Kirby and the Forgotten Land – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Star-Crossed World for Nintendo Switch 2 review

As Switch 2 editions of OG Switch games go, Kirby and the Forgotten Land is probably the best.

Mind you, that’s kind of damning with faint praise. While I’m sure someone may have found Zelda Notes an incredible feature, I don’t think it makes either of the Zelda games even more essential than they already were. Likewise, as much fun as Super Mario Party Jamboree is, it’s a blast whether or not you also get the Switch 2 Jamboree TV edition – which is so inconsequential that it almost drags the whole game down. Simply adding something new and substantial the way that Kirby and the Forgotten Land does with Star-Crossed World makes it the best of the bunch by default.

But it deserves a lot more praise than “it wins by default.” Not only was Kirby and the Forgotten Land a great game, Star-Crossed World adds enough new content – and, with apologies to Super Mario Party Jamboree, enough, good new content – that it makes the game even better.

The gist of the expansion is that a meteor has transformed Kirby’s world – which, it needs to be said, was already pretty post-apocalyptic in The Forgotten Land – into a shimmering place covered in ice. In practice, this means that the game has remixed levels from the original game to add new challenges, from more slippery surfaces to new bosses, along with new powers and ways for Kirby to transform. Obviously, remixed levels are hardly essential, but they add enough twists here that they make those levels feel new enough that even if you beat the original game, you’ll still want to go back and play them. And, as a bonus, you can experience the game on more powerful hardware, which means that it looks and plays much better here.

If you didn’t play Kirby and the Forgotten Land before…well, that means you really need to play it now that it’s on the Switch 2. Not only do you have the fun bonus content, you also get one of Kirby’s best games, his foray into 3D platforming where you can really see the creative team behind the game stretch their powers to think of how our pink puffball hero can interact with a world that has more than two dimensions. Things like the Kirby-car and the Kirby-spike do a great job of making our hero more powerful, but in fun new ways than we saw in older games.

And the key word there is “fun,” regardless of whether you’re playing Kirby and the Forgotten Land in its original form or now that you have the option of playing this Star-Crossed World expansion on Switch 2. If you missed it last time around, or even if you just feel like revisiting it on the Switch 2, it’s well worth checking out.

Nintendo provided us with a Kirby and the Forgotten Land – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Star-Crossed World Nintendo Switch 2 code for review purposes.

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