SO MUCH CONTENT. This game has so much to do it's baffling how much they added. Every time I think back to a new aspect I realize there's so much more.

New Copy Abilities:
Mecha (9/10)
Sand (10/10)

Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe's biggest strength is how unapologetically happy and colorful it is.
Its visuals are bright and gorgeous except for the characters' outlines, although I did get used to them over time.

The gameplay is unsurprisingly very laid-back and ramps up in difficulty a little, but not too much.
Instead, the focus seems to be more on variety, which extends to more than just Kirby's copy abilities: On top of the normal stages Return to Dream Land Deluxe offers "chase" sequences, challenges and minigames that ensure there's always something to unlock and to do.
Because of this, completing the main story and Merry Magoland felt very natural and rewarding.

While I wouldn't listen to most of the game's music on its own, it serves the gameplay very well, going from upbeat synths to epic orchestral pieces in its final moments.
My personal standouts are definitely Freezing Temple and CROWNED.

The story (including the Magolor Epilogue) was interesting and I'm looking forward to finding out more about it, but it felt like they could've done more with it instead of keeping the story at a minimum.
I also felt like the parchment aesthetic of the cutscenes put an unnecessary distance between the player and the action, which made it harder to get invested in this joyful experience.

My only gripe with the gameplay is the execution of sprinting: Having to push the control stick in a direction twice to get to full speed takes just a little too long for an action that is supposed to be fast.
It also created multiple situations where Kirby didn't perform an action I intended to perform, because I was sprinting (or not sprinting) without my knowledge.
Mapping that action to a button would've probably made it easier and cleaner to execute.

The level design was pretty much exactly what I was looking for, but it did feel to be at its strongest when it was designed around a single ability and didn't have to account for 24 others.
This is especially obvious in the new Magolor Epilogue, which was solely designed around Magolor's moveset.

Slowly upgrading this little character from almost nothing to being excessively powerful gave this mode a sense of progression as strong or even stronger than the main game.
Your mastery of all the different moves is repeatedly being put to the test by confronting you with harder bosses, some of which actually gave me a little trouble!
Admittedly, I wasn't a big fan of having to grind for the last few upgrades, but I'd be more than happy to see the mechanics of the Magolor Epilogue return and be fully explored in a whole game.

Finally, I want to point out how much detail was put into this game.
The art design, how much personality the characters have, Manager Magolor's statistics: There are so many aspects that show how much love went into this remake that I heavily recommend this game to anyone who's looking for a little positivity.

from my twitter media thread:

i've never played through rtdl in its entirety prior to deluxe, so it was really cool getting to finally experience it the whole way through plus the magolor epilogue. probably one of the best looking switch games too imo

addendum:

i did not even attempt the arena, but i got through all the copy ability challenges and obtained all the masks. great game!

Another one of those titles that makes you question how you could possibly say something unique. This is everything I could ever hope for from a Kirby game that follows its classic gameplay type. A usurping over its original ten-fold by being so faithful.

Environments feel like a culmination of the highs perfected by previous mainline Kirbys without a single miss, background elements melding seamlessly with the foreground with everything colored vibrantly in HD so every new area has something visually stimulating. The OST is done similarly, creating an atmosphere untouchable by many previous titles.

Gameplay is not slow at all and is just snappy enough, this, mixed with incredible optimization from this iteration of copy abilities, makes you feel extremely prepared for anything the game throws at you. Puzzles aren't tedious and the game gives you some clear indication when you need to do something specific to progress through a puzzle. It isn't inherently challenging but being able to acquire so much through a single playthrough of a level entirely outweighs difficulty for me.

The story of Return is absolutely timeless, creating some great character development through its vignette-esque cutscenes. And having the final boss of a Kirby title actually have development is something you don't know you need until you have it. This follows well into the Magolor Epilogue.

Of which, the Magolor Epilogue is so far, by far, my favorite thing to come out of a mainline Kirby. I adore everything about this mode. Its story extension, new arcade-like gameplay with Mago's unique upgradable abilities, and of course the design and music for these areas.

