Quite liked the latest joy-athon from the videogame industry's House of Mouse. Probably the most important distinction that wasn't hugely apparent to me in the leadup to Kirby Automata's release is that this game wouldn't take quite as many leaves out of Mario Odyssey's book as it would Super Mario 3D World. Not a problem to me, I personally (much) prefer the latter, and even think the bespoke isolated rollercoaster level format suits Kirby much better.
Where Forgotten Land falls short for me is that it really just doesn't do enough to prove that the additional control axis does a whole lot in Kirby's favor. While movement is a joy, as well as laying waste to flora and fauna while spewing bottomless bombs and flames, it all feels like a typical scrimblo affair - uncannily like Crash Bandicoot 3 at times specifically lol.
This game has 12 copy abilities. Twelve. If Kirby's Adventure on the NES has you beat by over double, you know something's up. The low ability count in turn means that there just isn't a whole lot of enemy variety, exemplified thru the fact that the game boasts a similar number of boss battles of varying size it spreads thinly across its many repeating arena sections. This also means that the environmental puzzles are hilariously rudimentary this time around too. The most you could expect your brain to be teased would be trying to find a Waddle Dee hidden in some offscreen obtuse nook, rather than needing to intuit the environment & scavenge the key ability needed. The abilities themselves are also stripped down to bare essentials too. Gone are the surprisingly complex input movelists of Triple Deluxe and Robobot; mastery of Forgotten Land comes from going to the town hub to menu-somely upgrade your copy abilities to objectively better versions with rather dull statistical upgrades.
Should stress that this is Fine. I don't exactly need Kirby games to be roving epicks of skill and wit, but Forgotten Land is sorely missing the subtle sleight of hand tricks I'd call a series mainstay. Even the title's proud Mouthful Mode gimmick is fully explored in the first world. The variety isn't present where it would be in prior Kirby games and it leaves many checkpoints feeling tiresome and rote.
Still, rly pretty and rly cute with gr8 musique. Not enough games let you breath life back into a devastated town.
The true final boss is fucking sick though. Maliketh, The Black Blade wishes it could.
Where Forgotten Land falls short for me is that it really just doesn't do enough to prove that the additional control axis does a whole lot in Kirby's favor. While movement is a joy, as well as laying waste to flora and fauna while spewing bottomless bombs and flames, it all feels like a typical scrimblo affair - uncannily like Crash Bandicoot 3 at times specifically lol.
This game has 12 copy abilities. Twelve. If Kirby's Adventure on the NES has you beat by over double, you know something's up. The low ability count in turn means that there just isn't a whole lot of enemy variety, exemplified thru the fact that the game boasts a similar number of boss battles of varying size it spreads thinly across its many repeating arena sections. This also means that the environmental puzzles are hilariously rudimentary this time around too. The most you could expect your brain to be teased would be trying to find a Waddle Dee hidden in some offscreen obtuse nook, rather than needing to intuit the environment & scavenge the key ability needed. The abilities themselves are also stripped down to bare essentials too. Gone are the surprisingly complex input movelists of Triple Deluxe and Robobot; mastery of Forgotten Land comes from going to the town hub to menu-somely upgrade your copy abilities to objectively better versions with rather dull statistical upgrades.
Should stress that this is Fine. I don't exactly need Kirby games to be roving epicks of skill and wit, but Forgotten Land is sorely missing the subtle sleight of hand tricks I'd call a series mainstay. Even the title's proud Mouthful Mode gimmick is fully explored in the first world. The variety isn't present where it would be in prior Kirby games and it leaves many checkpoints feeling tiresome and rote.
Still, rly pretty and rly cute with gr8 musique. Not enough games let you breath life back into a devastated town.
The true final boss is fucking sick though. Maliketh, The Black Blade wishes it could.
5 Comments
I think the game validates itself as a Kirby game if you end it with "the final boss is sick". Wish I had a Switch! I honestly don't get why Kirby's 3D debut had to subtract so much from previous entries. Well, I know why they chose to do it, it would be kinda hard to change a ton while keeping the spirit of Kirby but that brings into question why the game is in 3D. Kirby's roots as a platform game mean that the obvious game to build off of is Mario, in particular 3D World if the game is going to be linear. I think Nintendo should've taken more from action games like Ocarina of Time and Devil May Cry to adapt the mechanics from the last few entries. We might be happy that Kirby has made the transition now, but a few games down the line and fans will be asking for it to return to the old style. That is if they don't take a chance on the next few games, which I doubt will happen now that they've got a formula that works.
@Hot_Anarcocoa - tee hee 😊. Managed to start playing a few days before release, so I was able to crush it in record time. Managed to get a good 15 hours out of it, a very good length for a full clear of any game imo!
@HylianBran - yeah to an extent the True Quality of a Kirby game is shown at the final hour, and this endgame is pretty good! Probably the most challenging end boss in the series, I loved it!
@HylianBran - yeah to an extent the True Quality of a Kirby game is shown at the final hour, and this endgame is pretty good! Probably the most challenging end boss in the series, I loved it!
I saw a kid in Walmart the other day staring at a screen showing the game running from an aisle away and saying "Kirby! Kirby!" It was one of the cutest things I've seen in a long time
We need more landscape games in the scrimblo blimbo genre
For real I laughed my ass off
For real I laughed my ass off
Hot_Anarcocoa
2 years ago