his puffy face and large eyes up close, and mingle with his closest friends and foes. That much is guarenteed and in full force yet again.

For whatever reason, no matter how old I get, he holds this same magic. The power of Kirby, no matter how low I'm feeling or whatever mood I'm in, without any issue lifts me up. It's been this way since I first played Kirby 64 over twenty years ago, Superstar just last year, and again today. I was a little nervous in buying this game because what I'd experienced in Star Allies was less than to be desired, and even honestly my first few moments with this game were a little shaky, but as I gave it time, the Kirby magic began to work.

As I'd mentioned, the first few zones/areas have some mediocre level design, something that I felt wasn't the case in previous titles. In Forgotten Land you mess around a bit with the new mouthful mode, run through the same runt of mindless enemies, and do some basic platforming amongst pretty, yet non captivating environments. Some of the areas are filled with life and intricate care to their overall background, but just don't... feel like they add much to the area like the zones in Kirby 64 did. This changed as I made progress throughout the games seven zones, not quickly as I've made clear, but as the missions and plot progressed, the areas matured and became more intricate. The last main mission of this game felt like something straight out of the Halberd section of Superstar, it was that perfect melding of serious and wholesome that Kirby's games usually resolve with. I try my best to write spoiler free reviews, so I don't want to get into the nitty gritty too much about that all, but if you are like me and initally hazy about level and gameplay design, it will probably be worth your patience in the long run.

Now after hitting the "Bro just trust me" part of the review, I think it's fair to start speaking on the detracting points I had about the game in earnest. The first and most major was the format progressing through the zones. Effectively, to complete an area, you must complete four to five story levels. After these story levels you have to open a gate to a boss fight, but you are required first to have recovered a certain number of Waddle Dees. After all, this is the plot of the game initially, rescuing the Waddle Dees that were displaced after being teleported away from Planet Popstar. These Waddle Dees are awarded in three ways; completing the story level, finding them around the mission in places difficult to reach, and completing certain objectives. These objectives are not known to the player beforehand, and can be completely random and nonsensical to the normal progression of a level. Something like "greeting sea birds" or "collecting three coffee items," "using only the hammer to beat the mini-boss" aren't something you'd think of doing when entering the zone and don't really feel conducive to the natural exploration and challenges of platformers.

Two more points I have to take away from the game come in the form of the soundtrack and graphical performance. In regards to the former, JRPG fans might recall the backlash the community had to the initial release of Dragon Quest XI. The soundtrack itself when I played (The Definitive Edition) was incredible as the songs had been re-recorded by the Tokyo Symphonic Orchestra, however upon release sounded like MIDI disasters. It's the same way with this game, good enough melodies that sound arcadey and at times painful to the ears. This doesn't hold the entire way though, as some tracks (like the theme) and songs in the final zones are actually rather interesting as they are composed in a completely different manner. The graphical performance was... odd as the game has some very serious spunk to its art direction. Kirby himself has a great gleen to his soft pink demeanor, and the zones themselves are rather pretty with the bright greens and blues, and later on the dark oranges and browns. This being said, there are sometimes where it just doesn't feel right... especially in regards to frame rate with objects and enemies beyond a certain distance. Objects like cans and enemies in the fourth zone will sometimes float into view at less than 10 FPS which is needless to say, a little jarring. The game, not in a high resolution or frame rate isn't going to look like Control in 4K HDR, but you'd expect something a little nicer.

Overall fans of Kirby should really enjoy this game, especially in its resolving chapters, as the most joyous character in media makes his triuphant and heartwarming return.

We're two for two on awesome Nintendo series revivals! Kirby and the Forgotten Land is an absolutely delightful experience that manages to keep the spirit of the franchise while fixing most of its major flaws.

If there is one thing to criticize with the game is the lack of miniboss variety. I think the minibosses themselves are fine but you fight the same handful over and over again throughout the game. I think original minibosses for each arena would be pretty cool but it is what it is. That and also some minor fps drops.

Besides that, this game is fucking AWESOME. It's shockingly beautiful, has an absolutely incredible soundtrack, the new ability upgrading system is absolutely genius, the combat and exploration has been perfectly translated to 3D, and even the story is surprisingly good! It's not super present for the majority of it, but in series tradition, if you look into the story through both the ending but also boss dialogue and other tidbits the story is shockingly good.

I'm normally critical of the Linear 3D platformer style of gameplay even if games made in them like 3D World and Crash Bandicoot are normally really good, but NONE of those games' issues are here. It's just incredibly fun from beginning to end.

Even the difficulty feels better this time around. While the Wild Mode that promises a more difficult experience feels more like a normal mode, collectable exploration, the side challenges and arena make up for it with a decent amount of challenge. It's not TOO hard, but it is definitely a lot more enjoyable and CERTAINLY more tolerable than Star Allies.

It may have taken a while, but Kirby has finally reached it's rebirth like Zelda, Mario, Fire Emblem, and Pokemon before it. It truly feels like we're in a brand new age for these gameplay franchises and it is not an overstatement to say that Forgotten Land is not only the best kirby game but a new Top 5 Switch Game.

It's short, but so sweet that you will definitely feel like you'll get your money's worth. Please play this.