I love this game and Magolor Epilogue just pushes it over the edge, going into playing through mainline Kirbys, I didn't expect to find something so near perfection.

I've played many Kirby games that came out before and after the original Wii release. Was about to try it out but this remaster got announced so I said heck, let's just play this one.

Let's start with the overall main campaign:
Kirby’s Return to Dream Land set the blueprint for future Kirby games. They've improved on many things. Many copy abbilities got brought back and got improved tenfold. Ninja and Wing felt rather lackluster in their debut game but here, they are very fun to use. There aren't too many copy abbilities but the ones we have, provide a vast array of movesets. Very much quality over quantity. The optional abbility challenges are not just fun but also provide a nice tutorial for you to really master your abbilities. I also like the level design. There are collectible macguffins in all stages which require you to use your head a bit, so half-assing stages isn't reccomended. Sometimes stages also include items which Kirby have to carry, like a cannon that shoots repeatedly for example. They provide a nice temporal buff but also hinder your movement abbilities in some ways. I've found these items to be well placed and tied to the stage puzzles in clever ways. Even with these nice little small innovations and overall good design, I've found the main campaign to drag on a little too much. Near the end it kinda runs out of ideas and fails to show much new or exciting. The overall game is also a bit on the more basic side but it makes sense since it was Kirby's big Return (to Dreamland) It crawled so future games could run. The harder extra mode is also nice but not something I'd get to finish right after my first playtrough for the above mentioned reasons.

The other stuff:
This remaster features 2 new copy abbs. Sand and Mecha. Sand is not that hype in my opinion. Has some cool moves but overall, a lesser version of Water. Mecha on the other hand is pretty hype. As a mecha anime lover myself, it has one of the coolest movesets ever. The fireball launching up-attack might be a bit busted tho. You can spam it and it deals a ton of damage. Might be a better boss killer than Hammer but I still have to test it.

You also have the obligatory Arena mode. Never was my thing but I always welcome it. The new Magolor Epilogue however is pretty dope. It provides a completely new, combo and upgrade-buying based gameplay. It's fun and ends before it loses steam. For a small extra thing, It's an excellent addition.

So all in all, Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe is a perfectly fine Kirby experience. One of the best introductory games for the franchise and seemingly the definitive version. Later games are a bit better but there are still many hours of fun provided by this title. Good to play in small bursts and the Switch is just perfect for this.

To be honest I never actually played the original game on Wii (didn't actually own any Kirby games on the system until 2018... and even then it was just Dream Collection lol), so this was ultimately my first experience with the game. And, well, all I can say is that it was a really good one.

Levels are overall just well-designed and fun in general, full of variety in terms of the core level design, art style and all the different power-ups/abilities you can pick up, while also being open for replayability and completion with collectibles like the Energy Spheres which unlock new challenges and 'rooms' within the Starcutter.

The 'Super Abilites' were especially interesting to me, largely coming down to how they used upgraded versions of the regular abilities to change up the environment and unlock dimensional rifts, adding a sort of mini-challenge taking place within a sub-level that allows you to unlock energy spheres. Plus the game is generally well designed around the abilities in general and how you can use certain abilities with the environment and level design.

The visuals are also really nice and colorful, and I really like the storybook aesthetic for the cutscenes. Plus the controls also feel really good.

Really, the only thing that I can complain about is that the difficulty is really on the easy side, especially if you're just beating the main story mode instead of going for collectibles. It does pick up a bit towards the end, but even then I was able to hold on to around 50 lives at the end of the game just on my first playthrough. That being said I don't think Kirby is really a series that is going for any level of difficulty so it doesn't bother me all that much. Guess I could also point out that Kirby's ground movement was a little slow for my liking at least in some areas, but again, didn't really bother me too much.

This remake also adds some new features and further replayability to the game. Admittedly I didn't really get too into it as I just focused on beating the Story Mode for this playthrough, but I do think it is worth noting in addition to the updated graphical style, there's also the addition of masks, the 'Merry Magoland' mode, and the Magalor epilogue that adds some lore to the character - something I'm definitely going to go back to and try at some point and gives some added value to the remake even for those who already own and/or played through the original version.

