Kirby and the Forgotten Land, Pt 3 - The End

 

This is it: The endgame of what is ostensibly Shiver Star from Kirby 64 only fully realized as an entire game. As we waltz into this very Souls-like castle vista, what menaces await?

AH! JESUS!

That's right, Dedede himself is the boss of the ice world. And we've got two more worlds to go after this, so it's surprising to see him so early.

This fight is no slouch, and he attacks with that OP ice weapon that got nerfed in Elden Ring.

This would be a good time to mention something I neglected to earlier: There's a dodge-roll in this game. That's right, they added a Soulsian dodge roll. Pokemon Legends: Arceus got one too. Here it's a lot more needed though, as Kirby's semi-sluggish normal movement speed isn't enough to get out of the way of a lot of attacks.

World 5 is the desert world, and it's yet another gorgeous location. Very different from the eerie post-apocalypticness of the previous world, this one has a certain enchanted vibe to it. Or maybe I just like deserts.

There's a resort town here, and it ISN'T in ruins! It's abandoned, but it's still somewhat preserved by the dry desert.

But wait! Ruins do appear as you continue, including this incredible vista.

This game seriously does vistas like few others. Reminds me of the way pre-rendered PS1 RPGs like FFVII through FFIX would show off in their era.

Another fun glider level, and we're (already) at the boss...

...a giant rat? named Sillydillo. YOU'RE A LIAR

I mean I guess it's a rat/armadillo combination? In any case, how this guy got to be higher on the card than King Dedede is beyond me.

I freeze him solid and move on. He'd thaw 100,000 years later and assimilate the entire Earth, but until then, we're good.

Sixth and final world is essentially the "dark world" of the game.

Wait, is this Mordor?

Nope, it's more of our shattered world. Looks almost like something out of the Contra series.

The game ends up in an old refinery, like any good Terminator movie.

The creepy control room of the refinery.

After using the ice power to skate across some lava, we arrive at...

...a boss rush, featuring a bunch of foes I fought already. This is pretty standard, and things are about to get REALLY WEIRD so I'll take some normalcy.

A long Giant Elevator ride takes us to the big boss of World 6...

The Waddle Dee legion has assembled to watch the ensuing fight, which is...

...King Dedede 2.0! Now he has an evil mask on and it's controlling him. I think. I don't know what's goin' on. He's also powerstancing two hammers now.

After a much more challenging fight than any previous iteration of Dedede, the mask is broken. He's saved, and we win the game.

OR DO WE?

Notice how Kirby with the Meta-Knight Sword also dons a Meta-Knight mask.

Nope, there's one final level. I guess this could be considered "World 7", but it's just the one level, and the one level is actually just a boss fight. Donkey Kong Country does the same thing and saves all the actual Gangplank Galleon levels for the next game.

This place is ridiculously creepy, with a disembodied voice talking about research. Is this what that gang of cats was up to this entire time?

I sorta forgot about the Beast Pack, they're the villains of the game and all but yeah.

Also, all those Waddle Dees I've been rescuing all game? The remaining ones enslaved by the Beast Pack can be seen in this picture if you squint. They're running in all those hamster wheels to power the laboratory.

Jebus.

This glass case contains something creepy. It's an alien life-form that landed on Earth long ago and was destroying everything, so it had to be contained in this facility.

The leader of the Beast Pack that we've been dealing with for the whole game. He spends his days ogling the alien from a safe distance and making sure the Waddle Dees keep the hamster wheels spinning to generate electricity.

Leongar is the REAL big bad of the game. But really, he's the one making sure the WORLD-ENDING ALIEN MENACE doesn't get free, so is he really bad?

This fight goes into full-on Souls mode, with lots of big swipes to dodge-roll through.

I respond with jumping slashes, and before long...

Leongar is defeated, and that weirdo Mew embryo is saved! I guess. I should probably get going

OH SHIT

HELP

It breaks out of its case and turns into an amorphous all-consuming blob, immediately assimilating Leongar violently.

WHAT AM I PLAYING

The next part has you running through a hallway overgrown with vegetation while being chased by the alien foam monster.

This thing rolls down the hallway, assimilating everything to add to its writhing mass of goo.

It's like those Demon Wall fights in Final Fantasy, except like 30x more horrifying.

Get past that, and it combines with Kirby's elf buddy to become this seraph version. I guess this is the monster's Perfect Cell form.

Fecto Elfilis is a Souls gargoyle boss. Seriously, he looks and fights just like those things. Even has a halberd. So this wasn't too bad for me, being accustomed to fighting a lot of Souls gargoyles in my day.

The boss is gearing up to unleash a huge energy beam at the planet DBZ-style. Kirby does the only thing he can do:

Absorb a truck??

Know what Ol' Jack Burton says at a time like this...

...what the hell.

The Porkchop Express now barrels towards the boss at top speed.

They go full DBZ beam tug-of-war as the boss pushes a meteor towards Earth and Kirby pushes back. One QTE later and the boss is obliterated.

Annnnd that's it for this game. Yow.

That's not all though. There's also a postgame with some hard mode type stages, culminating in new uberbosses, and saving Leon so he and the Beast Pack can repent and be good guys now. And of course, you can also run around collecting action figures:

Zoom in on one at Kirby's House and you see Kirby looking on in the background. I mean a lot of games would just display your figurines, this one gives you GIANT BACKGROUND KIRBY.

Final thoughts? This is definitely the best 3D Kirby game, much the same way Chris Jericho was the youngest-ever AEW champion in 2019.

I don't think this game is really worth $60, and it can be finished in a few hours. Offers very little challenge outside of the postgame, as well.

At the same time I don't want to say anything negative about it because they did a good job with it, and for what it is, it's a lot of fun. Looking forward to seeing what they do with the series in the future if it's gonna continue this story. It really went off the rails at the end, but I liked it because it was all so unexpected. And the visuals/setting are tremendous throughout, raising all kinds of questions and answering just enough of them to get the imagination going.

Things are looking up for the Kirby series, no doubt. In this era of so many things I love getting dredged up and completely ruined by horrible directors and showrunners, at least here we've got one of the few IPs I care about left that I can still revisit without feeling ill afterwards. And for that I'm thankful, even if it does feel like the bare minimum of expectation to have for things at this point.