DrWhatson
1 review liked by DrWhatson
I believe the core tenet of Kirby is that finding things is fun, and there is perhaps no better game out there to showcase the unbridled joy of this simple action.
I have loved Kirby ever since my grandparents got me a copy of Kirby 64: the Crystal Shards back when I was just a few years old. The absolute joy of experimentation with powers, seeing wondrous creatures, and bopping music combined beautifully into what is still a childhood favorite of mine. As time went on I explored the rest of the franchise, falling in love with Triple Deluxe for the 3DS (I still go to it as a happy place) and loving most of the others. I thought my love of the pink puffball had reached its heights, and then - Kirby and the Forgotten Land.
Kirby makes perhaps the smoothest jump to 3D after 30 years in the second dimension that I have ever seen. Taking a LOT of inspiration from Super Mario, specifically game design philosophy from Odyssey and level design from 3D World, Kirby manages to be more fun than it has ever been with more wondrous levels than you'd ever expect, every inch of them jam-packed with more secrets than you will ever find.
Forgotten Land finds the core joy of Kirby and whittles it down to "there is a great pleasure in simply finding a secret." The entire game is built around this idea. It is rewarding watchful players every 10 seconds with something as small as a star coin, or perhaps something even more exciting like a hidden Waddle-Dee, but every second of it is about the player simply finding things. And Kirby has never, ever felt this good to control.
The number of powers has been reduced, but with the new upgrade system (and the fact that powers are available to change constantly throughout levels), it felt more like streamlining what was fun than reducing possibilities. I LOVED the powers this time around, especially the final iterations of them, and the power-specific challenges scattered around to earn the upgrades is genius. Every one of them is fun, and every one of them makes you want to try again just to see if you can beat the challenge clock. You will play every challenge level in the game not just because you need the star pieces to upgrade, but because it's just so goddamn fun.
Waddle-Dee town is magnificent. It grew at exactly the right pace as I traveled the forgotten lands, showing me tiny bits of progress between levels and rewarding me with simply more fun things to do and more residents for my town. There wasn't a lot of character work done besides Elfilin, and that is probably my only actual complaint with Forgotten Land. I'd have liked other characters like Clawroline and Dedede to be fleshed out a little more throughout the story.
Somehow every world was more memorable than the last one, each level impeccably designed both to work with literally any level of any power, which is unbelievable in itself, but to hold hundreds of simple secrets for you to discover. The music is perhaps the best in the series too, which is a hard bar to cross since The Crystal Shards has an all-time great soundtrack. Do yourself a favor and go listen to The Wastes Where Life Began - it might be one of my favorite Nintendo tracks of all time. And the environmental storytelling in these worlds! Unbelievable. There is a horrifying story of how the world ended to be uncovered, and hidden amongst the cute enemies and gorgeous scenery a dark truth lurks.
Forgotten Land follows the franchise-long tradition of unveiling an otherworldly entity at the end who seeks to use uknowable powers to end all life, and this time it's a doozy. This game contains some of the best boss fights in Nintendo history (Sillydillo is certainly up there), but it has one of my favorite final bosses of all time too. I actually started crying in the last 30 seconds of the last fight as I delivered the final blow because I just felt so happy. This game is pure love, joy, happiness, and determination bundled into a small pink boi. HAL Laboratory has outdone themselves this time and crated a stone-cold classic.
I have loved Kirby ever since my grandparents got me a copy of Kirby 64: the Crystal Shards back when I was just a few years old. The absolute joy of experimentation with powers, seeing wondrous creatures, and bopping music combined beautifully into what is still a childhood favorite of mine. As time went on I explored the rest of the franchise, falling in love with Triple Deluxe for the 3DS (I still go to it as a happy place) and loving most of the others. I thought my love of the pink puffball had reached its heights, and then - Kirby and the Forgotten Land.
Kirby makes perhaps the smoothest jump to 3D after 30 years in the second dimension that I have ever seen. Taking a LOT of inspiration from Super Mario, specifically game design philosophy from Odyssey and level design from 3D World, Kirby manages to be more fun than it has ever been with more wondrous levels than you'd ever expect, every inch of them jam-packed with more secrets than you will ever find.
Forgotten Land finds the core joy of Kirby and whittles it down to "there is a great pleasure in simply finding a secret." The entire game is built around this idea. It is rewarding watchful players every 10 seconds with something as small as a star coin, or perhaps something even more exciting like a hidden Waddle-Dee, but every second of it is about the player simply finding things. And Kirby has never, ever felt this good to control.
The number of powers has been reduced, but with the new upgrade system (and the fact that powers are available to change constantly throughout levels), it felt more like streamlining what was fun than reducing possibilities. I LOVED the powers this time around, especially the final iterations of them, and the power-specific challenges scattered around to earn the upgrades is genius. Every one of them is fun, and every one of them makes you want to try again just to see if you can beat the challenge clock. You will play every challenge level in the game not just because you need the star pieces to upgrade, but because it's just so goddamn fun.
Waddle-Dee town is magnificent. It grew at exactly the right pace as I traveled the forgotten lands, showing me tiny bits of progress between levels and rewarding me with simply more fun things to do and more residents for my town. There wasn't a lot of character work done besides Elfilin, and that is probably my only actual complaint with Forgotten Land. I'd have liked other characters like Clawroline and Dedede to be fleshed out a little more throughout the story.
Somehow every world was more memorable than the last one, each level impeccably designed both to work with literally any level of any power, which is unbelievable in itself, but to hold hundreds of simple secrets for you to discover. The music is perhaps the best in the series too, which is a hard bar to cross since The Crystal Shards has an all-time great soundtrack. Do yourself a favor and go listen to The Wastes Where Life Began - it might be one of my favorite Nintendo tracks of all time. And the environmental storytelling in these worlds! Unbelievable. There is a horrifying story of how the world ended to be uncovered, and hidden amongst the cute enemies and gorgeous scenery a dark truth lurks.
Forgotten Land follows the franchise-long tradition of unveiling an otherworldly entity at the end who seeks to use uknowable powers to end all life, and this time it's a doozy. This game contains some of the best boss fights in Nintendo history (Sillydillo is certainly up there), but it has one of my favorite final bosses of all time too. I actually started crying in the last 30 seconds of the last fight as I delivered the final blow because I just felt so happy. This game is pure love, joy, happiness, and determination bundled into a small pink boi. HAL Laboratory has outdone themselves this time and crated a stone-cold classic.