Overall, really solid remake and I can see why this game is among the fan favorites. As someone who's just now getting into the series, this might be my favorite out of what I played (which granted is just Kirby's Dream Land 1, Forgotten Land and this lol) and honestly between playing it and Forgotten Land last year I do kind of wish I played more Kirby games growing up.

Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe feels like a celebration of the modern Kirby formula by reintroducing newer fans to the origin port of what we now understand as a "modern Kirby game." It's hard to state how important this game is to the franchise. And this remaster is a great showcase of this game's strengths.

The game is now finally in HD and runs at a nice 60 FPS which is a huge step up from Star Allies meager 30 FPS. The brilliant backgrounds can now be showcased in their full glory that are honestly still breathtaking for what used to be a late-Wii title. The newly added cell-shaded outlines was something I initially didn't love but I did grow used to them and eventually I do think it was the right choice for this remaster. Gameplay is just as great as it ever was with just snappier gameplay and sped up animations, like for the Super Abilities, and tweaks that make the experience just that little bit better. The new copy abilities such as Sand and Mecha are great additions to the series albeit extremely broken in terms of Arena runs.

Of course this remaster also includes Merry MagoLand which is a fun side mode to play with friends and the medal system does make it decently fun for singleplayer as well. I haven't played Magolor's Epilogue quite yet but I will update this review in the future whenever I get the chance.

This game is a definitive Wii title that paved the way for the Kirby series to gain greater recognition and this remaster preserves that experience immensely.

A solid 2D Kirby game.

A great remake of one of Kirby's critically acclaimed games.

The new abilities are fun to use and the Ultra Abilities are also fun to use.

The artstyle is pretty good going for a more comic book aesthetic.

Like other Kirby games, the game is generally easy but does have harder content available.

This is the only Kirby game in this entire Kirbython that I went into completely blind, and I'm ecstatic to say that not only is this a really good remake, but it completely outclasses the original and is the definitive way to play Kirby's Return To Dream Land. Unfortunately, they didn't correct my biggest issue with the original (that being the fact that you essentially have to beat the game TWICE in order to unlock everything and get 100%) but all of the new stuff this Deluxe package adds are so goddamn fun and worth it that I just don't even care. Let's rapid-fire all of the new things shall we?: The game looks absolutely GORGEOUS now, they added 2 extremely badass new copy abilities as well as corresponding copy ability challenge rooms, an entirely new story where Magolor is the main character, ANOTHER new mode dedicated to returning mini games from previous Kirby games, a STUPID amount of new cosmetic options, The True Arena was completely reworked to include the bosses from the Magolor Epilogue mode as well as a new secret final boss, and ofc all of this means an entire army of new bangers in the soundtrack.

Yeah this is the definitive version of this game, no questions asked

When I saw this game on nintendo direct I was litteraly in HYPE! My favorite kirby game ever getting a remake on switch! The gameplay was really awesome, it was great to see a glow up in graphics, the only flaw was that the protagonists were outlined but not big deal at all!
When I saw Magolor’s epilogue as side story I was really excited to try it, because I’ve always wonder what happened to magolor after his bossfight! This remake really got me and I was really happy to play it! Recommended to everyone ;)

The level design of the original game is definitely very dated, the new content added like the Magalor Epilogue is leagues better in terms of level design and has greater original bosses which I won’t spoil. this game showcases HAL laboratory’s improvement in the past 12 years. I completed the game 100% and got around 27 hours worth of gameplay from it. A pretty good purchase of a remake of one of my childhood games. Unfortunately though I can definitely see a lot of the flaws of the original game shining through on this one.

Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe is exactly what I want from a 2D Kirby game.

+ The gameplay is amazing and not too repetitive because Kirby has 25 different power ups, which is way more than Mario ever had. The Levels are different enough from each other to not feel redundant but the level design could have been better.

+ On top of the Main Campaign you have a tone of fun side content like, challenge levels, mini-games and a whole epilogue where you play as another character.

+ The Bosses are awesome. Most games nowadays have boring bosses that don't utilize the full extent of the gameplay. But not Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe. In this game, the bosses were the best moments I've had.