Author: Game Infliction

There are generally two types of Kirby games: the standard platformers where Kirby copies enemy abilities across easy-to-complete stages, and the more unique adventures that break wildly from that formula. Kirby’s Return to Dream Land has been solidly in the former camp since its original release on Wii in 2011, making its Deluxe rerelease on Switch recognizable in more ways than one. Strong platforming fundamentals, creative late-game level design, and some worthwhile new content still make it worth revisiting, but it’s a more appealing package for newcomers than those who have already gone on the original adventure.

Like those aforementioned traditional Kirby platformers, the first few worlds in Kirby’s Return to Dreamland Deluxe are so remarkably unchallenging that they strip away any sense of resistance and, frankly, fun to be had. Flashy Super Abilities, which allow Kirby to do things like roll enemies up into a giant snowball or slash a massive sword across the screen, often start as almost automated sections that require very little player input. It’s important to have games that welcome newcomers, but it takes at least a couple of hours before this adventure begins to feel even remotely interesting, regardless of if you’re playing solo or with friends.

However, once you reach that latter half of the campaign, Return to Dream Land begins to reveal what it’s really about. The platforming stages start relying upon Kirby’s copy abilities more heavily, like using the Water ability to skim across fiery blocks, or the Jump ability to soar to new heights by letting him leap vertically and knock enemies out of his way. And it does all of this while throwing increasingly difficult challenges in your path, whether those are (often repetitive) mini bosses fighting you on screens with pitfalls and other dangers in the way, or platforming challenges that have you escaping a wall of death with creative obstacles to scurry around.

The final stretch of Return to Dream Land, in particular, feels like the original developers were able to let loose with a relatively challenging (but never frustrating) conclusion that’s filled with creative levels and enemies alike. The finale in particular is a wild ride, standing tall with surprising twists and genuine challenge. In all, it took me about six hours to float through the main story of Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe, and over half of that runtime felt well worth the journey.

Then there’s the multiplayer of it all. Up to three friends can hop in and out locally at any point. They’ll play as either Meta Knight, King Dedede, or Bandana Waddle Dee, who essentially take on one distinct copy ability apiece (Sword, Hammer, and Spear, respectively) and can stack on top of each other or be carried across stages. Playing with this many players blunts some of the finer details of the level design, as it quickly becomes a chaotic game of trying to quickly clear enemies and get to the goal first – a section where you are supposed to time your movements to avoid boulders can quickly just become… run through the boulders and hope someone gets to the other side. Boss patterns can also essentially be ignored as each character pummels the enemy to oblivion. Stages in general feel designed specifically around single-player, but still work with a bigger group if that’s how you choose to play.

However, like similar multiplayer platformers, there’s plenty of fun to be had just goofing around levels with a few friends. The multiplayer is probably best served as a sort of “guardian mode” where you can have a less experienced player tag along and play with you, giving Return to Dream Land yet another way to welcome newcomers.

A Welcome Return

So that’s the original Return to Dream Land, but what the heck is new to this Deluxe version? The most obvious improvement is the graphical overhaul – outside of 2022’s Kirby and the Forgotten Land, this is easily the best Kirby has ever looked, with character models, environments, cutscenes, and everything else looking remarkably improved over the 2011 Wii original. It’s also filled to the brim with charm and small details, like cowboy Kirby walking with a bit of a strut when he’s using the Whip ability.

Then there are a few additions to the adventure itself. Three new abilities have been added for Kirby to wreak havoc with: Sand, Mecha, and Festival. Sand allows Kirby to form flurries into objects like sand castles and fists to smack opponents around with. The Mecha ability lets Kirby fly around the screen quickly, shoot off lasers, drop deadly mines, and fire rockets at foes above – it’s probably the most powerful copy ability in Return to Dream Land Deluxe, and my personal favorite. They’ve also brought the Festival ability over from Star Allies, which turns enemies on screen into point stars and health-recovering food items. They fit in so well that had I not known any better, I would have just assumed they were always in the original release as well.

In line with Return to Dream Land being an entry-level platformer, Deluxe also adds an easy mode called Helper Magolor. This character from another planet tosses Kirby helpful items (including health-doubling potions) and saves him when he falls into bottomless pits. While most people probably won’t need this mode turned on, it’s a great option for new or young gamers to help get their feet wet.

