Kirby’s Return to Dreamland first appeared in 2011, at the end of the Wii’s incandescent lifespan. It aimed to be the purest, Super Nintendo-like form of Kirby. Bright, side-scrolling action with digestible power-ups, airy platforming, and a flat difficulty curve. (In other words, not a kart racer, pinball machine.) Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe, coming to Switch later this month, is effectively the same game with some notable additions. If you’re more hungry for his trademark Dayglo hijinks with Kirby’s recent foray into Forgotten Land, Nintendo is happy to let you explore its fairly recent past.
Return to Dream Land is built around the chaos of four-player co-op, and that’s reflected nicely in Switch’s flexibility. I played the game with his single Joy-Con lying down, but given that Kirby isn’t the most mechanically dexterous series on the planet, I’ve had a lot of bad luck in my reign of terror. I had no problem eating a delicious Waddle Doo. If Kirby doesn’t resonate with you, players can also strap on either Meta Knight or King Dedede, both of whom seem to have defected to the side of justice for this adventure. is eerily similar to those found in Super Smash Bros., with distinct attack abilities mapped to the directional tilt of the joystick. There is a bubble shield. The only thing missing is the grapple.
Hal Laboratories has added several new enemies (and corresponding morph suits) to the campaign to spice up the action to bring back the inhabitants of the Dream Lands. I encountered one who, when consumed, turned Kirby into a mechanized Gundam warrior. As the name suggests, there are also some “ultimate” transformations that can clear the screen in a hurry. After hooking one, I was able to expand into a giant runaway snowball, rolling everything up. Yes, my teammates too. It wouldn’t be a multiplayer Nintendo game without a bit of anarchy.
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Our team whizzed through the Gauntlet and its corresponding boss fight, so if you’re expecting a sinister challenge that’s the prophesied Kirby’s Dark Souls, you won’t find it here. is a number of minigames siled in a separate mode called Merry Magoland.I played one called Adorable Kirby on the Draw, which is a standard shooting gallery attached to Joy-Con motion controls. If story missions get boring, Return to Dream Land can easily double as a party game.
But the most interesting new wrinkle is what Nintendo describes as an epilogue that accompanies the end of Return to Dreamland’s story. . The only character features accessible at the start of the chapter are Float His Jump and Wimpy Pee Shooter. However, once you and up to three friends blast enemies (and maintain Devil May Cry-style combos), you can purchase weapon upgrades just like you’re equipping a League of Legends champion. can. After going under the hood, Magorol’s energy beam suddenly covered more ground, allowing him to drop bombs from the sky. We didn’t get to see the full depth of Magorol’s journey, but structurally it looks like it packs more of a punch than the effervescent levity that has defined the Kirby series for decades. I don’t think it can match the daunting challenge of Metroid Dread, but it’s still an interesting direction.
Is this enough for Return to Dream Land to make an impact on its release schedule? It’s hard to say. Admittedly, there are more auspicious re-releases left in Nintendo’s back catalog, with deluxe versions of tasteful yet feather-light Kirby games sporting the same megaton charm of Skyward Sword and the remastered versions of Link’s Awakening. cannot be expected to match I recently moved to Switch. Still, it’s a surprisingly generous package for a game that could easily have had a standard HD upresor and a few quality of life improvements. I hope to be See if the gamer agrees.
