Why I Love Kirby & The Forgotten Land

I've talked about my love of Kirby & The Forgotten Land a lot on this blog, but I never actually did a full review of it. I reviewed its soundtrack, I briefly talked about it in the Kirby retrospective I did a while ago, but I never fully delved into why I love it so much. So yeah, it's finally time to talk about how a Kirby game from 2022 managed to overtake Return To Dream Land as my favorite game in the series after over a decade.

Kirby & The Forgotten Land was up there with Metroid Dread as one of the biggest surprise releases of the Switch era. Kirby as a series did have some flirtations with 3D occassionally, between Blowout Blast and the infamous canceled Kirby GCN, but it's been sticking to 2D for so long that I feel like the fandom had reached a state of acceptance. Personally, I didn't think Kirby would ever go full 3D and I was also entirely okay with it, the series was already great as it was. So when the first Forgotten Land trailer suddenly dropped in a Direct, it was a massive surprise. After 30 years, Kirby finally did the unthinkable and went 3D, but was HAL able to pull it off?

Oh, hell yeah. As a matter of fact, this might be one of the best 2D to 3D transitions ever made, up there with Metroid Prime and Metal Gear Solid. It feels like HAL used the long wait to study pretty much everything that made 3D gaming work, and pulled off the perfect conversion. The behind the scenes of this game is genuinely fascinating, because you get to see the many clever techniques HAL used to mitigate common perspective issues while carrying over Kirby's core gameplay so perfectly. From the perspective of your average player, Kirby in Forgotten Land plays almost exactly like how he did in the 2D games... just in 3D. He's just as fast, snappy, and responsive, and while there are some concessions made to accommodate the new perspective (Kirby's flight is limited, copy abilities have less moves), there were also some genuine gameplay improvements within the larger scope of the series. Previous games had added a block move and it was reasonably helpful in a pinch, but Forgotten Land leaned even more into the character action inspirations by adding a quick dodge move, and it makes combat more fun than ever before. And while previous entries introduced some sort of central gimmick like the Super Abilities or the Mech, Forgotten Land's Mouthful Mode is probably my favorite one so far, as the sheer amount of different objects Kirby can swallow are not only fun to mess around with but add so much variety to the game.

The world and level design elevates Forgotten Land even further for me, though. This game takes place in a weird world called the New World, which looks like some kind of abandoned Earth. If you're a long-time Kirby fan since 64, this kind of setting was a long-time coming for the series, but it also made for some of the freshest level design in the franchise. Levels in Forgotten Land are often able to combine standard elemental biomes like grass, snow, and desert, while combining them with more grounded human structures to create some truly inventive and varied stages. You'll be platforming through a mall, across a giant tower bridge, traveling through an amusement park, and visiting a seaside resort drained of all its water. This allows for a ton of really cool world-building details scattered throughout each stage, it's fun to try and piece together what each place was previously like before whatever apocalypse happened, happened. The actual structure of each level is also pretty much perfect for me, they're these linear obstacle courses that are filled to the brim with secrets, hidden areas, and a ton of collectibles scattered around, akin to games like 3D World and Galaxy.

And as per the usual, the boss fights are top-notch. The added arena space and the addition of the quick-dodge allows for fights that move at an incredibly fast pace, with bosses often darting around the arena tossing a fast flurry of attacks for you to dodge. It's exhilarating and, as I've always mentioned, marks Kirby feeling even more like a beginner's character action game. The highlight, however, is easily the final boss, both from a story and gameplay perspective. Forgotten Land actually has one of my favorite stories in the franchise, for reasons I've mentioned quite a lot already. Elfilin is a great new companion for Kirby, he's a real cinnamon roll, and the point halfway through when he gets kidnapped is a real gut punch, even for people who were probably expecting him to be a villain. King Dedede also gets possessed yet again, but I like how seriously it's treated here. It's been a long time since he's been possessed for an entire game, and he and Kirby have become really good friends since, so the fights against him have a bit more urgency. The final act is a perfect culmination of both of these plot points. Dedede sacrifices himself to save you and a bunch of Waddle Dees in one of the most emotional moments in the series, you're absolutely blindsided by a voice-acted monologue detailing what happened to the New World, and you learn that Elfilin was the part of a terrifying ultimate lifeform called Fecto Elfilis, who you proceed to fight in one of the toughest, fastest final boss encounters in the entire franchise.

But of course, that's not all, it is a Kirby game after all. Forgotten Land has a ton of really fun extra content that both expands the story and the playtime. Each level has a bunch of Waddle Dees to save, there's a ton of small hidden challenge stages to discover, you can upgrade all of your copy abilities, and there's over 250 figurines to get in a mercifully generous gatcha system. I also love how most of the usual menu options are incorporated into the hub, Waddle Dee Town, including the sound test, theater, an honest-to-goodness passcode system, a bunch of fun minigames, and of course, the Arena. Forgotten Land also has a pretty neat extra mode where you run through modified versions of all the previous stages, but unlike in previous games, it actually ties into the story and wraps up a few loose ends. Once again, the extra mode ends on a strong note with some of the most effective bits of Kirby horror since Canvas Curse (and here we are, and here we are), along with the haunting canonization of Morpho Knight. I actually adore how Morpho's introduction was executed here, from the slow dawning realization once the butterfly shows up, to the gritty rock version of his theme in Star Allies, to the way the entire room turns bright orange once he shows up, to just how aggressive his fighting style is. I didn't even care for the guy much in Star Allies, but this game absolutely sold me on the character.

As far as visuals go, I think Kirby & The Forgotten Land is one of the best-looking games on the Switch. The environments go for this cartoony-realistic blend where you can tell they're based on real locations, but they're heightened in some way. The colors are incredibly bold, the environments are super detailed, and some of the framed shots showing buildings towering over Kirby are utterly breaktaking. Waddle Dee Town is probably the highlight of the game visually, though, not only does it cram in a ton of adorable character animations, but so much of the UI is diegetic and it looks awesome. The soundtrack is also fantastic, definitely one of my favorites in the series. It is a bit unique for the series, lacking in many returning tracks and having a more complex, moody sound to it, but I think it really works for me. Some tracks even give off a similar energy to the Klonoa games which is always a plus. For the stage themes, I'll shout out Running Through The New World, Through The Tunnel, Fast-Flowing Waterworks, Northeast Frost Street, The Battle Of Blizzard Bridge, The Wastes Where Life Began, Moonlight Canyon, and Faded Dream Of A Psychomeddler. And for the boss themes, I'll shout out Sword Of The Surviving Guardian, Roar Of Dedede, Morpho Knight, and the phenomenal final boss theme, Two Planets Approach The Roche Limit.

Overall, Kirby & The Forgotten Land is such a masterful transition to 3D, it does everything right. The movement is spot-on, the level design is some of the most fun and engaging in the series, the combat is way faster and more bombastic, the Mouthful Mode is the best gimmick to date, the visuals are stunning, the soundtrack is fantastic, it's bursting with side content, and the story is one of my favorites so far. And the crazy part is that there's still room for improvement! Many have stated how Forgotten Land is lacking in copy abilities, and how those copy abilities are lacking in moves, but despite these minor gripes, the fact that HAL's first attempt at a 3D game ended up becoming my favorite entry to date and there's still room to grow even more means I've never been more excited for the future of the series.