Kirby and the Forgotten Land

Genre: 3D Platformer

Players: 1-2 Co-Op (Local), Additional Online Content

The Nintendo Switch 2 Difference

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Review:

Kirby and the Forgotten Land, released on the Nintendo Switch in 2022, is not technically Kirby’s first venture into the realm of 3D (both Kirby’s Air Ride and Kirby’s Blowout Blast precede it), but it is the first time we’ve seen Kirby in a fully-fledged 3D Platformer. As such, it’s only natural that one would wonder how well Nintendo’s cute pink puffball would make the transition to the third dimension, especially since Kirby’s major Platformers have been strictly 2D since the character’s inception thirty years ago.

Not only is that quite a long time to wait, but it doesn’t help matters that many haven’t been thrilled with Kirby’s games in recent years. While I thought Kirby Star Allies was great for what it was, I also had the benefit of playing it after its post-launch content had already been released, and even then I noted that it was particularly easy, even for a game in a series known for lacking challenge. And arguably, that’s the best prior Kirby game on Nintendo Switch – Kirby Fighters 2 was a disappointing Super Smash Bros. wannabe, and Super Kirby Clash was a shallow, repetitive slog of a microtransaction-fest. In short, Kirby hasn’t had the best track record as of late.

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Does Kirby Suck in 3D?

Well, I won’t bury the lead any longer. Kirby and the Forgotten Land is not only a phenomenal first major entry into the realm of 3D, it is one of the best Kirby games ever made. This game does a magnificent job transitioning the standard Kirby series formula to 3D, while also adding new elements that make this a truly unique game in its own right.

Prior to this game, it may have been difficult to imagine how Kirby’s flight and directional abilities like his inhale move and numerous copy abilities would be realized in 3D. Unlimited flight would completely ruin any potential platforming challenge, and having to aim abilities seems like it would ruin the flow of the experience. Thankfully, both of these moves work very well in 3D.

Kirby can still float, but his floating is slower than running and jumping, only lasts temporarily, and he can only float so far off the ground he jumped from before hitting an invisible ceiling of sorts. It’s more limited than his typical 2D platforming, but it’s a measured limitation that still retains the feel of those 2D Platformers without ruining the 3D experience.

Similarly, using the inhale move or a directional attack like tossing a bomb is pretty straightforward here. The hit detection for these attacks is generally very liberal, meaning you won’t usually have to put much effort into aiming unless you’re trying to make a precision strike at a distance. In fact, one of Kirby’s new abilities, the gun-toting Ranger, allows Kirby to charge up a long-distance shot, bringing up a reticle that allows you to snipe from a distance if you like. I will say that occasionally melee attacks seemed a bit clumsy and missed enemies I was trying to hit, but overall I was pretty satisfied with how Kirby’s moveset works in 3D.

However, while it’s impressive how well Kirby’s moves have transitioned to 3D, what’s a real treat is how this game evolves the level design to make use of the third dimension, starting with the foundation established in those classic Kirby games, but adding in elements of Super Mario 3D World, Super Mario Odyssey, and even the Donkey Kong Country games. The result is a game that has familiar touchstones of other Nintendo greats, all while forging a style of its own.

Kirby and the Forgotten Land’s levels are relatively linear obstacle course-style affairs with a mostly fixed camera perspective, similar to the level design of Super Mario 3D World’s levels. However, players are encouraged to keep an eye out for secrets in a way that feels very much like a Donkey Kong Country game. What’s more, progressing through these levels or discovering their secrets often involves the use of Kirby’s new “Mouthful Mode”, which feels a great deal like Super Mario Odyssey’s hat-possession moves.

This Mouthful Mode makes for some truly delightful surprises, and does a magnificent job injecting variety into the gameplay, where suddenly Kirby can speed through the game’s levels as a car, blast away enemies as a vending machine, or move large obstructions in the level by inhaling them and walking them around. It is always a really fun moment when you find a new Mouthful Mode object Kirby can inhale and wrap his flexible body around, and I’ll refrain from spoiling any more of them here.

Another fun element to the gameplay is the bosses, with some being completely new enemies, and some being reimagined versions of classic Kirby enemies. These set piece battles are always fun and different, though I will note that occasionally battles will have me wondering how I’m meant to avoid taking damage as I’m chased down by enemies that are faster than me.

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A Tough Cream Puff?

However, even if they take a hit or two that seemed unavoidable, players needn’t worry about this game being too tough. As is the norm for Kirby games, Kirby and the Forgotten Land is pretty easy, even on its hardest difficulty. It’s not a cakewalk, mind you – this isn’t a repeat of Kirby Star Allies. However, Kirby has plenty of health and health pickups are frequent. Also, it will be relatively rare that you’ll encounter an enemy that gives you a true challenge. For some, I know the relatively low challenge will be a turn-off, but… well, this is Kirby, after all. What did you expect?

