Kirby’s Return To Dream Land Deluxe Review: The Return Of The Pink Knight

Kirby is one of Nintendo’s icons since its first appearance, back in 1992, generally occupying the niche of the most casual or younger gamers, but they have always been enjoyed by people of all ages.

This time, Nintendo dusted off a 2011 title for Wii, remastered it, added a couple of novelties and sent the nice pink ball back into the ring. Let’s see how this remaster turned out.

Second opportunity

Kirby’s Return to Dream Land it received good reviews upon its release, late in the Wii’s life cycle (the WiiU launched in 2013). And also, since we all know that remasters are a very good way to give a second wind to somewhat forgotten titles, it is not surprising that Nintendo has released this Deluxe version for Switch.

This Kirby is a typical platform game: we control our character in 2D, we can run, jump, float indefinitely and hit enemies, and the objective is to reach the end of the level without dying (in this case we have a life bar and we can consume fruits to recharge it). For those who don’t know him, the hook of the character is that he has the ability to inhale enemies to kill them or, in the case of some, absorb their abilities. Thus, for example, Kirby gains the power to blow flames, brandish a sword, use a whip in the best Indiana Jones style, and many others. Each ability has different attacks depending on the combination of buttons that we use, and they add a lot of variety to the game. There are also super abilities, powers that allow you to destroy part of the scenarios as well as the enemies. All pretty standard but well executed.

The story, of course, is simple: an alien crashes his ship on Kirby’s planet and we must help him repair it. For this we go through levels collecting gears as we absorb every living thing that crosses our path (and inert objects as well). All the characters are adorable, so much so that it’s a pity to destroy them, but that’s the rules of the game, the strongest (aspires) survives.

Let’s play in the forest while the pink ball is away

As we have already seen, the gameplay is classic, there are some surprises but nothing that blows our minds. Nor would it be expected from a forgotten title from more than a decade ago. The problem I found with the game is that it’s too easy. The levels pass us one after the other, without almost having to make an effort. Sometimes we must use a particular ability to progress, while in others we can choose between several, but the result remains the same, the levels slip through our fingers like water.

At first I thought that after the first world things would change but no, only at the end the complexity increases but not too much, and by that point 6 hours have passed without challenges. This is so because the designers wanted it that way, which always deserves our respect, but for all this it is difficult to recommend the game unless you are an ultra fan of the character. Of course, the situation is different if the game is for a child or someone who rarely practices the beautiful art of videogames. In this case, I think they would enjoy it a lot, because they would value the almost lack of friction in the gameplay, the diversity in the powers (which, due to the low difficulty, ends up being more visually interesting than functional) and the general aesthetics.

For this reason, two extra game modes are welcome, both multiplayer. On the one hand we can go through the levels with up to 3 more players, chaotic the more we are but that can help us to guide a less experienced player, while on the other we have a collection of mini-games, also for up to 4 players, which are like finding a 10 peso bill in a pocket.

About the other colors

From the graphics I can say that they are excellent. If we look at comparison videos with the original we won’t find a huge difference with the Wii version, but the style is timeless, flashy and colorful, with imaginative levels. The animations are great! Again, ideal for the target audience. The music and sound effects are what one expects from this kind of game. Nothing to reproach.