However, it is not the only great Kirby adventure on Switch, not anymore. After the triumphant transition of the franchise to 3D, Nintendo and HAL Laboratories have decided to take a victory lap by revisiting one of the best and most beloved classic 2D entries in the series. Return to Dream Land originally launched on the Wii, after an extremely protracted development cycle (the project had originally been intended to be the game that took the franchise 3D, and was supposed to be for the GameCube). Upon release, it instantly won plaudits for being arguably the best, most effective, and most accomplished take, on the classic template.

Multiple 2D Kirby games would follow in the ensuing decade, but arguably, none of them managed to reach the highs of Return to Dream Land. Which makes it fitting, in a way, that after delivering one of the best games in the series with their grand transition to the third dimension, Nintendo and HAL are now returning to one of the other best games in the series, the peak of 2D Kirby so to say.

"After delivering one of the best games in the series with their grand transition to the third dimension, Nintendo and HAL are now returning to one of the other best games in the series, the peak of 2D Kirby so to say."

Return to Dream Land is almost exactly the game you remember from the Wii. It’s a classic, traditional Kirby game through and through – you’re talking about a 2D platform with bright, colourful, cheerful stages, and extremely, extremely forgiving platforming, traversal, and combat. Kirby himself retains his signature abilities, including the one that lets him stay airborne practically forever, his ability to suck pretty much anything in his way until it’s… not, and, of course, the signature Kirby ability to copy the abilities of enemies and objects he swallows. The elements all blend to create an extremely charming, inviting, and easygoing world, where you can take your time to slowly come to grips with the increasingly layered and stacked demands the game makes of you – first it’s just movement, then it can be combat, then it’s combat while movement, then it’s combat and movement with some puzzle solving thrown in, and so on. All of this is second nature to seasoned veterans of the medium, and certainly to everyone who has found this review, but as I mentioned, the true triumph of Kirby games is how effective they are at onboarding totally new players who might not have any experience with the medium. Return to Dream Land is a masterclass in this, and honestly seeing how it slowly and steadily amps up the complexity gives me an appreciation for how well it is designed.

Which isn’t to say that that’s the only appreciation more experienced players can get from Kirby. Typically the franchise tends to retain depth and challenge for returning or experienced players by making the critical path extremely easy, but hiding some collectibles and secrets out of the way – these are the ones that require you to actually pay attention, be quick with your movement and platforming, and mostly, actually play the game well. Return to Dream Land retains this aspect in spades too, with even the earlier levels hiding some great secrets that I kept going back to them to play to uncover, because my ego refused to accept the notion that I might have missed anything.

This deeper content for more experienced players is still not going to turn Kirby into Donkey Kong or Mario – it’s a more satisfying platformer for veterans with it taken into account, but it’s still ultimately a beginner friendly game, meaning you’re simply not going to get platforming at that level here. What is here is still great, but you must keep what it is in mind – which is to say, it’s an extremely high quality game made for less experienced players, by definition, a lot of what it does well will be lost on more experienced ones.

"It’s an extremely high quality game made for less experienced players, which means by definition, a lot of what it does well will be lost on more experienced ones."

It’s still a delight to watch newer players (such as younger kids, or even adults who don’t typically play games) play, but Return to Dream Land obviously goes a step further by letting you join them. The game includes full co-op support for up to four players at a time, with players being able to play as Kirby, King DeeDeeDee, Waddle Dee, and Meta Knight, adding an element of cooperative chaos to proceedings. It can also further emphasize the game’s newcomer friendly nature, with a more experienced player helping bail out a less experienced one if they hit a roadblock. It’s local only, so its utility for more experienced players is, again, limited, but within the confines of what this game is trying to do, it’s great.

Other than this excellent design philosophy, pretty much the entire game made it over to the Switch as-is. It just looks a lot better – the gorgeous Kirby art style translates incredibly well to HD (which, remember, the Wii was not), and and every single part of the game has been touched up and polished to a sheen. Kirby, the character, and the world he inhabits, has never looked so delightfully expressive and colourful, bright, and cheery before. 

New to the Deluxe version on the Switch is a brand new epilogue mode, a meaty and substantial adventure clocking in at a further 2-3 hours on top of the main campaign. This epilogue stars Magolor, the interplanetary adventure whom you set out to help in the main game and who forms the narrative crux of that adventure. You can’t access this epilogue until you beat the main game (which makes sense for a lot of reasons that anyone who has finished the original will be able to attest to), and is a fun little romp that also pushes back on the player a bit more (so, again, this is content for the slightly more experienced player – again, this makes sense because by this point the developers can assume you have at least finished the base game, if nothing else, and so are not a total newcomer).

While the new mode is the headlining new addition, there is other stuff too; there are a handful of all new copy abilities added for Kirby available during the course of the main adventure (which accommodates said new abilities surprisingly well), as well as an even easier, helpful assist mode for new players. 

