I have a little contradictory love to Kirby. I love him. Kirby is the perfect video game character ever made. Kirby is round, Kirby is pink, Kirby sleeps and eats, Kirby defeats demons and gods with one poyo. It's like a cat, but without fur and with the actual power of copying the ability of everything it touches. It's impossible to not want to be friends with Kirby.

But, at the same time, I never really liked to play a Kirby game. Besides some spin-offs, every time I tried one, I mostly gave up before finishing. I don't have a problem with easy platformers, but Kirby games always felt "too much of the same". Even in Planet Robobot, probably the best 2D Kirby game, I can't remember much of it without mixing it in my head. It's easy to see why people love them, but it wasn't for me.

So, when I say that Kirby and the Forgotten Land is one of my favorite games of all time, I want you to understand how much powerful is this sentence. It's SO DIFFERENT of everything that came before, and, at the same time, so familiar to what to expect with a Kirby game. The whole idea of a Kirby game changed perspective to me when I started playing Forgotten Land.

...yes, it was a joke, it's the first 3D game of the franchise, like, ever. Actually, the whole 3D thing isn't that impactful for me. It was perfect, and they managed to translate the gameplay perfectly. But when you do the first 3D game of a franchise, and this isn't even the most impactful thing of the whole title, you know you created a masterpiece. And HAL did.

Strange horizon. Ready to go.

There is a concept in film making that is really important for true classics that want to be memorable: set pieces. The idea here is to invest a lot of money, production and time to create a scene so impactful, so incredible, that will be remembered even years after you watched it. If you want to summarize a movie with good set pieces, you will probably only cite them in order and everyone will remember what film you are talking about.

This concept can also be applied on video games, of course, and there's a lot of gaming classics that do this really well. For me, until now, Kirby games didn't have that much of memorable set pieces. If they had, it was like the lore dumping next to the end of the game — that probably was so absurd (with a big god-like creature and a tragic backstory) that becomes memorable by comparison. I would finish a Kirby game and all the memories became a mush in my head, always that.

Forgotten Land is the opposite. You can show me the name and title of any level on the entire game and I will remember something from it. In different levels of impact, every single stage in this game has a different thing to be experienced. Sometimes, it just a little gimmick, like a big enemy you can defeat. Other times, it's an amazing and beautiful set piece featuring a roller coaster (no more spoilers than this), so cool that me and my wife repeated it SIX TIMES, back to back, just to play it again.

Having a new setting helps a lot in creating these moments. As much as I love Dream Land's cuteness, I can't see a Green Greens lookalike and be excited, you know? But this "new world", this literal Forgotten Land, is so different and familiar at the same time. This idea of a post-apocalyptic place, abandoned by human-like and consumed again by sentient nature... And they double down on it, showing different town styles, creating levels around human-made structures, and probably way more shopping malls they needed.

And everything just followed along with the scenario to be even more memorable. Although the mini-bosses are still just "big enemies", The Beast Pack — the big bad guys here — are enormous, feral, literally wild. The soundtrack too is so good in this idea of mixing familiarity and curiosity. I know that my favorite song is the vocal main theme, but you have listened the King Dedede theme's remix for Forgotten Land? I can kill a beast with my bare hands just hearing this BANGER. (no, I can't)

The finishing touch for the "new world" for me is Waddle Dee Town. I always loved the Waddle Dees and having them build a whole village as you rescue them is so cute! — and a great way to integrate all the extra content besides the main story. I really like this concept of evolving your status during a game (we'll talk more about in a second), it's so rewarding this process that becomes half of the fun for me. Going back from a stage and reading "There's new things in Waddle Dee Town for you!" always gave me a smile.

No one can hold you back. New fields full of mystery.

It's really nice to have an amazing scenario, but this is still a game! Those cool set pieces I talked about before are always interactive. Some of them is just good level design, but a lot of them have a great mechanic behind it: if the thing is too big, Kirby doesn't copy its ability, but instead became part of it in the Mouthful Mode! For gamers, it's like Cappy's capture power in Super Mario Odyssey. For 2000s cartoon kids, it's like the alien Upgrade from Ben 10.

So, if you find a cone, Kirby can swallow it and use its pointed side to attack enemies or breaking walls when ground pounding. Or if Kirby swallows a vending machine, he becomes a soda machine gun. OR IF KIRBY SWALLOWS A CAR, KIRBY CAR IS BORN. Car-Mouth Kirby is one of the cutest images ever imagined by humanity since the first person opened their eyes. My son will be called Carby because of him. I will protect Kirby Car forever.

Those small moments of gameplay change are really cool. Not only to allow more amazing set pieces, but to break the monotony of "barefoot Kirby" that can happen sometimes. There isn't a lot of Mouthful Modes available, and a lot of them are recycled during the adventure, but it's a really fun feature anyways. I can be Kirby and a car at the same time! It's perfect.

Now that I cited "barefoot Kirby", I think this is the game that made Copy Abilities really fun to me finally. In concept, the power of getting the ability of the enemies is amazing: you can get different powers every level, find your favorites and sticking to them (until a collectable forces you to use a specific Copy Ability). In practice, you see everything that is available in the first world of the game and keep using them until you finished it.

In Forgotten Land, the Copy Abilities can be upgraded and I've never been so happy in a Kirby game before. To start, the blueprints you need to unlock them sometimes are well hidden in the levels, doubling down as a cool collectable to search for. Then, you need Rare Stones from challenge stages as currency — I never cared for them before, but with the gameplay variety here, they just became little and interesting puzzles.

When you upgrade a ability, they doesn't lose their essence, but they got new visuals and extra abilities from there. The Fire ability makes Kirby breathe fire, but Volcano Fire Kirby can shoot flaming magma stones way much further. The new Ranger ability gives Kirby a Gun™, but Noble Ranger Kirby can just use those pistols as machine guns if he charges. The control scheme is the same, but the sense of power and discovery changes completely with each new evolution.

I don't want to spoil more of the game, but some of them are even inspired by enemies and bosses — getting them somehow seems even more rewarding. Games like RPGs have this concept of showing player's evolution in power, mostly connected to a lot of stats and formulas. But Forgotten Land just found an easy and visual way to make Kirby even powerful, allowing the player to experience it changing the most basic element in the franchise. The new clothes that Kirby get is 60% of the coolness, it's important to remember.

Feast your eyes on a new world!

I started playing Kirby and the Forgotten Land waiting for Kirby in 3D. Nothing more than that. A good time controlling the best character ever made. But I got so much more. An amazing world, with incredible set pieces and memorable characters. A soundtrack worth of listening in loop for days. An hilarious mechanic to allow new possibilities. An evolution system that no one really asked for, but changed the game for me.

I had so much fun that I literally played the game twice, at the same time. First as the Waddle Dee protector of my wife, than again as Kirby in another save file. I've done all the Treasure Roads, even finished the Colosseum mode. For a franchise that I didn't care much about, I'm as surprised as you on how happy I am now. If this is the new baseline for Kirby games, just give me more of my puffball and I'll love video games forever.