OK, about 12 hours in and at 43% save completion. general summary: still love it.I think by now I&rs

OK, about 12 hours in and at 43% save completion. general summary: still love it.I think by now I’ve unlocked most of the other minigames, all lovely—and I did not think we would get a sequel to Kirby Tilt’N’Tumble but here we are. (I jest but only because Kirby Tilt’N’Tumble was way more difficult than Tilt-And-Roll Kirby.) the general pacing of how everything unlocks and unfolds seems really spot on—the minigames unlock right when you’re probably a bit tired of the platforming, Elfilin gets captured right when you’re probably a bit tired of Elfilin, etc. so the way the game flows overall feels really smooth.so far I’ve had only one real moment of rage, which is when Blizzard Bridge wanted me to save a Waddle Dee by doing a no-hit Twin Wild Frosty fight. not even no-damage (which at this point I can cheese pretty reliably with Ice’s invulnerable dodge for the proper bosses, including Dedede whose pre-fight area basically handed me Ice on a silver platter daring me to do the no-damage run first try)—proper no-hit! Drill is a really good ability for this but going underground with it isn’t completely invulnerable, and with two of Wild Frosty going around doing belly flops and stomps and what have you it’s really easy to get hit if you’re not constantly paying attention and ready to move (which I am fundamentally incapable of doing). I guess at least it wasn’t Twin Wild Bugzzy?but honestly it’s impossible to hold a grudge against this game for very long, and not just because of the cute aesthetics. when you’re not doing a miniboss rush or a boss fight, the level design is as it’s always been for Kirby games at their best—somewhat linear but still encouraging exploration and experimentation without egregiously punishing you for mistakes. yes, you almost always miss out on some of the Waddle Dees the first time you play through, but you don’t necessarily need them all to progress so you can always come back and explore more closely later. plus, as Kirby games tend to be nowadays, this game does hold your hand a little bit so that you’re not too frustrated—having copy abilities strewn about near puzzles is still a thing, and having a retry option specifically for things like races and other Mouthful Mode vehicle segments is excellent.I know I said before that this feels like it’s really a successor to Kirby 64, and at first it felt like a direct sequel to Kirby 64 rather than all the games that have come since then—pause screen lore has basically been replaced by the figurines, which are basically a nicer version of the Enemy Info Cards that you get from the Kirby 64 picnic bonus game. (I am kind of sad that pause screen info is gone, but the boss lore being in the figurines bothers me a lot less than things like attack combos missing. at least it means I don’t have to go back through a boss fight just to pause and read their backstory …) but having played through more of it, it also still seems quite reminiscent of RtDL—properly revisiting the idea of Challenge Stages with the sometimes frustrating but extremely rewarding Treasure Road, having an in-universe hub for minigames and such, dividing up the worlds in two halves with a key story beat, and so on. it is interesting because 64 and RtDL of course lead into and out of the troubled development of Kirby GCN during which HAL first attempted a properly 3D Kirby, and now that Kirby is properly 3D it’s those two games that Forgotten Land seems to draw from the most. and of course they are two really excellent games to draw from!this is not to say that aspects from games after RtDL have been discarded entirely though. it’s nice to see the stock items return from Triple Deluxe and Planet Robobot, for one thing. and there’s a real Star Allies-esque sense about the way the story gets presented with a sense of fun—the Dedede fakeout reminds me a lot of the fake credits gags in the main story and Guest Star modes.so, as I said at the top: still love it. and as someone continuing to play through this completely blind, the fact that it draws from 64 and RtDL now has me super confused about whether to be suspicious of Elfilin’s motives … -- source link

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