Magalor Magic

Speaking of Magolor, he’s the star of Deluxe’s single biggest addition – Magolor Epilogue: The Interdimensional Traveler. In this roughly two-hour mini adventure, you control an interplanetary character, who begins by being stripped of all of his powers, á la Metroid. But through collecting magic points across brand-new stages, you can purchase increasingly powerful abilities, like bombs you can gleefully rain down upon your enemies.

This mode starts a bit slow, with Magolor being intentionally sluggish and relatively weak, but by the end of the journey he can become a downright powerhouse. The stages themselves are about the same quality as what’s seen in the main game, with challenge levels available to unlock if you’ve already purchased their corresponding abilities. Kirby’s signature ability to copy powers is missed in this mode, but it’s fun to get a taste of what a Kirby-style platformer that unfolds with more progression would play like.

True to its name, the Magolor Epilogue can only be played after the main story is finished. Narratively this makes sense, though let’s be honest: nothing in a Kirby game’s story is particularly groundbreaking, and not letting returning players jump right into it feels a little unnecessary. Along those lines, Deluxe includes the original’s Extra Mode, which is a much more difficult version of the main story that gives Kirby less health, adds more enemies to deal with, gives bosses more challenging forms, and more. However, it also cannot be accessed until after the main mode is finished, which seems silly for a Deluxe version that plays almost identically to the original.

There’s also Arena Mode, which similarly unlocks following the main story as a boss rush of sorts to further test your skills. While those certainly pad out the overall play time, I would have preferred access to them right off the bat. New to the package is Merry Magoland, a theme park filled with “sub-games” that put you against other players. In the original Wii version, Magolor’s ship (the Lor Starcutter) housed several of these minigames, but now they also exist in this colorful area, and there are two new minigames to play around with in addition to the original eight.

The minigames themselves are well-made but relatively shallow, reminding me of the time I spent playing Pokemon Stadium’s minigames with my friends as a kid. They range from the star-throwing Ninja Dojo, where you try to hit moving targets either using button presses or motion-controlled throws with their Joy-Con, to the classic Samurai Kirby, a dueling minigame where each player attempts to slice as quickly as possible when prompted. They can all be played through in about half an hour and don’t add a huge amount of value to the package, but earning cosmetic masks through Magoland and playing with them in the main game can be a fun diversion.

As a fan of Star Wars, Soulslikes, and big-budget single-player action games, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order was a game that spoke to me on multiple levels. It successfully merged the risk/reward elements of From Software’s Souls series with the power fantasy that inherently comes with being a Jedi. That said, it wasn’t a perfect combination. Backtracking without any means of fast travel was annoying, exploration was rewarded primarily with underwhelming cosmetics, and I couldn’t help but wish I could do more with my powers than just push, pull, and slow.

I say all of this because my main takeaway from roughly five hours with the upcoming sequel, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, is that it felt like I was systematically crossing off the issues I had with Fallen Order. Survivor feels grander without ever letting the burgeoning scope compromise the exploration and sense of discovery that serves as its heart.

My preview time was broken up with me spending about four hours on the planet Koboh, a gigantic and wide open planet that largely serves as Cal’s home away from home throughout the course of Jedi Survivor’s story, and then about an hour on a moon planet to showcase some more traditional combat and platforming encounters that fans have come to expect. Let’s start off with Koboh, because it represents the biggest change in Jedi Survivor versus Fallen Order: A vast open world that sprawls out in every direction, with interesting encounters and rewards everywhere you turn.

Koboh Let’s Go

We’ve already shown you 9 minutes of Koboh gameplay as part of our IGN First coverage, but what we haven’t really gotten to point out is the fact that most of that footage covers only the introduction to the planet, which is a fairly traditional linear portion that guides you through caves, valleys, and mountain trails, but then opens wide up once you get to the Southern Reach – in a moment that brought to my mind the very first time you step out onto the Great Plateau in Breath of the Wild.

My main goal throughout this entire section was to reach the Cantina to find someone to repair my crashed Mantis ship, and I could’ve just booked it over there to get on with the story, but if I did I would’ve missed out on so much meaningful exploration. Off in one direction there was a hidden cave that housed an incredibly tough (and incredibly cool) boss battle that I’d be remiss to spoil for you here, off in another direction there was a Bedlam Raider camp with Stormtrooper armor on spikes and a nasty surprise waiting for me in a trap door that led underground, and if I took another path I’d eventually find a Jedi Chamber that housed a gigantic puzzle room. Other paths still were closed off to me until I found a particular upgrade.

