Kirby and the Forgotten Land - Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Star-Crossed World - Switch 2 Review
"Everything that made the main game great"
On the 28th of August, Kirby and the Forgotten Land - Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Star-Crossed World released on Nintendo Switch 2. The Switch 2 version of the game boasts improved frame rates and better graphics, but the main difference is the inclusion of the DLC: Star Crossed World. If you’re interested in the review for the original Switch review of Kirby and the Forgotten Land, please check out the author’s review here.
The Good
Kirby and the Forgotten Land: Star Crossed World’s story starts when a large meteor fell from the sky and crashed into the ocean, creating a small island with a volcano. When Kirby and Elfie inspect it, they find out that it’s actually a great darkness that will destroy the world thanks to Astronomer Waddle-dee. Luckily, it seems the light crystals that can prevent the darkness from consuming the world have fallen alongside it. Kirby and Elfie have only just saved this world, so there’s no way they’ll let darkness take it over! They set off to rescue the Starries, who are trapped inside the crystals that landed. It’s a very Kirby story, but that’s why we love the pink puffball, right?
The Star Crossed World DLC can actually be played alongside the main campaign, provided players have completed the prologue and the first biome. After that, levels will be unlocked as the player progresses, as the level must first be unlocked in the main game for the Star Crossed World version to be accessible. This is because Star Crossed World reuses existing levels, transforming them into new paths with the help of the crystals. If the path originally went to the right, it may now go to the left. If the path went straight originally, it may now go up. I loved being able to see the stages from a new angle, especially when the development team has taken great care to give them a similar but different vibe from the Forgotten Lands version of the level.
Mouthful mode is back! As well as many old favourites from Forgotten Land, Star Crossed World introduces three new mouthful modes: Spring Mouth, Gear Mouth, and Sign Mouth Kirby.Spring Mouth allows Kirby to jump up high, slam down on his enemies and break unstable flooring. Gear Mouth allows Kirby to climb walls and was the most used of the new mouthful modes; it was a change and a challenging one at that! Sign Mouth Kirby allowed Kirby to ski down slopes. When he attacks, he speeds up, often allowing players to pull off difficult stunts to get to new areas. These new modes were a lot of fun, but I think that sign mouth was my favourite.
I’m not going to say a whole lot about the boss because I don’t want to spoil it, but it has multiple phases, and if you’re like me, you will die in every phase. Luckily, Star Crossed World not only has checkpoints between phases, but it also allows you to pick what ability you want to go into battle with. The main reason I really liked this was because the first phase felt like a more difficult version of the boss fight from Forgotten World, but that changes entirely when it enters phase two. I legitimately thought that they had a designer from Final Fantasy XIV come and design the battle! The boss for the DLC completely knocked it out of the park, for sure.
TL;DR
- Story
- New paths of old stages
- New Mouthful modes
- Final boss is amazing
The Bad
While I have no recollection of having any real issues with Kirby and the Forgotten Land, there was one thing that drove me absolutely nuts: minibosses take forever to disappear. They stay a good 20-30 seconds after they’ve been defeated, just lying there as Kirby is trapped inside the battle arena. I had hoped that maybe this would be fixed with the upgrade, but not only does it still exist, it’s a problem in Star Crossed World as well! I honestly have no idea why they haven’t fixed this, as there seems to be no reason for it.
The final boss, while being an impressive fight, is ridiculously hard. The Forgotten Land boss fight was no cakewalk, and I died a few times, but I never felt the need to change from Wild mode to Spring Breeze. That changed with this boss. Even in the first phase, to stand a chance of beating them, I had to lower the difficulty. It’s hard to get close to the boss, and often, when avoiding attacks, Kirby is facing away from the boss. This makes it incredibly difficult to land attacks. Sometimes it’s easier to take a hit to land a long-term damage-dealing attack, but other times the boss will hit multiple times in quick succession. These will take off half the health bar of Kirby in Wild Mode. It sucks because both the main game and the DLC are generally well-balanced all the way through. The difficulty feels right for how far the player has come. Forgotten Land’s boss is hard, but not impossible. Star Crossed World, the boss can feel impossible. If it weren’t for the checkpoints between phases, I would have absolutely given up on ever beating the boss; it’s that hard.
TL;DR
- Weird pause after mini bosses
- Difficulty spike
Final Score: 9/10
The best thing about Kirby and the Forgotten Land - Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Star-Crossed World is that it’s just more Kirby and the Forgotten Land. It has everything that made the main game great, just in a smaller package. They’ve tweaked the levels and the music to make it seem familiar, yet foreign. Aside from a few small problems – well, one small problem and one big problem – it would be a 10/10 game for me. Really, I’m just glad that they kept the heart and soul of the main game and managed to make the perfect farewell for the fans.
Thank you for checking out our Kirby and the Forgotten Land - Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Star-Crossed World Switch review, thank you to Nintendo AU/NZ for providing the review code and thank you to our Patreon Backers for their ongoing support:
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