One element to add a bit more depth and challenge to the game is uncovering all of each level’s secrets, with this game providing plenty of stuff for completionists to do. As they complete challenges and collect hidden Waddle Dees in need of rescue, they will gradually unlock elements in the Waddle Dee home base. Most of these are just fun little extras that don’t amount to much, but there are a few nice exceptions. Players will gradually be able to upgrade copy abilities to more powerful forms in one building, and another has a fun, simple “Lunch Rush” minigame (think something like a very simple version of the many “Restaurant Tycoon” games and you have a basic idea).

One other nice element here is drop-in drop-out asymmetrical local co-op play, where a second player takes the role of longtime Kirby ally Bandana Waddle Dee. This helper character doesn’t have access to Kirby’s copy ability or Mouthful Mode abilities, but his normal attacks include both melee and projectile moves, and when Kirby transforms via Mouthful Mode, he often latches on to help by flinging projectiles at enemies. However, it’s clear that Kirby’s the star here – the camera focuses on Kirby, Bandana Waddle Dee is teleported to Kirby if he wanders too far, and if he dies, he will automatically respawn after a brief timer elapses. This may not be ideal for players of equal skill looking to play together, but it is perfect if a more experienced gamer wants to play with someone who might struggle to play the game on their own. In other words, this is a great game for parents to play with youngsters.

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A Shining Star

Finally, I should talk about the presentation. Kirby and the Forgotten Land is a visually gorgeous game. While its characters are cartoony, they are absolutely exploding with personality, with wonderful animation and delightfully cute character designs. However, even more than this the world they find themselves in is stunningly beautiful, with gorgeous colors, conceptually creative design, tons of detail, and really excellent texture work. What’s more, this game features some really nice lighting and shadows, and beautiful water effects.

The game takes place in an overgrown, abandoned land that was clearly once a sprawling urban center, and in any other game this post-apocalyptic dystopia would seem bleak, but Kirby’s relentless enthusiasm and cheerful demeanor makes it oddly… cute? It’s an intriguing artistic choice that definitely sets this game apart from pretty much everything else out there.

Having said that, the visuals aren’t without their flaws. The game runs at 30FPS, which is largely fine, but animations farther in the background can get really choppy, much in the same way we’ve seen happen in Monster Hunter Rise and Pokemon Legends Arceus. It seems that this was done to prioritize the game’s dynamic 1080p resolution in docked mode (dynamic 720p in handheld mode). In any case, this choppy background animation still clashes with visuals that are otherwise extremely polished.

When it comes to sound, Kirby and the Forgotten Land features a pretty standard array of Kirby sound effects, including Kirby’s own little adorable indecipherable vocalizations. However, what’s really fantastic is this game’s soundtrack, which has some really wonderful new instrumental themes, with Grassland being particularly catchy, and Snow Theme 1 and Snow Theme 2 are also quite good, and the new King Dedede theme absolutely rocks.

Overall, there are a few complaints that can be made about Kirby and the Forgotten Land – it’s going to be an easier game for most players, the 6-10 hour game length may be pretty good for a Kirby game but relatively short compared to others, choppy animations in the background mar an otherwise great presentation, and overall the game doesn’t do anything that truly pushes the genre in new directions… however, all of these strike me as really minor complaints about a game that is overall an absolute joy to play. Kirby is a delight to control, the level design is excellent, there’s plenty of variety, the visuals are wondrous to behold, the soundtrack is excellent, and overall the game is bursting with personality, creativity, and originality. If you enjoy Platformers, consider this a must-have game.

tl;dr – Kirby and the Forgotten Land is a family-friendly 3D Platformer that marks Kirby’s first fully-fledged 3D adventure, and it is an outstanding game that is one of the best titles in the Kirby franchise. While I have a few complaints about choppy background animations and a relatively easy difficulty level, overall this game is an absolute blast to play, full of personality and originality, all while drawing inspiration from some of the best Mario and Donkey Kong games, as well as Kirby’s own 2D adventures. If you enjoy Platformers, you should absolutely get this game.

Grade: A+

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2022 Game Awards:

Winner:

Game of the Year: Bronze Award (Third Place) – After decades of sticking to the safe world of 2D games, Kirby finally makes a full transition into the world of 3D, and it is perhaps the smoothest transition to 3D that any classic 2D game franchise has ever had. This is of course not technically the first 3D Kirby game, but that doesn’t take away from what a major accomplishment this is.

And far more than simply being “Kirby, but in 3D”, Kirby and the Forgotten Land also has quite a lot of charm and creativity as well, with the new “mouthful mode” not only making Kirby somehow even cuter, but also adding some fun variety to the gameplay. Ultimately, Kirby and the Forgotten Land is something I think is pretty much a best-case scenario for what we could get with a 3D Kirby game, resulting in one of the best games in this long-running series.

