Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe

[Sonictrainer]

Kirby Return to Dream Land Deluxe is a remake of the original game for the Wii.

New Features:

• Brand New Copy Abilities such as Mecha & Sand
• A New Minigame Area that features past minigame from other Kirby games

Quote

 

A new story in Magolor Epilogue: The Interdimensional Traveler will be accessible upon completing the Story mode when Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe launches on Nintendo Switch 2/24!

Also, a specially arranged demo arrives on Nintendo eShop, where up to 4 players can play select stages and subgames.

 

 

[PC the Hedgehog]

Return to Dream Land is one of my favorite ever Kirby games, but maaaaaan, I do not want to pay $60 for another copy of it.

But that dang Magolor epilogue story is pretty dang tempting, even though I know it alone won't justify the purchase. whyyyyy

[Iko]

I'm the exact opposite, Return to Dream Land was one of my least favorite games in the series because of how bland and repetitive it was + super abilities being slow and boring.

After playing the demo though, it seems like they made the game a lot faster (I don't play the original since years but I don't remember it being this fast paced) and even made the super ability animations shorter, plus the graphics look much better than in the Wii game. I already love the Sand ability, and the shooting minigame in the demo is great, I've done a lot of matches, it's simple and fun.

They updated Sword to get the charged attack from Triple Deluxe (that one inspired by Zelda Skyward Sword where you hold up and charge the beam, it wasn't in the original game as far as I know), but the Needle ability doesn't have the downward attack from Triple Deluxe sadly, it was very fun because it allowed Kirby to hover/multijump while doing damage... that's sad, it was my favorite ability in Triple Deluxe just for that move.

Overall, while I'm not a fan of the original game, I think that this remake is pretty good and improves the game a lot, or at least this is the feel I've got from playing the demo.

The Magolor Prologue is likely a small metroidvania side mode in the vein of Amazing Mirror... it's interesting, but it will probably be short like Heroes in Another Dimension.

And it's interesting that the game references some very obscure characters with those masks (some of those animals from Kirby's Dream Land 3, not the main ones, the partners that will give you an heart star if you complete their missions).

(on a side note, I still wonder if Adeleine has a voice in this game... the mask has the sound icon, but she never had a voice in the past, so, is that a new thing? There was an interview where they said she was supposed to have a voice in Star Allies and they even hired a voice actress for her, but at the end the idea was scrapped... are tthe voice effects recorded for Star Allies that are now used for the mask? I'm curious about that lol)

[Sonicka]

I always wanted to play the Wii Adventure title and somehow never got around to it, so I'm pretty excited for this one getting a Remake. I went to play the Demo and thought it was going to be hard to go back to 2D Kirby after The Forgotten Land... but nope, this is a pretty slick 2D Kirby platformer.

And boy... does the visual style applied look hella impressive on Switch. This is a very pretty game.  

[A super No.1 washedupgamer]

I've never played the original so I might have to pick this up.

[Iko]

Aand I checked a video of the original game and compared it to the demo, unless the speed of the video is slightly altered, I think I'm right that the game is a bit faster. It's not really noticeable, but I'm under the impression that it's faster and more reactive, and even by playing in a similar way as the video (in the same level rooms), I reach things faster, so it's probably faster in general.

(there are also a couple of QoL changes such as, when you exit the first Another Dimension portal, you spawn on top of the hill instead of before it, skipping a part of level that would be just floating for a few seconds).

I remember that the original game annoyed me for being slow... maybe it was me who wasn't used to the new gameplay, and now after 10+ years of games based on it I've learned to speedrun it, but now I don't get that feel of it being slow anymore.

Uh and I've read that the Magolor mode has 20 levels, so it's probably not a metroidvania, sadly... but 20 levels, depending on how long they are, is a good amount for an extra side mode.

 

They did a good job BTW, and I wish they will do Kirby 64 next, I can't wait for it.

[ZinogreVolt]

Return to Dreamland is probably my favorite after Robobot. Aside from the weird character outlines, it looks great and all the new stuff seems pretty substantial, and removing all the weird motion controls eliminates the one thing that actually threatened to date the game. The price point is a bit much but I will definitely be buying this.

[StaticMania]

8 minutes ago, ZinogreVolt said:

...and removing all the weird motion controls eliminates the one thing that actually threatened to date the game.

The game only had motion controls for 2 things and neither of those thing would've dated the game...

One of them was entirely optional and had an alternative way to do it.