Do I recommend Return to Dream Land Deluxe? I do, especially if you have kids or less experienced players around. Simply watching them play this game can be a joy, but Return to Dream Land of course, does let you join in as well. It’s a well designed game that represents the series at the peak of its powers, and I think longtime series fans are going to find a lot to love here, especially if they haven’t played this title before. If you don’t fall in those categories, you might play through this and wonder what all the fuss was about, since on the critical path, for an experienced player, the whole thing can be done in just a few hours – but then again, that’s really not how it’s meant to be played, is it?

This game was reviewed on Nintendo Switch.

It’s remarkable that Forgotten Land hits it out of the park so thoroughly. Forgotten Land isn’t pioneering a new paradigm of game design or blazing a new trail. There are almost three decades of learnings and an established language of what a 3D game, and a 3D platformer, plays like. All Kirby and the Forgotten Land needs to do is look at those, execute on them successfully, and do so without losing the spirit of what makes Kirby, Kirby. And while that’s still more complicated that that breakdown may make it seem, it pulls it off with aplomb.

"People have been waiting for a 3D Kirby game for a long time. Forgotten Land not only has to meet whatever image of what a 3D Kirby game looks like people have built up in their heads, it also needs to do so while maintaining the straightforward simplicity, accessibility, and charm that have made the series a mainstay with so many demographics, and a fixture of the gaming landscape."

Forgotten Land has multiple linear (but big) 3D levels to go through, each usually part of the broader world’s “theme”, and each nonetheless incorporating enough secrets and hidden nooks and crannies to reward exploration. The levels are wonderful, and we’ll get to that in a second – but ultimately, they are what they are because of the incredible, remarkable controls and movement and ability set Kirby has in this game.

Forgotten Land is a joy to control. Movement, jumping, floating, Kirby’s signature sucking move which bestows upon him the characteristics of whatever he inhaled- all translate over into the third dimension beautifully, and there’s a wonderful immediacy to the pink puffball’s movement that makes simply moving him around in the game’s levels a joy. More complicated maneuvers, such as projectile shooting, aiming, and even close-ranged combat, are also effortlessly translated to the game’s controls – and all of this is done while keeping said control scheme incredibly simple, which is of course an important requirement for a series that very young kids will also play (but of course, something adults can also appreciate).

Kirby’s moveset also informs the design of those levels themselves. These levels are packed with all sorts of things – loads of enemies to defeat (and potentially take powers from) allowing for some great paced encounters, sure, but also, just, all sorts of stuff. You’ll see what seems like scenery and props, and you walk up to it, and you can interact with it – depending on what power up you have, you may be able to interact with it in all sorts of ways, in fact. And interacting with the environment in Forgotten Land is always an enjoyable affair, because much like so many Nintendo games of the Switch era, your curiosity is always rewarded, whether it be by a few coins or heals hidden out of sight, secret collectibles, or entirely hidden away parts of the level, often with their own unique challenges for you to play through. It doesn’t matter what it is – if you see something in Forgotten Land, you can probably interact with it, and if you can interact with it, you will probably be rewarded with something. If nothing else, you’ll be rewarded with a stunning degree of responsiveness from the environment owing to an amazing level of attention to detail.

"Interacting with the environment in Forgotten Land is always an enjoyable affair, because much like so many Nintendo games of the Switch era, your curiosity is always rewarded, whether it be by a few coins or heals hidden out of sight, secret collectibles, or entirely hidden away parts of the level, often with their own unique challenges for you to play through. It doesn’t matter what it is – if you see something in Forgotten Land, you can probably interact with it, and if you can interact with it, you will probably be rewarded with something."

That attention to detail and responsiveness, and the environments’ overall beckoning nature to the player, ultimately all comes down to just how unexpectedly great Forgotten Land looks. It’s a frankly stunning game, with some extremely smart usage of tech matched with a gorgeous art style executed to eye catching perfection. See, Kirby and the Forgotten Land is set on – well, let’s not beat around the bush here, it’s very evidently set on a post-apocalyptic Earth. And while humans and our culture and society have all gone, and much has been reclaimed by nature, everything we built remains. So Kirby’s levels are wildly imaginative takes on mundane and everyday locations and concepts – a level based on a shopping mall, for example, or a house of horrors in an amusement park, or a beach resort. Obviously I’m not going to spoil all of them, but there are a lot of great levels here – and they are all packed with tons of attention to detail, and rendered in gorgeous, beautiful glory. Signage in the background, trash cans, litter, benches, old lanterns, lockers, water pipes, there’s just so much to find in these levels. And you can ignore a lot of it safely and still finish the game – but if you choose to investigate, there’s always a nice little reward tucked out of the way for you, presented with a charmingly beautiful attention to detail.

As great as Kirby looks, the graphics are only a part of the overall package when it comes to presentation. Forgotten Land is just a very well presented game, reeking of high budget, and an attention to detail that usually accompanies a high budget, all around the place. The soundtrack is great (including some surprisingly soulful renditions), the menus and UI are stylish, the cutscenes look great and are extremely well produced, the writing is sharp, and the game even supports Dolby Surround Sound, which few Switch games do.

