This is an ongoing list where I attempt to do the following: Play, Complete, and Rank every video game in the known universe in order to finally answer the age old question "What is the greatest game of all time?" For previous entries find the links on the attached spreadsheet.

How did I do?

Its time to finish up some 2022 holdover reviews from games that I finished but didn’t get around to talking about and we will begin by talking about an actual game that came out in 2022. Now, I am normally not ever someone who not only gets a game the year it comes out, but then goes on to complete the same game, but this was the rare occasion. Of course it didn’t not start with my desire but rather my son’s. Grey, became obsessed with Kirby even before the game was out and I have no idea how it happened. I don’t own any other Kirby games, he has never seen me play anything Kirby, and we don’t have cable television where he perhaps saw a commercial about an upcoming new game. His only exposure, that I can think of, is a Target ad in store that he would have seen whenever we went shopping, but regardless he was ready for it. We made him hold out until Easter, but it was at least an every other day occurrence asking me if the game was out. Now he is four, so I don’t expect him to quite understand the passage of time, but he was ready. As soon as we got it, it was over for me.. even if I wanted to focus on other games, I was seeing it so much while he played and helping him with bosses or trying to find waddle-dees that I might as well start a game of my own, which I did.

Kirby and the Forgotten Land, for those unaware is a 3D platformer where you play as Kirby a blob that can suck up enemies and gain their powers. You progress level to level, and eventually fight a boss of each area before moving on, until you beat the game. In between levels you can go take part in challenge levels which will earn you coins or an upgrade token (more on that later), go back to the town to take part in minigames or refill health, or re-visit old levels to complete your optional objectives and rescue more waddle-dees. In addition to playing as Kirby you can play this game cooperative with another person who takes the role of a warrior waddle-dee to help Kirby on his adventure. He lacks the ability to suck up enemies and change his power, but in return he can die a million times in a level and as long as Kirby remains alive, he will come back to life a little down the way.

Now I will start with what was most important to me, this game is very accessible. There are two difficulty options, one which makes Kirby have more health and the enemies have even less, and while there are still difficult parts or bosses that the difficulty won’t let you breeze past, it does allow you to have littler ones more freedom in making it through this game. The big takeaway for me, is that there is drop in and drop out Co-op mode which can be accessed from the pause menu at almost any time. While in Co-op mode the game is still focused very much on Kirby. The camera follows him around, special areas like Kirby flying or driving a car have to be done by whomever is controlling Kirby, but if there is a troublesome boss or section of enemies, you can pop in cause some damage and then pop out once the part is over. The one frustrating part about play co-op mode is that if the warrior waddle-dee is ever too far from Kirby (and we are talking like a full screen away) the game will just teleport the waddle-dee forward. It makes sense that the camera follows Kirby, and the 2^nd player is just helping, but it does mean that the 2^nd player can’t really explore or go get items on their own. This can be both a blessing and a curse depending on who is controlling Kirby. If you have your kid or someone not adept at gaming, having them control the extra player means that they don’t have to worry about landing tricky jumps, and can attack enemies with reckless abandon since they can’t really die. Of course the 2^nd player also has to be ok, with being a clear second fiddle to Kirby. This is not a Mario & Luigi situation where you are separate but equal partners, this is almost exclusively one sided. Regardless, this feature was great for me, because as my kid gets increasingly independent as he plays video games I can take a more backseat approach and just help him with tricky parts, and in the case of this game, I don’t have to take the controller from him, I can just jump in fight a boss, and then jump out.

As you go through the myriad of levels, depending on the enemy you inhale, Kirby can be granted one of several different powers (fire, ice, spikes, sleep, etc.). If this is your first time playing through, you won’t necessarily know what enemy grants a power until you inhale them for the first time and *unlock* the skill. Essentially every-time you encounter a new enemy a good rule of thumb would be to inhale them and check to see if they have any power associated with them, once you are comfortable with knowing what each enemy, then you can start focusing on just keeping the powers you want. When you first unlock a power, they are essentially at level 1, but hidden throughout levels are blueprints that allow you to upgrade each power (with coins and upgrade tokens) to make the ability more powerful. For instance the fire skill, eventually moves from just fire breathing, to allowing you to briefly fly like a dragon, burning everything you touch. The bomb skill allows you to go from rolling a single bomb, to being able to link bombs together for a bigger explosion, to eventually giving your bombs a homing ability. You can only upgrade the abilities if you do the additional challenge levels and earn the upgrade tokens, challenge levels can not be replayed so while you eventually (if you do all the challenge levels) can buy all the blueprints for each power, sometimes there can be a big gap between powerups, so you should prioritize your favorite abilities first. Once an ability is powered up, and you have it set in the store, then anytime you inhale an enemy or are granted that power, it will be the upgraded version. I should mention that these are certainly not required, you can beat the game with all the base level powers and while that might make it harder for yourself, there is no requirement to upgrade any ability. I know this, because my kid hates the challenge levels and beat the game with only minor upgrades to the Sword and Ice ability.

