When the first trailer for “Kirby and the Forgotten Land” dropped, it looked as if the pink puffball might be getting the “Breath of the Wild”-style makeover the Pokémon series enjoyed with “Pokémon Legends: Arceus” earlier this year. However, as it quickly became clear while playing, this is no open-world Kirby game. “Kirby and the Forgotten Land” undeniably pushes the series to a new scale, but at its core, it’s more of the same. That’s not a complaint, though. If anything, it shows that the Kirby team knows its audience, as the franchise’s predictable formula is part of its appeal.
The two biggest shake-ups this time around are the addition of another dimension, with 3D levels replacing the franchise’s usual side-scrolling, as well as the already heavily memed “mouthful mode,” a mechanic where Kirby partially consumes inanimate objects to take on their attributes. Sucking up a lightbulb allows Kirby to navigate dark rooms, stretching over a car lets him zoom around at high speeds and inhaling a vending machine grants him the power to fire soda cans from his mouth to tear down barriers and enemies, for example. This ability is tied to a handful of sparkling objects you come across in each level, and adds another level of complexity to the game’s platforming and puzzles.
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