Runner-Up: Best Platformer, Best Music, Best Song (Running Through the New World, by Yuuta Ogasawara, Hirokazu Ando, Jun Ishikawa, and Yuki Shimooka), Best Graphical Style, Best Graphics, Best Game for Kids and Casual Players

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The Nintendo Switch 2 Difference

Kirby and the Forgotten Land – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Star-Crossed World

Genre: 3D Platformer

Players: 1-2 Co-Op (Local), Additional Online Content

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Review:

When Kirby and the Forgotten Land was announced as one of the first Nintendo Switch 2 games to be receiving a paid Nintendo Switch 2 Edition upgrade, I have to say I had my concerns about it. Yes, this is a game I maintain is one of the absolute best games on the Nintendo Switch, and an improved version of the game on Nintendo’s newest hardware can only be a good thing, but at the same time this wasn’t some graphically-busted game like Pokemon Scarlet and Pokemon Violet that really needed performance enhancements.

What’s more, the added content the game would receive seemed like it might be a half-hearted attempt to justify the price tag, just reworking the game’s levels with a few additions rather than actually making new content. And when Super Mario Party Jamboree: Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Jamboree TV released and was pretty much exactly that, a clunky, poorly-made add-on designed to make its price tag appear justified… well, let’s just say that I felt like I had reason to worry about Kirby’s big upgrade.

Happily, I can report that this isn’t another case of Jamboree TV-itis. Unlike that game, Kirby and the Forgotten Land – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Star-Crossed World is indeed a noticeable upgrade to the original game, alongside new content that’s well worth playing.

Let’s start with the improvements to the original game first. The Nintendo Switch 2 Edition of Kirby and the Forgotten Land doesn’t seem to have a drastic effect on the resolution (apparently the overall resolution is improved, but the difference is subtle), or improvements to the textures, or character models of the game like you got in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition. However, that’s not to say there’s no major improvement here. The framerate has been doubled from the original version’s 30FPS to 60FPS. This improvement extends to the choppy framerates of enemies seen in the distance, which are still lower relative to the overall framerate, but now appear to be moving at the prior version’s 30FPS cap. Not perfect, but a huge improvement all the same.

Also, it’s a minor note but one still worth mentioning, the loading times have also been improved here. The original version’s loading times were pretty good so it’s not like this absolutely needed a fix, but it’s still nice to see that the original game’s 8 seconds to load up and 5 to get into a level have been cut down to 3 and 4.

Finally, let’s talk about Star-Crossed World. While this originally looked like it would just be slightly-altered versions of the levels that were in the original game, this turns out to be far from the case. While each of these new levels do indeed start out in slightly-altered versions of areas that were in the original game, they quickly diverge from the path already trod in the original game and head off in new directions, and once that happens you’re in 100% new and unexplored territory, in many ways like getting a proper expansion pack to the original game, albeit one that’s much shorter than the original game was.

To be fair, these areas do reuse assets from the original game, but they also add plenty too. The most noticeable of these are areas transformed by a crystalline comet, which has an impressive gleaming, glittery effect that’s quite a sight to behold. In addition to this, you’ll encounter numerous new crystallized enemies, along with new “mouthful mode” transformations.

Also, in stark contrast to what we saw in Jamboree TV, this new content has been worked into the already-existing content of the original game, with these levels selectable on the world map right beside the original game’s levels. And players who prefer to take on the original game’s challenges first are free to do so, or if you prefer you can play both as you progress through the campaign. That said, these newer levels are tougher than what was in the original game, with enemies that take more damage to put down, so you might want to save it until after you complete the original game.

None of this new content truly transforms Kirby and the Forgotten Land into something wholly new, even if some of the new levels and mouthful mode transformations are delightfully creative. However, given how excellent Kirby and the Forgotten Land was, they kinda’ don’t have to – this new content only adds to what was already a masterpiece.

So in terms of value, is this add-on worth $20 if you have the original? I think absolutely – the framerate improvements alone are excellent, and the new content is wonderful. Combining the two I think you more than get your money’s worth with the expansion. As for the whole package, is Kirby and the Forgotten Land – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Star-Crossed World worth $80 as an overall package? That’s a bit tougher to say, but I’m gonna’ say yeah. This is unquestionably the best version of a truly magnificent 3D Platformer, one of the greatest the genre has ever seen. If any game is going to be worth $80, I’d think it’d be a game like that.

tl;dr – Kirby and the Forgotten Land is a family-friendly 3D Platformer that marks Kirby’s first fully-fledged 3D adventure, and it is an outstanding game that is one of the best titles in the Kirby franchise. While I have a few complaints about the relatively easy difficulty level, overall this game is an absolute blast to play, full of personality and originality, all while drawing inspiration from some of the best Mario and Donkey Kong games, as well as Kirby’s own 2D adventures. What’s more, the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition doubles the framerate and adds a collection of excellent new levels to play through. If you enjoy Platformers, you should absolutely get this game.

Grade: A+

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2025 Game Awards:

Runner-Up: Best Paid Nintendo Switch 2 Game Upgrade

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