So, to start... I'm not the hugest kirby fan. And that's not to say I don't enjoy Kirby! I played it a whole bunch in my youth, downloaded every Kirby game on my computer to emulate, but as I got older I lost a lot of my love for the series. I think, bottom line, it's just a bit too easy for how my gaming tastes have developed. Which is fine, Kirby was never meant to be a challenging game by any stretch, but I'd find myself mindlessly blowing through the game not really thinking about what I was doing and that's no fun. But that wasn't really the case here! For one, I really enjoyed the setting. And the gameplay was a lot more engaging than I've found other Kirby ttiles to be.
What's story in a Kirby game? Kirby games have been typical, cartoony platformer fare in terms of
storytelling (except for Kirby's Dreamland 3 which involved eldritch horrors from space???). Get to the end
and beat the guy. The characters are goofy and serve more to make the gameplay happen. However, in Kirby and
the Forgotten Lands, there's another layer. The story is still not exactly present in typical terms, with arcs and
dramatic beats, but something is defintely going on what with the whole interdimenional portal to a modern,
human-like world.
I've always been a fan of the overgrown apocalypse aesthetic, no matter how overplayed it may be in today's
creative age, and this game does it really well here. The setting is both desolate and vibrant in a way
that made me involved in the world and more curious about what may have happened in this new place Kirby's
found himself in. The game could have used the new setting and the narrative mysteries it creates as an apportunity to throw a bunch
of nonsense storytelling gimmicks in your face (ie. new characters that spill exposition constantly), but it doesn't!
And I really appreciate that. It's not afraid to let the player wonder and use their imagination until the reveal pays off at the end.
I mentioned above that Kirby games got a bit too easy for me, and that still stands true in the Forgotten Lands.
I did find myself going through sections of levels with my brain off just jumping around getting bad guys. The Big Mouth
sections help break up the gameplay a bit, and I expected these sections to be way too gimmicky and not fun,
but I honestly had a blast every time one popped up. My favorites are the vending machine, using a boat
with the ring mouth, and of course... the car!! I loved the car sections and I love how they set it up
time attack style so you can keep doing those sections to perfect your time.
The hub world Waddle Dee Town was kinda nice, even if I never really got up to anything there. I appreciate the
effort to give the player a few cute activites to do, and the battle colloseum is cool. I think the thing I got up to
the most in town was getting toys out of the gacha machines.
I did enjoy the level missions and the star quests around the map. The missions kept me engaged during the levels
and they're actually fairly challenging sometimes! They are implemented in ways that make eploring and
observing level details really rewarding. And the star quests challenged me to use powers
I may not have otherwise wnated to use in fun, short burst style levels.
Which kinda leads to my only real gripe about the gameplay... I found most of the powers kinda... boring.
I was really only drawn to a handful of them, the sword, the gun and the hammer being stand outs. To compare,
I started up Kirby Superstar right after I beat this cause I was on a Kirby high, and I found most of the power ups
in Dyna Blade way more engaging and fun. There were also instances where I would upgrade a weapon, which is
a really cool mechanic in general, but would be kinda disappointed by the upgraded version. Overall, I felt like
once I gravitated towards one or two powerups, I would just go to the hub world and grab those ones every
time and would feel no incentive to try other powerups. To that end, I enjoyed doing the star road stuff
since it forced me to use a power I wouldn't normally pick.
I love the graphics!! The colors in this game really pop out at you, especially on an OLED Switch and the tilt shift thing going on makes it feel like you're playing with toys the whole time. The big boss enemies are pretty intimidating and they are rendered really nicely. There's a scene in the beginning when a big huge gorilla guy looks through a window at you and then reaches in to nab you and the whole sequence was done really well. Like I mentioned above, I've always liked settings with overgrown ancient ruins that are actually modern day buildings, and this game's take on it is great. Kirby games by nature are bright and poppy and bursting with color, so it's refreshing seeing the barren wasteland that is our modern day civilization all collapsed and run down rendered with such a lively aesthetic.