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Unlike Nintendo’s more popular sword-slinging or mustachioed mascots, Kirby hasn’t gotten the same kind of respect, despite starring in dozens of games, dating back to the Game Boy and NES. Maybe it’s because Kirby games are typically easy enough to be written off as kids games. Maybe it’s more of a hurdle to give such a shapeshifting character his own identity. Maybe it’s just hard to take a sentient pink blob seriously. Whatever the reason, Kirby is back in a big way on Nintendo Switch 2, and the first of two games starring the puffball this year is already setting a high bar for what a Kirby game can be on the new console.

While it’s not an entirely new game, it’s easy to say that (deep breath) Kirby and the Forgotten Land – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Star-Crossed World is the definitive version of the title. The original Kirby and the Forgotten Land launched on Switch in 2022, immediately proving that Kirby can thrive in three dimensions as well as the series’ usual 2D, and maybe it should have made the jump sooner. On top of using Nintendo’s new hardware to make the game look and run significantly better, Kirby and the Forgotten Land’s Switch 2 Edition adds new levels that are among the best in the entire game, making it an easy contender for one of the best Switch 2 exclusives out right now.

Kirby’s Still Got It

Despite being weirdly full of eldritch horrors seeking to destroy Kirby, the series has never been big on story. The typical formula of a Kirby game is, something weird shows up from outer space, it poses a threat to the planet, and Kirby needs to stop it. The end. Kirby and the Forgotten Land fits right into that mold, and Star-Crossed World is no different. This time, a meteor has crash-landed, spreading stars for Kirby to collect across a batch of new levels. But what Kirby and the Forgotten Land lacks in story, it more than makes up for in sheer charm.

The basics of Kirby and the Forgotten Land remain unchanged in the new Switch 2 release. The game plays out across seven regions of a large world map, each one full of secret stages in addition to a main path of levels to follow. Each stage has challenges you can complete for extra in-game rewards, the biggest being finding Waddle-Dees — cute, Kirby-shaped characters hidden around each level that you need a certain number of to face each area’s boss.

Three years after the original version’s release, it’s still remarkable how well Kirby and the Forgotten Land translates the series’ usual gameplay into three dimensions. As always, Kirby can gain the powers of various enemies by swallowing them whole. This time around, there’s much more room for variation between powers, and more compelling ways to use many of them. Ice powers do damage, but they can also put out fires and speed up your movement by letting you skate across any surface. Fire powers let you light fuses for cannons, and also have you turning into a fireball to zip across gaps.

The most impressive (and usually most fun) parts of Kirby’s powers come from what the game calls Mouthful Mode. By absorbing items too big to fully inhale — you may remember the Carby meme around the game’s original release — Kirby can temporarily take on their powers as well. These tend to be much stronger than typical powers and have a bigger effect on gameplay. The car, for instance, obviously turns Kirby into a car, transforming parts of levels into race tracks.

A Whole New World

Mouthful Mode is also a big part of what makes the additional Star-Crossed World content shine. Rather than putting all of its new levels at the end of the original game, Star-Crossed World scatters its stages across Kirby and the Forgotten Land’s existing worlds. Once you beat the boss for each area, you’ll unlock a couple of DLC stages, which you don’t need to beat right away to progress in the main campaign. That works in the game’s favor, allowing players to save all of the new content for after they’ve beaten the base game or experience it a few pieces at a time in the natural flow of the game.

One common critique of Kirby and the Forgotten Land is that it’s just too easy. It’s absolutely meant to be an all-ages game, so that’s not a major surprise, but the lack of challenge made it a bit less satisfying than it could have been for more experienced players. The new stages in Star-Crossed World feel like a direct response to that. They’re not likely to give you too much trouble if you didn’t find Kirby and the Forgotten Land challenging, but they’re easily the toughest (and often the most ambitious) levels of whichever region they appear in. Platforming challenges require better timing, difficult new enemies appear, and even returning enemies are more powerful. Still, they’re not so tough that they completely wreck the difficulty curve, feeling like a suitable but manageable step up from the stages surrounding them.

In each Star-Crossed World level, you’re on the hunt for hidden Starries, new collectibles that replace the Waddle-Dees hidden around stages in the base game. Kirby and the Forgotten Land levels tend to hide their collectibles in secret rooms, and the way to find them is generally by poking around every inch of the level and using the right powers on destructible objects. Star-Cross World leans more on reflexes and platforming ability, which is part of what makes it more challenging. These levels also want you to move more quickly, often featuring speedy sections like sliding down a hill, which addresses another common critique that Kirby and the Forgotten Land’s initial levels could feel a bit slow. Star-Crossed World stages are bursting with creativity, full of interesting ways to use both your new and old abilities.

Star-Crossed World also adds three new abilities to Mouthful Mode. A standing sign essentially turns Kirby into a snowboard for some fast downhill levels. A spring lets you jump high into the air and smash down, which makes for some interesting platforming sections. The best of the new abilities comes from swallowing a gear, which lets you plow along the ground and stick yourself to certain walls and crawl around them vertically. The levels using the gear are some of the best in the game, demanding an entirely different type of navigation than anything in Kirby and the Forgotten Land as you jump from one climbable surface to another.

A Stellar Update

Kirby and the Forgotten Land was never a bad-looking game and it didn’t have notable frame rate issues, but it looks and performs significantly better in its Switch 2 version. The soft-edged world of Kirby and the Forgotten Land often feels like a diorama you’re looking down into as you play, and in the Switch 2 release, all its tiny details stand out better than ever. The new stages in Star-Crossed World are an excellent showcase for the game’s glow-up, covered as they are in crystal and glittering stardust. Even when these levels are at their most visually dense or flying by at top speed, there’s never a hint of a struggling frame rate.

Kirby and the Forgotten Land – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Star-Crossed World may not transform what was already in the game, but it never needed to. Three years after its release, Kirby and the Forgotten Land is still an excellent platformer, made just a bit better by the new edition’s visual improvements. But the new levels added in Star-Crossed World are the real reason to pay attention to the new release, as some of the best games of an already great game. Between the Star-Crossed World update and the upcoming Kirby Air Riders, this is as good a time as there’s ever been to pay attention to Nintendo’s strangest mascot, and a good sign that the Kirby series has still more to offer.

8/10

Kirby and the Forgotten Land – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Star-Crossed World launches on August 28 on Nintendo Switch 2. Inverse was provided with a copy for this review.

INVERSE VIDEO GAME REVIEW ETHOS: Every Inverse video game review answers two questions: Is this game worth your time? Are you getting what you pay for? We have no tolerance for endless fetch quests, clunky mechanics, or bugs that dilute the experience. We care deeply about a game’s design, world-building, character arcs, and storytelling come together. Inverse will never punch down, but we aren’t afraid to punch up. We love magic and science-fiction in equal measure, and as much as we love experiencing rich stories and worlds through games, we won’t ignore the real-world context in which those games are made.