Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe's biggest strength is how unapologetically happy and colorful it is.
Its visuals are bright and gorgeous except for the characters' outlines, although I did get used to them over time.
The gameplay is unsurprisingly very laid-back and ramps up in difficulty a little, but not too much.
Instead, the focus seems to be more on variety, which extends to more than just Kirby's copy abilities: On top of the normal stages Return to Dream Land Deluxe offers "chase" sequences, challenges and minigames that ensure there's always something to unlock and to do.
Because of this, completing the main story and Merry Magoland felt very natural and rewarding.
While I wouldn't listen to most of the game's music on its own, it serves the gameplay very well, going from upbeat synths to epic orchestral pieces in its final moments.
My personal standouts are definitely Freezing Temple and CROWNED.
The story (including the Magolor Epilogue) was interesting and I'm looking forward to finding out more about it, but it felt like they could've done more with it instead of keeping the story at a minimum.
I also felt like the parchment aesthetic of the cutscenes put an unnecessary distance between the player and the action, which made it harder to get invested in this joyful experience.
My only gripe with the gameplay is the execution of sprinting: Having to push the control stick in a direction twice to get to full speed takes just a little too long for an action that is supposed to be fast.
It also created multiple situations where Kirby didn't perform an action I intended to perform, because I was sprinting (or not sprinting) without my knowledge.
Mapping that action to a button would've probably made it easier and cleaner to execute.
The level design was pretty much exactly what I was looking for, but it did feel to be at its strongest when it was designed around a single ability and didn't have to account for 24 others.
This is especially obvious in the new Magolor Epilogue, which was solely designed around Magolor's moveset.
Slowly upgrading this little character from almost nothing to being excessively powerful gave this mode a sense of progression as strong or even stronger than the main game.
Your mastery of all the different moves is repeatedly being put to the test by confronting you with harder bosses, some of which actually gave me a little trouble!
Admittedly, I wasn't a big fan of having to grind for the last few upgrades, but I'd be more than happy to see the mechanics of the Magolor Epilogue return and be fully explored in a whole game.
Finally, I want to point out how much detail was put into this game.
The art design, how much personality the characters have, Manager Magolor's statistics: There are so many aspects that show how much love went into this remake that I heavily recommend this game to anyone who's looking for a little positivity.
Its visuals are bright and gorgeous except for the characters' outlines, although I did get used to them over time.
The gameplay is unsurprisingly very laid-back and ramps up in difficulty a little, but not too much.
Instead, the focus seems to be more on variety, which extends to more than just Kirby's copy abilities: On top of the normal stages Return to Dream Land Deluxe offers "chase" sequences, challenges and minigames that ensure there's always something to unlock and to do.
Because of this, completing the main story and Merry Magoland felt very natural and rewarding.
While I wouldn't listen to most of the game's music on its own, it serves the gameplay very well, going from upbeat synths to epic orchestral pieces in its final moments.
My personal standouts are definitely Freezing Temple and CROWNED.
The story (including the Magolor Epilogue) was interesting and I'm looking forward to finding out more about it, but it felt like they could've done more with it instead of keeping the story at a minimum.
I also felt like the parchment aesthetic of the cutscenes put an unnecessary distance between the player and the action, which made it harder to get invested in this joyful experience.
My only gripe with the gameplay is the execution of sprinting: Having to push the control stick in a direction twice to get to full speed takes just a little too long for an action that is supposed to be fast.
It also created multiple situations where Kirby didn't perform an action I intended to perform, because I was sprinting (or not sprinting) without my knowledge.
Mapping that action to a button would've probably made it easier and cleaner to execute.
The level design was pretty much exactly what I was looking for, but it did feel to be at its strongest when it was designed around a single ability and didn't have to account for 24 others.
This is especially obvious in the new Magolor Epilogue, which was solely designed around Magolor's moveset.
Slowly upgrading this little character from almost nothing to being excessively powerful gave this mode a sense of progression as strong or even stronger than the main game.
Your mastery of all the different moves is repeatedly being put to the test by confronting you with harder bosses, some of which actually gave me a little trouble!
Admittedly, I wasn't a big fan of having to grind for the last few upgrades, but I'd be more than happy to see the mechanics of the Magolor Epilogue return and be fully explored in a whole game.
Finally, I want to point out how much detail was put into this game.
The art design, how much personality the characters have, Manager Magolor's statistics: There are so many aspects that show how much love went into this remake that I heavily recommend this game to anyone who's looking for a little positivity.