Review: Kirby and the Forgotten Land is a bold and buoyant adventure
While Nintendo mascots will always live in the shadow of Link and Mario, it feels like Kirby has quietly shored up his reputation as the most trustworthy b-tier star. Well, as quietly as you can when you’ve a honking great vacuum cleaner for a gob.
Since Kirby’s mainline comeback in Wii’s Kirby Adventure, HAL has been sucking up converts like Kirby going to town on a breakfast buffet. It cooked up some of the best stereoscopic 3D in its 3DS duo and, in 2018’s Star Allies, gave us what is secretly one of the best looking Switch games. The buzz around Forgotten Land is getting to see HAL stretch its legs in a full 3D adventure. Can Kirby leave the 2.5D tracks without going off the rails?
The immediate impression is of a team dipping their toe in the 3D platforming waters. Do not expect the complex landmasses of Mario Odyssey, but the penned in runs of Super Mario 3D World. Like that game, this is old fashioned stuff given an HD coat of paint: floaty platforms, chunky fireballs, cracked bricks that collapse underfoot and plenty of barriers to keep you charging ever forwards. Combined with Kirby’s signature near-infinite jump it’s very safe and standard.
The setting is more unusual: a dystopian riff on our human world, stripped of people and left to overgrow in the style of The Last of Us. This helps disguise the meat-and-potatoes run-and-jump: a slippy-slidey ice world seems less tired unfolding in a snowed-in underground, like a cute Metro Exodus. As Kirby gormlessly waddles by beached ocean liners or abandoned funfair ghost houses the overwhelming desire is to see what it does next rather than tut at average acrobatics.
The real-world angle also introduces props, which are Forgotten Land’s answer to the supercharged Kirby
Read more on videogameschronicle.com
