Kirby and the Forgotten Land
Year: 2022
Rating: E10+
Time Played: 15+ hours
Kirby and the Forgotten Land is an interesting outlier for one of Nintendo’s longest-running franchises. Most of these games transitioned from 2D platformers to 3D space in the Nintendo 64 era. Games like Super Mario 64 and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time flawlessly made the jump into the next dimension. Even Metroid Prime successfully brought that franchise into 3D space with the Gamecube. 30 years after its debut, Kirby finally made it to 3D with Kirby and the Forgotten Land.
The game structure is the same as any other Kirby game. Each world is broken into a series of themed levels, followed by a boss at the end of the world. Kirby can inhale enemies and replicate their abilities. The final boss is a literal god. Where previous Kirby games maintained some of their puzzle simplicity by being in two dimensions, Forgotten Land allows more exploration in 3D space while still being constrained to a specific path for each level. As with other Kirby games, there are always secret areas to find and explore in each level that lead to hidden collectables.
Visually, this game is gorgeous. The “mouthful mode” gimmick was a great way to adapt this clearly post-apocalyptic world to Kirby’s standard gameplay mechanic. I also appreciated the copy abilities upgrades, since it helped with the game’s difficulty curve. I didn’t necessarily like the way I had to get the limited resources to upgrade these abilities, but that was also just part of the challenge. Overall, it didn’t feel unfairly difficult, and beating the final boss was an exhilarating battle that came right down to the line. This game perfectly captured the classic Kirby formula and brought it into the 3D world.
Another successful transition to 3D space for a long-time Nintendo franchise, I give Kirby and the Forgotten Land 4.5 stars out of 5.
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