In the preview of Kirby and the Forgotten Land, which has a demo for Nintendo Switch, we take a closer look at the details about the game.
Kirby and the Forgotten Land is a game that has managed to find its place among the games I’ve been waiting for this year, such as Elden Ring and Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin. The game, which will be released for Nintendo Switch this month, seems to be the first Kirby game set in the post-apocalyptic world. As a player who loves both the concept of the post-apocalyptic world and Kirby, I immediately tried the free demo published on the Eshop and will share my first impressions.
Kirby and the Forgotten Land preview
Kirby No Car? Kirby?!
When Kirby and the Forgotten Land was first announced, it left a post-apocalyptic open world impression on me. After playing the demo, I can safely say that this is not entirely true. The game allows us to navigate through small sections separated under main sections. We get the opportunity to travel in the 3D world with Super Mario Odyssey style controls. We can control its fixed camera with analog. In this respect, it is more similar to Super Mario 3D than Odyssey.
The world Kirby and his friends were drawn into looks like in Nier Automata, Horizon: Forbidden West, and many more post-apocalyptic world-themed games. On the bright side, there are no machines trying to prey on us in this world, in fact we devour the machines. Kirby’s famous “consumption” ability is taken to a whole new level here. We can swallow the various machines and objects we see in the world and take on their abilities (and shape). Thanks to our ability called “Mouthful Mode”, we gain powers that will enable us to swallow different objects such as beverage machines, traffic cones and cars and solve the puzzles we encounter.
There are 3 different sections in the demo. While we get used to the gameplay and experience the innovations in the first part, we have the chance to try to save our friends with our new abilities in the second part. The third part is a big boss fight. The sections presented in the demo were enough to both get used to the game and see the innovations. If you want to play more after finishing it, it is also possible to go back and complete some side quests. For example, there are tasks such as getting five different flowers to bloom in one section and small activities such as finding capsule toys.
The game has two difficulty levels, Spring-Breeze and Wild Mode. Spring-Breeze offers slightly more relaxed, easy gameplay, while Wild Mode increases the difficulty and the number of stars you can earn in return. The Wild Mode difficulty of the demo didn’t bother me much, but I’m glad there is a Spring-Breeze option for my nephew who loves Kirby games.
We are ready for a new adventure with Kirby!
Honestly, when I saw Kirby and the Forgotten Land videos, I was thinking “I can’t handle another open world game”. After playing the demo, these worries disappeared. The game, which I think will take a good place among the first-party games of Nintendo Switch, seems to have no problems in terms of performance.
I played the demo fluently, with no notable FPS losses. It is possible to play at a visually satisfying level of 30 FPS, both in handheld mode and depending on the screen. Distant enemies move a little more intermittently until you get closer, which didn’t bother me at all as I’m used to it from Dark Souls games. We will see how it will perform in larger regions in the following sections, when the game is released.
The fact that the 3D platform game has a fixed camera angle may upset those who expect a Super Mario Odyssey-style gameplay. As far as I’ve experienced from the demo, it didn’t cause any problems, but it seems like it can be a bit of a hassle to get along when two people are playing. I did not have a chance to try the co-op part of the demo, which offers the option to be included with the second remote whenever you want.
Kirby and the Forgotten Land, March 25, On the Nintendo Switch platform will be published. With its colorful 3D world, its gameplay that combines the puzzle – platform – action trio, and Kirby, who swallows even huge cars in one bite, this game seems to really deserve attention. January and February are going by storm with the games released, we will see if it can find a place for itself in Kirby and the Forgotten Land among such good games when it comes out.