Bought this soon after it was released in 2022 but finally got around to playing it now after enjoying Kirby’s Dream Land on Nintendo Switch Online. Beat the main story and most all of the Treasure Road stages in about 15 hours and enjoyed pretty much every moment of it. With those and Kirby: Star Allies, I’ve now played my first three Kirby games in last couple years and the 3D Forgotten Land is easily my fave.
The graphics are absolutely gorgeous. Everything is vibrant and colorful with an incredible amount of detail. It’s impressive what Nintendo can do on Switch hardware with the right art style, even with packed and relatively open levels.
The copy abilities were super fun in combat (as opposed to seeming like mostly puzzle solutions in other Kirby games), level design and hidden collectibles are great, and the puzzles are just challenging enough to not be annoying. Final form of the final boss was a PITA but some grinding to level up the powers helped finish them off. I also never really got the hang on some of the air controls and even up to the end was getting hit often based on inability to get Kirby to get maneuver responsively while airborne.
Overall, it’s a beautiful game with a surprising amount of depth and exploration that’s absolutely worth a playthrough. After the success of this from a gameplay and sales perspective, I’m not sure Nintendo can go back to 2D Kirby (other than remakes) for future games. If you’ve been missing 3D platforming with Nintendo polish and charm since Super Mario Odyssey, you won’t be disappointed picking up this one.
? View my GameTrack review
? Buy Kirby and the Forgotten Land for Switch