Review: Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe — A fine upgrade to a classic Kirby adventure

Kirby games always aspire to be interesting, plucky, and full of pure delight. They’re not always the most difficult, and the story is vaguely existent at best, but they’re still a true powerhouse in terms of eliciting joy from players. While Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe for the Nintendo Switch might be treading familiar territory, it does so with some engaging extras and a gorgeous update to its art.

What’s Old is New Again, But Better

Kirby’s Return to Dream Land was originally a Wii game that, like many of it’s kind, tried to turn platforming into a 4-player game. Unlike the nightmarish chaos of New Super Mario Bros. Wii, this game feels quite pleasant to run around with friends. As a much-needed upgrade to the original, your friends are also no longer assigned to Meta Knight, King Dedede, and Bandana Waddle Dee. They can be Kirby-like anomalies as well, with all the copy-power goodness that comes with.

Copy Powers have been the center of the majority of the franchise since Kirby’s Adventure on the NES. They allow Kirby to use his mouth to vacuum up baddies and obtain their power for his own. Not everything has a power, but there are 25 different ones to find in this game. Two of those are brand new powers added to the series, Mecha and Sand. They’re great on their own, with Mecha in particular having a lot of versatility and movement options. The only problem with them is that they are somewhat evidently tacked onto levels. Something about the enemies that give you the powers, and the statues you can touch to obtain them, feels out of place to me. I’m sure most people won’t really notice their presence as being weird. Really, the weird thing is that neither of these has a “super” mode made for them.

One of the big marquee points of the original Kirby’s Return to Dream Land was Super Copy abilities. Special glowing enemies would give you a version of well-known abilities like Sword and Fire and turn them into screen-smashing, baddie-bashing powerhouses. These powers are contained to specific areas in special levels and are often used to break up the usual action and set up unique puzzles. I might argue they’re a bit too far and few in between, but it does feel special every time you get to one of those zones. They all end with a unique puzzle hiding a warp to a secret side-level. There, Kirby is stripped of power and must outrun an always-encroaching wall of dimensional….stuff. These are probably some of the most difficult stages in the entire game as they require quick reactions to pull off.

The story of Return to Dream Land is fairly simple. A strange ship flies out of a dimensional portal and crashes onto Kirby’s world. The pilot, Magolor, asks Kirby and friends to help him repair it with Energy Spheres and his ship parts. The spheres are scattered in each level and often require a copy ability of some kind to reach by solving a small puzzle. The ship parts are each held by the game’s main bosses at the end of every world. The goal is to collect all of them to help Magolor return home. I’m sure everything will be fine when he gets back…

Magolor, Interdimensional Explorer

If you played the original, you know where the story ends. This “Deluxe” version, however, adds a new campaign segment once you’ve finished the main story. Players follow Magolor, lost between dimensions, and drained of all his magic. Players set on a quest in a strange new place to help him recover his abilities. This is an interesting mode, and while it’s definitely on the short side, there’s a lot of unique mechanics to unpack. Using Magolor’s magic blast on enemies causes them to drop points, along with items scattered all over stages. You can improve how many points you get with a combo. Each successive hit racks that up more combo points, including juggling enemies in the air. As long as you move between enemies fast enough, and avoid taking a hit, you’ll get increasing combo’s overall bonus. All of these points can be spent between levels on a set of skill upgrades. You can improve his magic attack, his upward attack, his block, movement speed, and various other abilities you acquire throughout the short campaign. There’s an incredibly satisfying gameplay loop here that would be welcomed in a full game. The only complaint I have with this mode is that I want more of it.

The other major addition to this game is Merry Magoland. Several mingames from past Kirby titles are all back with a nice facelift and some gameplay updates. They’re hosted in a separate mode where you visit Magolor’s self-themed amusement park. There you can complete activities in and out of the minigames to earn stamps on cards that earn you different rewards. You can earn items, like healing food and random Copy abilities, to use in the main game. You can also obtain masks that any playable character can wear in both the minigames and the main game. They don’t do anything other than sometimes change Kirby’s voice over, but they’re a nifty little collectible to help differentiate yourself and rep your favorite characters from across Kirby’s history. You can hop over to Merry Magoland whenever you want, making it a fun way to break up going through level after level of the story mode.

Other Improvements

Most of the game’s controls and abilities were changed in the subsequent games and Return to Dream Land Deluxe has been touched up to include many of those changes. The unlocked “Extra” mode is basically a hard mode in the original, and it’s been made even more difficult this time around thanks to fewer health and more enemies. There’s a second unlockable “True” Boss Rush mode that features bosses added to Magolor’s epilogue campaign. All things considered, the only things that didn’t receive substantial alterations are the soundtrack and the main story.

While none of the original music was changed, plenty of new tracks were added for the additional content. Hirozaku Ando and Yuki Shimooka have continued to build brilliant soundscapes to go along with these colorful games. Overall, it’s a stellar soundtrack only made better by more modern-sounding tracks during Magolor’s campaign.

Conclusion

You might be thinking, as I did at first, that it’s too soon to do a “Deluxe” version of this Kirby game. In actuality, this game is further from the original launch than Kirby Super Star Ultra was from its original title. While you’re clutching at your chest and feeling uncaring flow of time pass around you like a Niagara Falls, let me just assure you that this game was well-worth the HD upgrade and re-purchase. Here’s hoping more Kirby games trapped on older consoles will see similar love and care given to them.

While some people might not want to go back to a 2D adventure after The Forgotten Land, you can be sure that this game is every bit as joyful as one would expect from a Kirby title. Will it set the world on fire? Nah, probably not. Will it put a smile on your face, or the face of your kids? Absolutely, every time.

Score: 8/10