As soon as Nintendo released a demo to Kirby’s Apocalyptic Wonderland (or rather, Kirby and the Forgotten Land), I knew how I was going to spend my evening. The demo shows what is, most likely, the game’s opening movie, and it doesn’t take long for the ravenously adorable pink blob to find himself in a whole new land. The enemies are adorable, the greenery plentiful, and yes, you can turn into a car – among other things.
A breakdown of the demo
The demo offers two difficulty levels. “Spring-Breeze Mode” serves as the game’s easy mode and gives Kirby a bigger health bar. On the flip side, “Wild Mode” gives Kirby a smaller health bar and a more challenging adventure, but in return, you get more Star Coins. When I played the demo, I tried both modes (you get the chance to pick a different mode once you beat a stage) and while I didn’t find “Wild Mode” too difficult, the demo is also the beginning of the game, so it’s hard to judge how stressful things will get later.
That being said, I like that you get to pick your difficulty before you start each level. I’m not sure if that’s because this is the demo or if that’ll be a permanent feature, but it’s a nice feature to have in the game.
The demo consists of three stages, two of which are platformers with the last being a boss battle. In terms of gameplay style, I’d say that this game is similar to Super Mario 3D World minus the timer. It’s not as open as, say, Super Mario Odyssey, but I’d say the stages are bigger than 3D World. It might not feel like it right away, but there is a lot to walk around and look at. My main piece of advice is to destroy as many objects as you can, as there are Star Coins, health items, and other secrets lingering behind rocks, trash cans, and more. There’s no real rush to complete a stage, so you can take your time, look around, and see if you actually did break everything you could—in Kirby’s regular mode or the new Mouthful Mode.
Like other classic Kirby games, you get to copy the abilities of your opponents. As you play, you start to get an option of what ability to use. What I mean is that, sometimes, you’ll run across an enemy throwing bombs, but you might favor the swordsman, so you discard one ability to collect the other. I, personally, wasn’t very good with the boomerang, but I did like the sword and the bombs.
The demo does let you try co-op, which I haven’t gotten the chance to do yet. My co-op buddy (my wife) doesn’t game as much as me, but I feel like this is a game with a generous enough learning curve that’ll be fun for beginners. She’s already offered to play with me based on watching how dang cute this game is, so I’m looking forward to the both of us working together to save the trapped Waddle Dees.
As to be expected, once the demo ends there’s a trailer showing a whole lot more to the game. Those first three stages are just a small taste of what’s to come, as Kirby travels to all kinds of lands and deals with some rather ferocious enemies. Fortunately, Kirby also gains some new friends and a heck of a lot of new abilities.
Mouthful Mode is actually pretty great
This was the part of the game I was most curious about. Sure, it looked like a lot of fun, but how would it work control-wise in the game? Honestly? It’s great! The best part? You’re still allowed to keep your copy ability when you decide to suck up a busted-up motor vehicle. You don’t have to discard it in order to enter Mouthful Mode, you simply turn into a cone, for example, then go back to using whatever ability you copied beforehand when you get rid of the cone.
Each item you come across in Mouthful Mode serves a different, creative purpose, like using the vending machine to turn beverage cans into projectiles, or using the cone to literally drill into your enemies or cracks in the ground. Or, you know, that turtle I mentioned in the headline, the one that’s got a hunk of concrete for a shell. It’s so silly, but there’s such an adorable amount of charm in that silliness.
Mouthful Mode, at least in the demo, was only used in certain sections of the game. There’s not a time limit or anything like that, but you do tend to reach an area where you obviously have to leave the vending machine behind. This means you should completely explore the area as the drink dispenser to make sure you got everything before moving forward.
Once you beat the three stages in the demo, you get a code that you can use in the full game when it comes out for a special bonus. You can also replay the stages, if you want, with evolved versions of your copy abilities.
I was already pretty excited about this game so the demo really just solidified my decision to go on this new adventure on March 25th.
(Image: Nintendo)
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