Kirby's Return to Dream Land

Kirby's Return to Dream Land,[lower-alpha 1] released in Europe and Australia as Kirby's Adventure Wii,[8][9] is a Kirby video game and the twelfth platform installment of the series, developed by HAL Laboratory, and published by Nintendo. While Kirby's Epic Yarn was released in 2010, Kirby's Return to Dream Land is the first traditional Kirby platforming home console game since Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards, which was released in 2000 for the Nintendo 64. The title was released in North America on October 24, 2011, in Japan on October 27, 2011, in Europe on November 25, 2011, and in Australia on December 1, 2011.

Kirby's Return to Dream Land
North American box art
Developer(s)HAL Laboratory
Publisher(s)Nintendo
Director(s)Shinya Kumazaki
Producer(s)Hiroaki Suga
Hitoshi Yamagami
Shigefumi Kawase
Artist(s)Kazuyuki Nakamura
Kenichiro Kita
Writer(s)Shinya Kumazaki
Composer(s)Hirokazu Ando
Jun Ishikawa
SeriesKirby
Platform(s)Wii
ReleaseWii:
  • NA: October 24, 2011[1]
  • JP: October 27, 2011[2]
  • EU: November 25, 2011[3]
  • AU: December 1, 2011[4]
  • KO: September 6, 2012
Wii U:
Nintendo eShop
Genre(s)Action-platformer
Mode(s)Single-player, multiplayer

Kirby's Return to Dream Land features the staple gameplay of traditional Kirby platform games, in which Kirby possesses the ability to inhale and copy enemies to gain a variety of attacks such as breathing fire or swinging a sword. The game supports cooperative multiplayer gameplay, allowing up to four players to control various Kirby characters, including Bandana Waddle Dee, King Dedede, and Meta Knight. Kirby's plot focuses on the characters retrieving the scattered pieces of a crashed alien spaceship.[10]

The game was announced as a Nintendo GameCube title to be released in late 2005,[11] but development was later shifted to its successor console, the Wii. The game was presumed to be canceled until it was re-announced in 2011. The game was made available for the Nintendo eShop in 2015.[5][6][7]

Some elements from the cancelled Kirby title of 2005 were carried over to Kirby's Return to Dream Land,[12] such as the ability for players to stack up in a totem carried by the player on the bottom of the stack. Other elements from the Kirby title of 2005, such as Kirby's ability to befriend up to three "Helpers" (a gameplay mechanic from Kirby Super Star), were modified and carried over to another Kirby game, released in early 2018 on the Nintendo Switch, called Kirby Star Allies.

Gameplay

Return to Dream Land is a 2.5D side-scrolling platform game, controlled by holding the Wii Remote sideways. Unlike the other games in the Kirby series, the game features 3D models for player characters and enemies rather than sprites.

Throughout the game, Kirby can collect items which will heal him; food items that recover health, items that give him an extra life, or by collecting 100 stars, which immediately grants him an extra life. There are also various items Kirby can use to interact with the environment. At the end of each stage, a bonus game is played in which players time a button press to jump as high as possible to earn additional items.[13]

Kirby's Return to Dream Land supports cooperative multiplayer for up to four players.

The player controls Kirby, who retains his signature ability to inhale objects and enemies. The inhaled objects can either be swallowed, or propelled back out as a projectile. Kirby can also do a "Super Inhale", where shaking the Wii Remote or inhaling for a long time makes Kirby's inhale stronger. A Super Inhale has extended range and can suck up "Heave-ho Blocks", which are immovable from a regular inhale; the Super Inhale also allows Kirby to inhale other players and most large enemies.

Certain enemies, when swallowed, give Kirby access to a wide variety of "Copy Abilities", which gives Kirby the attack properties of the enemies he inhales. Kirby can only possess one copy ability at a time. Other players playing as another character through multiplayer, or those playing as King Dedede, Meta Knight, or Waddle Dee, can hold onto a Copy Ability's essence and throw them back to Kirby to be inhaled. If a discarded ability from these characters is left untouched, it will vanish shortly afterwards.

Each copy ability has multiple attacks that are utilized depending on the combination of button-inputs pressed by the player. New Abilities introduced in this game are the Whip Ability, which lets Kirby grab out-of-reach items, the Water Ability, which allows Kirby to extinguish fires, and the Leaf Ability, which lets Kirby use leaves as a form of attack and conjure a pile of leaves to hide in and become invulnerable to nearly all attacks.

The game introduces more powerful, temporary Copy Abilities called "Super Abilities,"[4] which are able to destroy parts of the environment and inflict tremendous damage across a wide range. Unlike regular Copy Abilities, ejecting a Super Ability will cause the Super Ability's to be discarded instantly. Five Super Abilities exist: Ultra Sword, Monster Flame, Flare Beam, Grand Hammer, and Snow Bowl, which are enhanced versions of five respective Copy Abilities, with different move-sets.

The game features drop-in cooperative multiplayer for up to three additional players. These players can either play as a differently-colored-from-Player-One's Kirby, or as one of three unique characters: Meta Knight, King Dedede, and Waddle Dee. Each of these characters possess traits from corresponding Copy Abilities based on the way each character moves and attacks, though only Kirbys are able to inhale enemies and use Copy Abilities. Players are able to ride on top of each other as a "totem", which, with perfect timing, allows the use of a charged attack, called the "Team Attack", driven by the player at the bottom. Players can also share recently ingested health-restoring items through a move called "Face-to-Face" (similar to regurgitation).