[Sonictrainer]

I'm a little curious why the Sub Games are locked in Story Mode when you can play them for free in Merry Magoland...

Also, some of the Masks you unlock apparently have benefits for some of Kirby's abilities.

[Iko]

spoilers end game spoilers extra modes spoilers lore spoilers just spoilers don't read

Spoiler

so, new lore from this game:

Merry Magoland happens in a "different world"... what does it mean? I don't know. It's possible to see the theme park in the background of one of the Nutty Noon levels, but it's supposed to not exist yet at that point of the game. We know through different media that Magolor was sorry for the bad actions he did in this game and decided to build an amusement park as an apology to Kirby and friends, so it's likely that Merry Magoland happens in the future, and the presence in that Nutty Noon level is not canon.

Though, the game says it's a story from a different world too, and Magolor goes to the Dream kingdom dimension at the end of the game... so does it mean that it happens in the Dream Kingdom? Is the Dream Kingdom just the Mirror World? (there seem to be Dark Mind there). Why do all of Kirby friends appear in the towns of Dream kingdom when it's a different dimension? (and I mean the actual friends, not the dark/shadow/parallel versions... a few can be seen at the end of the epilogue, Rick Kine and Coo are there). Is it just a little inconsistency and they are supposed to be parallel/alternated versions of the friends? There's Kirby (multiple kirbies actually) there, but they don't seem to be the same kirby as the main character of the series... the Clash games were supposed to be played as a cast of Waddle Dees before HAL decided to put Kirby in there, probably for brand identity and marketing reasons, so maybe even if we play Clash as 4 kirbies, the in-universe canon is that they're 4 waddle dees.

The Clash series story and lore is very confusing and not much consistent. One of the late game battlegrounds is a destroyed version of Castle Town (it's hard to recognize but it definitely is); though at the end of the game you return to the actual castle town and everything is back to normal. If it's the mirror world, likely the destroyed version is a pocket dimension created by Dark Mind (king D-Mind) or something, similar to how in Amazing Mirror you fight Dark Metaknight in a ruined version of the main hub world of the game even though it never gets ruined even after Metaknight drops his sword there for you to use. So yeah I think that the Dream Kingdom is the Mirror World's version of Dream Land.

Magolor is back for Star Allies and Kirby Fighters 2. While we are not sure if the Dream Friends in Star Allies are canon or not (they might be clones created by Kirby with magic, and not the actual characters), Kirby Fighters 2 seem to exist at least, and Magolor is there... he can use the sword attack and the gem apple bombs, so the events of the epilogue definitely happend already. In that case, Magolor escaped from the Dream Kingdom dimension and went back to the main dimension. If this is true and canon, Merry Magoland might as well happen in the present timeline and main dimension, since Magolor is back at that point.

The Master Crown is not a tree. The fragments of the crown come and possess the fruit of the gem apple tree before it becomes a monster: the tree is possessed by the crown, it's not the crown itself. The crown is likely still something related to Void and Dark Matter, given its possession ability and the eye it spawns on everything it possesses (also, Void Termina can summon several crowns during the fight in Star Allies). The pause screen even tells that the crown fused with the tree because the tree is not sentient and this way it could be a crown without an owner and act on its own.

Metal General and HR-D3 - the pause description say that its master sent many of those robots on several planets to conquer them, and in the extra mode it says that at some point their master disappeared; also, HR-D3 apparently went through time and space. Since there's time travel involved, it likely comes from the future and it's from Haltmann, the owner of those robots disappeared in the future (events of Robobot). This might also mean that HR-H/E from Kirby 64 is an Haltmann robot, and the ancients are unrelated to it (especially if the theories of Forgotten Land being a future version of Shiver Star are true, and in the Forgotten Land there's no trace of any other robot resembling the HR- models).

Egg Engines' backround is a ruined city/facility (with some cartoony proportions but still), and during the Master Crown tree bossfight in Magolor's Epilogue they show the same background but not ruined yet (it gets ruined during the fight though). the environment here is much less stylized but it shares the same shapes and structures as the one from Egg Engines, so we can assume that the place is likely Halcandra before being destroyed. Since the place gets destroyed during the fight between Magolor and the tree, it's possible that the events of the Epilogue happen in the past, and the Dream Kingdom might be a past version of the mirror world. Connecting this with the HR-D3 thing, apparently those portals go through time too, not just space. It's even more evident when in the Dream Kingdom dimension there's Galacta Knight (Aeon Hero), and he's known as the "Temporal Warrior" too.

