I'm still kind of jumping around from game to game even though I have landed on Octopath Traveler 0 as my main game that I am playing now.
I have Kirby and the forgotten Land so I figured i would at least have a try at it. While I am familiar with who/what Kirby is, I was never involved in some of the games that popularized the character in the 90's and beyond.
These games invite a certain level of scrutiny from gamers because they are "kiddish" but I have never had a problem with that. Some of my favorite games of all time look as though they were meant for children but even though I am older now I still enjoy cartoonish and silly things.
one of the things that I noticed almost immediately upon starting to play was that this game seems an awful lot like AstroBot on the Playstation. honestly, they are essentially the same game.
For anyone that is thinking that Nintendo copied Sony you would be quite wrong about this because this Kirby game was released about two years before Astro Bot was. They say that "imitation is the highest form of flattery" but I don't think Nintendo is very good at accepting flattery and normally will just get the lawyers involved if they feel as though they can. I won't bother to look up whether or not Nintendo sued Sony, but I would be willing to bet that they tried to.
As far as I understand it this was a staple of the original Kirby games in that in this one, you run around and have the ability to suck in any enemy that you see and absorb their powers to use on the stage that you are currently in. Sometimes this is absolutely necessary for progression. Don't worry, it's quite simple and really obvious what you are supposed to be using.
In Astro Bot, this is not exactly what you do, but there are quite a few times where you will open a box of some sort and then you take on the properties of the creature that is inside that box and therefore are able to get through the level easier, or in some cases it isn't possible to get through the level without it.
Now in Kirby you have considerably more options about what you can transform into but to me, I think it is pretty obvious that the ability to transform and take on the powers of other creatures is pretty evident in Astro Bot and I believe that this is definitely what they were aiming for in that game. Kirby and the Forgotten Land seems to be directly related to Astro Bot and well, from a gamers perspective that is perfectly ok with me that they are essentially the same game.
That being said, I played the bejesus out of Astro Bot before I even knew that this Kirby game was available and because of that I am not really enjoying it as much as I otherwise might have. Despite the fact that they are totally different franchises whichever one of the two you play second is going to seem as if you've already "been there, done that."
I think the reason why Astro Bot sold so well is primarily because Nintendo Switch players and PS5 players, don't often overlap. People seem to be team Nintendo or Team Sony. I"m just one of the people that happens to have both systems and will play whatever.
They are both really easy to pick up and play and both of them have a sort of system where the game is only over if you decide that you don't want to try a particular segment anymore. There is no amount of "lives' per se, you just keep trying until you want to quit. You can also exit out of any stage that you find too difficult at the time and come back to it later. In this way both of these games are very user friendly and suitable for kids and adults. They appeal to casual gamers like myself yet they both have more advanced levels, which are normally optional, that can satisfy the hardcore gamers as well, at least for a bit of time.
The whole objective as Kirby is to rescue these creatures called "Waddle Dees" from the various worlds and the amount of them that you get enables you to open additional areas. This is very similar to the way in which you can open new planets to explore in Astro Bot by rescuing "Bots" that enable progressing to the boss world that upon defeat will open up a new planet area.
I know that Kirby doesn't exactly have the patent on gameplay like this and it would be absurd to allow anyone the exclusive right to something like this but it isn't just that... the controls, the camera angles, the overall feel of the gameplay is IMO exactly the same and this is probably why I am not playing The Forgotten Land very much: I already did it for about 100 hours with Astro Bot.
However, if you are the kind of player that enjoys the idea of a game like this and haven't played Astro Bot either because you didn't want to or you don't have a PS5, this game could end up being a ton of fun for you.
If you can get this game at a decent price I think it is a wonderful casual game for almost anyone to enjoy. It is simple enough for regular or even non gamers to play but it also has enough challenge to hold down the interest of more grizzled players. The cuteness appeals to me a great deal and I think it does to most people, certainly the Japanese.