All players share from a pool of lives, with each player requiring one life to enter the game. If one of the three additional players loses a life, they can spend an extra life to rejoin the game. However, if Player One dies, all players stop play and gameplay restarts from the last checkpoint.

Plot

One day, a strange spaceship called the Lor Starcutter suddenly flies out of a wormhole and crash onto Kirby's home planet of Popstar. As Kirby, Meta Knight, King Dedede and Waddle Dee go to investigate, they meet an alien named Magolor, who discovers that the five vital pieces of his ship, along with 120 energy spheres, have been scattered across the planet. With Magolor offering them a trip to his homeworld of Halcandra should they help fix his ship, Kirby and his friends set off to recover the lost pieces.

After retrieving the main pieces, they travel to Halcandra, where they are attacked by a four headed dragon named Landia. Magolor claims Landia is an evil beast that has taken over Halcandra and sends Kirby to defeat it. However, after Landria is defeated, Magolor reveals his true motive was to steal the Master Crown on its head and become all powerful, with intent of making the entire universe bow before him, beginning with Popstar. Teaming up with Landria, who is revealed to be four individual dragons, Kirby and his friends confront Magolor in a final battle and manage to destroy the Master Crown, taking Magolor with it. With peace restored to the universe, Kirby and friends are returned to Popstar whilst the Landria dragons take the Lor Starcutter and return home.

Development

Development on a new Kirby game began after the release of Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards for the Nintendo 64 in 2000. The game underwent an 11-year development period, in which three different proposed versions of the game were developed and scrapped.[12] The first version was similar to the graphical and gameplay style of Kirby 64, rendered in 3D, but using traditional 2D side-scrolling gameplay. The game would also support multiplayer with up to four players.[11] This build was demonstrated at E3 in 2005, and was set for release later that year. However, difficulty with programming multiplayer led to this version being scrapped, though its concept would later resurface as Kirby Star Allies for the Nintendo Switch. The second build placed Kirby in a 3D environment with open world-style gameplay, and the third build returned to side-scrolling gameplay, but had the graphical style of a pop-up book. The development team realized that the failure of the first three attempts were caused by too much focus on multiplayer, so focus was shifted to the single-player experience.[12] Development of the final version accelerated in October 2010, when the game began to take form.[12]

Kirby's long development caused the game to frequently appear and then disappear from Nintendo's upcoming game lists. On September 14, 2006, the Kirby game appeared on a list of upcoming Wii games, named Hoshi no Kābī (星のカービィ, lit. "Kirby of the Stars"), set for release in Japan. The December 2006 issue of Nintendo Power removed Kirby from its list of GameCube releases, but did not place it on its list of Wii releases. Matt Casamassina of IGN, posting on his blog, furthered the idea of a Wii release by stating that it would indeed be released for the Wii in 2007.[14] He compared it to Donkey Kong Barrel Blast, another game that was originally announced as a GameCube title, but eventually released on Wii. While the game did not appear at E3 2007, Beth Llewelyn of Nintendo of America confirmed the game "had not been abandoned."[15] The December 2007 issue of Official Nintendo Magazine claimed that a Kirby game for Wii was not in development.[16] On May 7, 2010, Nintendo confirmed that a Kirby Wii title was still in the making.[17][18]

Nintendo announced the game Kirby's Epic Yarn at E3 2010, a separate title that was in development by Good-Feel. The 2005 Kirby game was presumed to have been canceled until a Financial Results Briefing on January 28, 2011 re-announced the game with a release date set within the same year.[19] At E3 2011, the game was demonstrated in playable form under the tentative title Kirby Wii.[20] The game was later renamed Kirby's Return to Dream Land in North America,[21] Kirby's Adventure Wii in Europe,[22] and Hoshi no Kirby Wii in Japan. The music is composed by Jun Ishikawa and Hirokazu Ando with a soundtrack called Kirby Wii Music Selection featuring 45 musical pieces from the game.

Reception

Kirby's Return to Dream Land received a 77/100, based on review aggregator Metacritic. According to Nintendo, the game sold 1.31 million copies by the end of 2012.[37]

Multiple critics appreciated the return of traditional Kirby gameplay, compared to unique content such as Kirby's Epic Yarn.[34][33][26] The game was called nostalgic[33][34] and reminiscent of previous games,[29][38] with Jim Sterling of Destructoid stating how its refreshing to see a return of classic Kirby gameplay and how "Kirby doesn't need to innovate, he just needs to be fun; Return to Dream Land brings the fun in spades."[26] Graphics and visuals were praised for being detailed and vibrant.[33][30] GameSpot reviewer Nathan Meunier called the levels beautifully designed, appreciating each level's environment.[30]

Complaints were raised how the game lacked difficulty,[34][25] mostly from the use of multiplayer.[33][25] IGN stated how the game could appeal to a more younger audience with a simple difficulty level.[33]

Notes
  1. Known in Japan as Hoshi no Kābī Wii (星のカービィWii, lit. Kirby of the Stars Wii)

References
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