Even better, all of these excursions felt appropriately rewarding. Most offered me skill points for my trouble – which are much more valuable in Survivor due to the fact that there are now individual skill trees for each lightsaber stance, your force powers, and for flat health and force upgrades – and even the treasure chests that offer cosmetic items have vastly improved rewards due to the fact that you can find entirely different outfits for Cal to wear (as opposed to just different designs of ponchos). In addition to that, you can even find new hairstyles to equip Cal with. My personal favorite so far was a bandana that made him look a little bit like Solid Snake from Metal Gear Solid.

Koboh is massive, but thankfully, I never felt lost thanks to some truly excellent map features, like automatic markers that highlight passageways that lead to unexplored areas, symbols that let you know what areas you can’t access yet with your current abilities, a trail that marks the way you just came, and of course, fast travel. Thank Yoda for fast travel. Even better, Cal eventually also gains the ability to tame beasts so he can use them as mounts or as ways to traverse large gaps. All of these additions, on top of just stellar art design, all add up to make the act of exploring Koboh a joy.

Another thing that struck me as I was playing through was how good both the level and enemy design was at setting up opportunities for you to use your force powers in fun ways. Miniboss arenas are full of objects that could be force pulled and thrown to deal big damage, rolling mines are both a constant threat and a constant blessing when you can send them back at pursuing foes, and there were plenty of opportunities to end a battle before it even began by force pushing foes off a ledge. My favorite interaction is when I tried to force pull a staff wielding enemy towards me. He would try to plant his staff into the ground to stop himself, and when that failed, he’d let himself go and attempt to slash while he was pulled towards me. The first time I tried this, he got me, but then I found out that I could parry his desperation attack, which allowed me to still turn the tide in my favor.

Koboh is also not a one-stop shop. It’s a planet that you’re meant to return to many times over the course of Cal’s adventure. Aside from the aforementioned locked passageways that Cal won’t be able to progress through until he gets a specific upgrade, the Cantina and the town it resides in, Rambler’s Ranch, doubles as a sort of home base for Cal. There are vendors to purchase new customization options, colorful NPCs to talk to, and everytime you come back, you can be certain there will be something new to check out.

Fly Me to the Moon (Planet)

The second area I got to play was on an unnamed moon planet that Cal and his companion Bode visit sometime later in the game. In comparison to Koboh, this felt like a much more traditional style of level that would’ve been right at home in Jedi: Fallen Order. That isn’t to take anything away from it though, because it was a ton of fun – with a healthy balance of both death defying platforming challenges and challenging combat encounters.

The thing that most stood out about this level was there was almost a horror theme to it. Turns out that the enemies were expecting Cal, and thus most of them were lying in ambush. The beginning was very tense as it seemed like enemies were hiding around every corner waiting to get the jump on me. Respawn even played to this expectation a few times and would have a harmless droid suddenly come out through the fog, which I totally bit on and sliced the poor innocent bot in half.

Even in a level that was much more linear, there still were plenty of goodies hidden off the beaten path, including Jedi: Survivor’s take on a DMC-like challenge room. In it, I had to face off against wave after wave of what seemed like hundreds upon hundreds of B1 droids that would all go down in one or two hits, but could very easily swarm and overwhelm me. It was an absolute blast – and surprisingly tough as well – once they started mixing in some droids that would self-destruct if I didn’t force push them or otherwise get the heck out of the way in time.

I loved this encounter because it’s something that wouldn’t have made sense within the context of the actual level, but in a sealed-off space where anything goes, it was the perfect kind of combat test. I hope there are a ton more of these and I’d happily search every nook and cranny to find them.

I could go on talking about the Jedi Chamber puzzle rooms, the fun new force powers, the exciting story beats that took place after I stepped foot into the Cantina, or some of the awesome boss battles that I had to overcome, but it’s all stuff that’s probably better experienced for yourself once the game comes out on April 28.

Mitchell Saltzman is an editorial producer at IGN. You can find him on twitter @JurassicRabbit