What obviously garnered all the love during the announcement is the abilities Kirby can get from inhaling cars, traffic cones, and soda machines amongst other big items. While these are certainly enjoyable moments, they make up a rather small section of the game and the powers you get from those items trump whatever other power you have at that time. For instance a soda machine can shoot a limited number of cans out breaking walls, or hurting enemies, but that can’t be combined with a fire breath or sword slash. Those powers just get put on the back burner while you are in this enhanced state. My big issue with these abilities is how I wish the game used the more, or had even more variety. Too often you would get to enjoy a little sample of these abilities only to have to transform back to lone hammer Kirby and you miss the feeling you had previously. I understand that they certainly can’t have you be overpowered for too long, and too much of a good thing would certainly reduce the fun factor, but I feel like it skewed a little short on time given the length of the game.

Speaking of length… This might be an unpopular opinion, but this game is too long. Perhaps its my fault for getting the optional objectives in the levels, and doing all the challenge levels so that I could power up my abilities, but I had to drag myself over the finish line. I will fully admit that this could just be a me problem, and even then it is something I am conflicted about. When it comes to entertaining my kids, I want the game to be on the longer side (as long as they are enjoying it) so they don’t complete a game and turn to me and say; “that’s it?” However, when I sat down and made this one of the two main games I was playing at the time, I kept wondering “does this really keep going?” Even after finishing what appears to be the final boss, it opens up another (condensed) world that you need to go through in order to get the “real” or “good” ending. Could I have stopped and ignored that dangling carrot? Of course, but somehow I feel that wouldn’t quite be the same thing as beating the game if I left the “true” final boss on the table. I feel like I say this a lot, and there are very few games where the opposite is true, but this game is best played alongside another game so that you don’t get burned out trying to beat every challenge map, or tackling bosses without getting hit to get the last waddle-dee.

It is good to see that Kirby is finally shown some love, and I am glad that this game was successful and fulfilled the lofty dreams my kid had about it, before release. Hell, there is even a new Kirby game coming out soon, granted I think this is a port or a re-master, but it’s still another Kirby game in the bucket. However, I think a lot of people were perhaps over-praising this game and comparing it to Mario Odyssey as some huge testament of a game. I think the game is good, and fun, but I wouldn’t put it on the same pedestal that is Mario Odyssey. You may now send me hate.

Is this the greatest game of all time?: It's good, but not the greatest

Where does it rank: I think Kirby and the forgotten Land is really solid, and it is one of the few games that I can play with my kid and we can both feel like we are contributing. The Cooperative aspect is huge for this game, but I admit it shines more because I'm a parent with a young kid, and I don't think it hits the same if do 21 yr olds are playing this Co-op. Perhaps my view is clouded because I wasn't playing Kirby games since its inception, and I didn't suffer through 2D games for years and then finally get the 3D game of my dreams, but I have Kirby ranked as: 28th Greatest Game of All time. It sits between Dishonored (29th) and Griftlands (27th).

Anyone looking for it: here is the link to the list and more if you are interested in following along with me (this is not a self promotion).Here. I added links on the spreadsheet for quick navigation. Now if you missed a blog of a game you want to read about, you can get to it quickly, rather than having to scroll through my previous blogs wondering when it came up.

Thanks for listening

"You may now send me hate."

You smell like old car freshener 😡

Shoutouts to the kid for getting on the Kirby train early.

I hadn't really played a Kirby game since Kirby 64, but the series finally going 3D was enough to get me interested and I quite enjoyed 100%-ing this one. It's a very delightful game. Probably in the bottom half of my top 10 for 2022.

@daavpuke: very fair criticism.. I need to up my smell game. Noted.

@ll_exile_ll: thanks for the read. yeah outside of barely touching some nes kirby game.. this was my first. As for a top 10 game of the year, I never play enough games in their release year to qualify.. but I can see this as a #10

Good write-up! I wanted Kirby, for myself and my kids. But I had another kid coming and the money aspect got in the way so I had to hold off on it. I might get it later. Kirby game are just such a joy to play and my kids definitely dig the characters and the vibes of the world.

@chamurai: thanks for the read and comment.. yeah it's certainly a crowd pleaser with kids.. it wasn't their first game, but it's a good starting point.