So badly titled I never fathomed until recently that it might be a full mainline Kirby game - and a pretty good one at that! As a fan of Balan Wonderworld, I enjoy the sort of ethereal unicorn-vomit aesthetic they adopt here, which fits Kirby like a glove (or a ball bag?). The new Hypernova power that supercharges Kirby's sucking ability is put to creative, playful use, and underscores how strange and horrifying a creature Kirby is (the in-game description describes his stomach in that mode as a "veritable black hole"). Richer in design than Return to Dreamland, it naturally doesn't feel as smooth and good to play as the Switch remake Return to Dreamland Deluxe, but we (I played handing off with my partner) had about as good a time with it. My partner particularly praised the smoother difficulty - some of the later segments of RtDL, while not incredibly difficult, were frictionful in a way that was not flattering or fun, compounded by a darker, less playful aesethetic. Triple Deluxe is breezy and bright right to the end. Now that they essentially have an engine for it (this is clearly built on the same foundation as RtDL), we might get a Triple Deluxe Deluxe for Switch, which might be a heck of a thing.

Reviewed on Aug 02, 2023


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