Kirby took a giant leap in 2022, finally gettingthe full 3D adventure that he’d been due for a very long time, but that doesn’t mean the franchise is only looking forward.
Return to Dream Land Deluxe is a remake of a major outing on the Wii for Kirby, and takes things back to their classic side-scrolling days. It’s ideal for families but might be a little staid for older gamers.
Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe
This cutesy platformer is ideal if you have kids you want to play with, and excels at couch co-op. For solo gamers in an older bracket, we’re not sure it’s got enough zip.Platform tested: Nintendo Switch
A cute world
We’re not sure anyone comes to a Kirby game expecting much of a story, and Return to Dream Land obliges by keeping things incredibly simple.
It sees Kirby and his pals having a lovely day out interrupted by the arrival of the Lor Starcutter, an interdimensional spaceship that crashlands.
Repairing it to help its pilot get home means journeying around Kirby’s homeworld to find five key pieces of its broken engine, a convenient enough framework for its web of levels.
Things don’t get much more complex than that, but it’s enough to keep things moving quickly and means that the game doesn’t suffer from any interruptions or pretensions.
Importantly, it’s also incredibly family-friendly stuff, making this a really safe bet if you’re trying to ensure that your kids aren’t exposed to too much violence or anything.
By the end of the game, you’ll have enjoyed at least one story twist, but the real meat here is the gameplay, unsurprisingly.
Hopping along
Kirby games were side-scrollers for many long years before Forgotten Land so, in a way, it’s comforting to return to the tried-and-tested medium for the little pink ball.
In many ways this is a typical game in the series - you run, jump and bob from left to right the majority of the time, overcoming enemies, finding secrets and solving incredibly simple puzzles together.
As always, you can inhale blocks and enemies alike, with many enemies offering up copy abilities when you swallow them.
Starting off simple with fire-breathing and sword-wielding, there are plenty to find including all the classic options, and finding your favourite is as rewarding as ever.
The game is forgiving enough to almost always provide new options when you’re about to need them for a gameplay sequence, too.
What makes Return to Dream Land Deluxe great is its commitment to co-op - connecting up to three more Joy-Cons lets you add players to your game at the press of a button.
This means no faffing around with menus or character selection - just hop in and drop out whenever you like.
It works really well and is a godsend for parents and partners who want to help someone get used to the game, or gaming in general.
What’s missing, though, is a sense of challenge. While this contributes to its superb family-friendly orientation, it means that solo players who are a bit more accomplished will breeze through basically every level.
You can turn off some assists but even with these we basically never found ourselves failing a level or running out of health.
Still, we’re feeling forgiving on this front - this isn’t a game aimed at twitchy reflexes or difficulty addicts, and that’s fair enough.
Sweet as pie
Return to Dream Land Deluxe looks almost exactly how you imagine a classic Kirby game would look if re-released for modern hardware.
That is to say, it’s a curious mixture between looking good and a little bit “meh”.
The colours are bright and the levels are charming, but they’re missing some of the charm that would go into later Kirby games - those that would incorporate paper or yarn into their worlds.
Similarly, while the outfits that Kirby gets from copy abilities are fun enough and relatively charming, they don’t have the slapstick comedy quality that Forgotten Land has since offered up.
It’s a bit of a mixed bag, then, but the same old quality is there from a soundtrack point of view, with nice jazzy tunes that keep you bopping along and some textbook melodies.
The game runs really nicely in both docked and handheld modes, although we think that it’s much more suited to docked play.
After all, since Kirby isn’t a huge guy and you can have up to four player characters on screen, you’ll need all the display space you can get to really tell each other apart (despite primary colours being assigned for each character).
We feel like we’re perhaps being a bit harsh in our tone here - so, for the avoidance of doubt, Return to Dream Land Deluxe does nothing wrong on the visual side whatsoever. It just doesn’t manage to light a fire in us, either.
Coming so hot on the heels ofMetroid Prime Remastered, Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe makes a slightly less compelling case.
That shooter was updated from a Game Cube original to be basically a must-play on Switch, whereas this Wii platformer feels slightly more like an also-ran.
If you want a Kirby game on Switch to play alone, then Forgotten Land is the more interesting modern choice.
However, if you’ve got kids or want a super chilled-out co-op platformer then Return to Dream Land Deluxe could well fill a useful gap in your library.
