Kirby and The Forgotten Land – One To Watch In 2022
Kirby and The Forgotten Land is coming this Spring, and there’s plenty to look forward to with Kirby’s first full 3D adventure on Nintendo Switch. We originally saw this back in September 2021, with a relatively short trailer, but we know much more now about Kirby’s post-apocalyptic adventure, and today I’m going to dive into everything we know.
Kirby is coming back on March 25th, which is much earlier than many of us expected. When we first saw the trailer it was announced as Spring 2022, which is coming around much faster than I could imagine, but it’s great it’s early Spring, rather than late Spring.
The setting for Kirby is off the beaten path for a normal adventure with our little pink, round friend. You might expect something along the lines of Kirby’s Dreamland, with talking trees and cute animals, including birds with hats and clouds with eyes. Kirby’s Forgotten Land throws the normal Kirby conventions upside down with a post-apocalyptic adventure. Nintendo has gone on to describe The Forgotten Lands as a “mysterious world with abandoned structures from a past civilization”. You can see from the trailers, abandoned buildings, broken down old structures… it’s similar to something like the Last Of Us, not a stereotypical Kirby outing.
Waddle Dees are being kidnapped by a new enemy type known as The Beast Pack. Then it’s up to Kirby to save the Waddle Dees from this tough new group of enemies and also save the day. In terms of the structure of the game, it looks like we’re going to be setting off and saving Waddle Dee’s in different zones, similar to that of Super Mario Odyssey.
Way back in the first teaser for this new game, we see Kirby being washed up on the beach in this strange new land. There aren’t many clues as to why Kirby is there, what happened to him, or how it’s connected to where Kirby came from. Those are some of the threads they are happy to leave us to discover when the game comes out in March. Personally, I think it’s a new and interesting twist for Kirby. Normally, the games are pretty simple, there isn’t much mystery or story, so it’ll be good to see what happens here.
We see Kirby running through abandoned shopping malls and crossing deserted streets. For some unknown reason, all the people who built these buildings and streets appear to have gone, as we can see the plants growing over the glossy city that once stood. We also know a little bit about some of the destinations in the game which include a fairground, a desert, and also a snowy area.
Nintendo has given us some details about the game. There is a hub zone called Waddle Dee Town. This is full of mini-games and other characters to interact with. The mini-games include fishing, serving up dinners at the local cafe, and trying to collect toys from a hook machine. There’s an NPC called Wise Waddle Dee living in the town too, who likes to dish out hints and tips if you get stuck. As well as hanging out in the town and passing the time, you can also develop and improve the town. Shops open up with the more Waddle Dees you save, meaning the more you progress in the game the better your town gets.
Kirby and the Forgotten Land is Kirby’s first full 3D outing, and I understand the team who worked on Super Mario Odyssey have been working on this too. If they can get even close to the feel of Odyssey, then we’re going to have a great game on our hands. For the first time, we’ll be able to freely run around the levels in front of us, in full 3D Kirby style, and that means sucking up enemies, copying them, and having a few of our own abilities too. Kirby games of the past have mainly been 2D side scrollers on handheld systems, so it’s pretty exciting for Kirby to get a full Nintendo mainline console adventure. We can also play in a local co-op with another player. One player controls Kirby, the other controls Bandana Waddle Dee.
Kirby’s going to have a full set of copy abilities. If you are new to Kirby then he basically sucks up the enemy and takes on some of their abilities. For example, if the enemy in front of you has a hat and a hammer, then you’d consume them and Kirby would end up with a little hat and hammer too. Kirby normally retains these abilities until he has to spit them out. This set of moves has been made famous in the Super Smash Bros series across a number of consoles and iterations, but it’s going to be great to see what Kirby can do here in the Forgotten Land.
He’s got some new abilities too including The Drill ability, which allows Kirby to burrow under enemies and take them out from below. Then there’s the Ranger ability, which equips Kirby with a red gun that fires stars. I didn’t think we’d see Kirby with a gun, but hey… here we are!
Kirby has new abilities and to go with that there are new enemies too. The Beast Pack are a group of new enemies, plus we have foxes, hedgehogs and snakes. The game is set in this post-apocalyptic world, however, we haven’t lost some of the traditional cute Kirby enemies. Big boss battles have been a big part of the 2D games in the series and that’s going to continue here. In the most recent trailer, we see a huge Gorilla with a mohawk, who’s trapped some Waddle Dees in a cage, and Kirby’s battling him to set them free.
Kirby and The Forgotten Land looks like it’s going to be a whole lot of fun, and was somewhat of a surprise announcement by Nintendo in 2021. Given the talent working on the game, plus what we’ve seen so far through a couple of teaser trailers, I’m excited about Kirby’s next adventure, and getting him out there in the world in full 3D is going to be a great experience. Kirby and The Forgotten Land is due on Nintendo Switch on 25th March 2022.