The incredible thing with Forgotten Land isn’t just how well it executes on a traditional Kirby game in 3D space, though – it’s also how much it goes above and beyond to appeal to everyone. I will be honest, I have fallen off the Kirby wagon over the last few years. The mainline entries often tend to play very similar, and are typically very easy and very short – and make no mistake, I don’t have any issues with any of that, I know the series has a massive fanbase that loves it for those exact reasons. It’s just that I’ve felt the last few games haven’t been for me. But Forgotten Land really goes out of its way to endear itself to everyone, including players who might be looking for something more involved. As already mentioned, it’s a game with a stunning degree of interactivity that rewards the player with all sorts of great content. And, obviously, there are advertised features from this game that have already placed a larger spotlight on it than the series traditionally enjoys, such as the excellent mouthful mode, which is when Kirby swallows something whole but can’t quite swallow it, and so just sort of becomes that object (leading to some excellent and imaginative gameplay possibilities).

"That attention to detail and responsiveness, and the environments’ overall beckoning nature to the player, ultimately all comes down to just how unexpectedly great Forgotten Land looks. It’s a frankly stunning game, with some extremely smart usage of tech matched with a gorgeous art style executed to eye catching perfection."

But there are other, less advertised things about the game too – for example, just how much content it is packing. In addition to the main campaign, the game also includes a staggering amount of collectibles and optional missions to complete, side levels to uncover and beat, and a whole meta game built into it. The meta game involves you building up a village the more collectibles you get, and getting more facilities available to you in the village the more collectibles you fish out – and these facilities can be extremely helpful, from letting you upgrade power ups to just engage in a series of brawls in a coliseum. While Forgotten Land can be completed relatively quickly, there’s simply a lot here, enough that you’ll find enough reason to return to it time and time again. And that’s without mentioning the co-op!

Forgotten Land’s missteps are fairly minor, thankfully, and none really detract from how much of a joy the game is elsewhere. The co-op mode mentioned is, for example, local only (which is an unfortunate and unforced error that Nintendo games make often). As mentioned, if you choose to just stick with the critical path content, the game is definitely going to be fairly short. And there are times when some of the seams begin to show on the game’s presentation side of things – for example, when you look in the distance, you might see something animated at a far lower frame rate than objects in the foreground are (this is, again, an increasingly frequent technique in Switch games these days). But these are all legitimately extremely minor problems, and should not deter anyone interested from giving the game a go.

When playing through Kirby and the Forgotten Land, there was one word that came to my mind repeatedly, over and over again – “delightful”. It might sound like a bit of a cliched refrain, but it really fits. Everything the game does just made me smile. Yes, there are a few minor unnecessary errors, but I honestly stopped trying to keep track of those, and went along for the ride. And what a delightful, joyous, smile inducing ride it has been. If happiness was distilled into a video game, it would be Kirby and the Forgotten Land.

This game was reviewed on Nintendo Switch.

Nintendo and HAL Laboratories’ Kirby: Star Allies, the newest game in their long running franchise of platformers starring the adorably puffy and pink mascot, has managed to sell 1.26 million units worldwide in just 15 days. Nintendo confirmed the number in their newest financial report, which tracked data till March 31, 2018- just 15 days after the game’s March 16 release date.

This, much like the success of Pokken and Fire Emblem Warriors, seems to demonstrate the voracious appetite that Switch owners have. Kirby is a fine game, if a little average, but the pace it has sold at far exceeds its merits- which indicates Switch owners want quality software. Third parties are really missing out by not being on the Switch right now (except for the few, such as Bethesda and Ubisoft, who were ready for Nintendo’s new hybrid).

Kirby: Star Allies is available now exclusively on the Nintendo Switch. If you want to see whether or not the game is up your alley, make sure to check out our review for it.

The NPD numbers for the month of March are out, and while everyone did well all around, Kirby: Star Allies, the first major Nintendo Switch release of the year so far, managed to set a special record of its own last month- it saw a series best debut, with 90% more in revenue than the previous record holder for the series, Nightmare in Dreamland. Incidentally, rough calculations seem to indicate this puts Kirby‘s sales at about 250,000 units last month (though, this is a rough number and includes no digital sales, so don’t take this at face value).

Kirby, then, becomes the latest Nintendo franchise to have benefitted from tremendous growth on the Nintendo Switch- other Nintendo franchises to have done so include The Legend of Zelda, Mario Kart, Splatoon, Pokken, Super Mario, and Xenoblade. On the whole, this bodes extremely well for Smash Bros., Pokemon, and Fire Emblem when they launch later this year on the Switch (well, Pokemon isn’t strictly confirmed for a 2018 release yet).

Kirby: Star Allies is available now exclusively on the Nintendo Switch.