With Kirby and the Forgotten Land being one of the first mainline Kirby series games I’ve beaten, I’ve been learning a lot from Nintendo’s insatiable puffball. This includes finding out the hard way that these games go from “adorable” to “Resident Evil nightmare fuel” when you least expect it, to general life lessons that are silly and absolutely what we need on a Friday.
Don’t just steal from your enemies, enhance their abilities
Kirby is known for his copy ability, which has him inhaling his enemies to steal their powers. Once he does, he’s able to use their moves against them, and even use them to get to areas he wouldn’t have been able to reach before (ie: using ice to traverse across lava).
Kirby and the Forgotten Land lets you upgrade each of the abilities via a weapon’s shop, money, and rare stones, meaning that you can take what you stole from your enemy and become completely overpowered, depending on how good you are. Combining “look I’m a fiery dragon” Kirby with the Attack Up boost you can buy is one of my favorite things as it can take out bosses who pushed me around in seconds. Now that I have the sword maxed out, though, it might be time to change things up.
Anything can be a weapon
Kirby and the Forgotten land introduces “Mouthful Mode,” which is where Kirby gets to inhale random things like cars and vending machines so he can make his way through a level. While some of these items becoming weapons is obvious (ie: the car), others are a bit of a surprise when you realize you can use them in a fight. The vending machine lets you spit out cans of pop at enemies (or soda, I suppose), and you can use the stairs to slam down onto enemies and flatten them like pancakes that Kirby would, most likely, eat if his mouth wasn’t full.
Get creative
Speaking of “Mouthful Mode,” there are moments where you use it to get into hidden areas. File cabinet in the way? Just eat it and wiggle around until you fall over. Need to sail across the water in an old boat? Swallow the “O” in that old sign and start blowing out air to create the breeze you need. Any problem can be solved by eating.
Move at your own pace
When I started playing the game, I hit the buttons and expected one of them to make Kirby run faster. None of them do this. I thought after playing so many games with run buttons and stamina meters, I’d get frustrated about Kirby moving at one speed (for the most part, you can buy boosters or zip across areas depending on what ability you have). Instead, I actually enjoyed this little guy taking care of things at his own pace and even found myself using the D-Pad to make him wave and scream “HI” in the face of danger.
It’s not just Kirby’s movement where I noticed this easy-going pace. Not only can you play the game with a friend, but you can adjust the difficulty whenever you want. This means if something is too hard to beat, you can go in and turn down the difficulty. You also don’t HAVE to do everything in a stage. The game is pretty forgiving with the number of Waddle Dees you need to move forward. There are 300 of them to rescue, but the last boss only requires 32 of them to unlock the stage.
Celebrate your wins
A time-honored tradition with Kirby. When you achieve victory? You dance. Celebrate your wins. Celebrate them with your friends. Celebrate them while your enemy is passed out behind you.
Don’t forget to pack a lunch
Chances are there will be food in the stage you’re going to, but just in case, you can go to the cafe and grab something “to go” so you can eat it later. Personally, when I know I’m headed into a nasty boss battle or, ugh, trying to get through the colosseum, I do a combo of “extra health bar” and “tomato on the side” so I can be ready.
Not every cutie is your friend
The hardest lesson to learn with this game. A lot of the enemies are cute, but a lot of them, very much, want you dead. My heart hurts every time I have to knock out an Awoofy because I really just wanna pet them, but alas.
There is ALWAYS more to do
When you beat Kirby and the Forgotten Land you get a “to be continued” message. After that, a new quest opens up, one that cranks up the difficulty of the worlds, and bosses, you already fought. Now, once you get through all of that, you could call it a day… ooooor you can try the colosseum, which has three different cups to compete in. The third cup is, by far, the hardest, giving you fewer health items and extremely difficult opponents, including one that ONLY exists in that mode.
There are also figures to collect, Waddle Dee to save, side games to play… Kirby’s got a LOT going on.
You can come back to it later
All of that being said, you don’t HAVE to do everything all at once. Circling back to the whole “move at your own pace” aspect of the game, you can attempt to do these things whenever you feel up to it. In fact, it’s probably for the best to wait to take on the hardest portion of the colosseum until you have your weapons upgraded and have enough money to buy plenty of boosters for the fights.
Breaks are necessary
There is a song lyric in the game’s catchy main theme, “New World,” that says, “Along the way, stuff your belly and nap awhile,” in regard to exploring the new world. With all of the action going on in Kirby and the Forgotten Land, breaks are KEY to making it through the adventure. In fact, the first thing to be rebuilt in Waddle Dee Town is a movie theater because “entertainment is important.”
While playing Kirby and the Forgotten Land you can take a nap inside Kirby’s house, go catch a movie at the theater, watch a band perform, heck, you can even go fishing. These are things that are unlocked as more of the town is developed, but the message is clear: take a break, Kirby!
(Image: Nintendo)
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