Still about Halcandra's structures, they are very similar to the ones seen in the Forgotten Land, especially the more advanced ones built near the volcano where Lab Discovera is. Since the people of the Forgotten Land left their planet for "a land of dreams" through dimensional portals, it's possible that said land of dreams was Halcandra, which exists in the middle of a dimensional tunnel (the Halcandran facilities are also built near a volcano, possibly powered by geothermal energy... same technology, same people). The theory that the people of the Forgotten Land are the same as the ancients is starting to make more sense as they add more lore informations (I believe that the "ancients" were several different species, but the ones from Forgotten Land, possibly humans, were the ones who started it all with the technology derivated from Elfilis).

Susie from Planet Robobot did a similar trip as Magolor in the epilogue: due to an accident, she was sent into Another Dimension and got lost there for a while until she found a way out and returned to her dad (only to find out that he lost his sanity due to Star Dream messing with his mind and soul, and he couldn't even recognize her). Since some Haltmann robots were sent to the past too, it's possible that Susie traveled through time as well, and this would explain why Parallel Susie is there in the Clash games even if they're supposed to happen in the past (King D-Mind exists even though Kirby killed Dark Mind in the future). Still not a far past, since Kirby and friends (maybe mirror versions of them) seem to exist there, but still the past anyway.

Halcandra might be the place where the ancients went from the human-like technology to the dreamy Kirby-like magic/technology thing we know from the several artifacts in the series. During the Epilogue, we see many ruined buildings which resemble greek temples with star patterns and all... there's the gem apple fruit and connections to the Dream Kingdom from where you can reach the Dreamscape, a place made with the same architecture as the Fountains of Dreams, but a whole dimension instead of just a fountain (a land of dreams). The Dimensional Mirror might as well be a creation of the ancients, since the fountains definitely are (this is passively confirmed since the fountains can summon a nova, and the novas were built by the ancients). And as evidence of Forgotten Land and Shiver Star being the same place, the Japanese website of Kirby 64 says that the inhabitants of the planet left it because it was too cold; the more recent buildings in Forgotten Land are near a volcano, and that's what you do when the planet is too cold for life, build your cities in the hottest spot. Elfilis can manipulate dreams and create pocket dimensions out of them, and those artifacts which are dream-related might be another evidence that they come from the same energy/technology used by the people of the Forgotten Land to leave the planet.

Unrelated, but I think that the Nightmare Wizard was originally a human and one of the ancients: even though he looks like a skeleton (kinda), he has human proportions, and seem to be interested in controlling the dreams for some reason. There's a parallel version of him in the Dream Kingdom as well. We know very little about him, but I think he might be one of the magic-using ancients that survived all the time until present days, kinda like Hyness. Might as well be the only other human in the series besides Adeleine (who at this point might or might not be the same character as Ado, considering how parallel/mirror versions of characters exist). Speaking of Kirby's Adventure, don't get me started on how Heavy Mole looks like it's shaped after Dark Matter and might be a robot built by the ancients... I know that it's just a theory and likely just a coincidence, but a cool coincidence regardless.

Now I wish they expanded more on the lore of those other ancients, the ones from planet Rock Star who built all those super advanced pyramid-like spaceships and PIX... there's one of them on Pop Star as well according to Kirby's Dream Land 3, but aside of Haltmann copying the blueprints of PIX in order to build Holo Defense A.P.I., we know nothing about them. Might as well be the Chaos Ancients from Sonic Frontiers lol their technology looks similar in shapes to the one from the Starfall Islands and their planet got destroyed. The End is a form of void, Sonic is canon to Kirby, confirmed!

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TL:DR Kirby's timeline and multiverse is a mess, and becomes more complex as they drop more lore informations, but at the same time, the more they tell, the more consistent it starts to be

 

[TheZekenator]

On 2/8/2023 at 10:46 PM, PC the Hedgehog said:

Return to Dream Land is one of my favorite ever Kirby games, but maaaaaan, I do not want to pay $60 for another copy of it.

But that dang Magolor epilogue story is pretty dang tempting, even though I know it alone won't justify the purchase. whyyyyy

I'm with you on this you probably could wait for a hefty discount. It does feel like overkill seeing as the Epilogue story is probably going to be really short. I mean I faced this situation with Skyward Sword HD, I still bought it. 

Edited March 2, 2023 by TheZekenator