Kirby and the Forgotten Landis already a smash hit on the Switch only a few weeks after its release. The game quickly broke sales records in Japan, moving hundreds of thousands of copies in its first week in that region alone. Not only is it selling well, but reviews forKirby and the Forgotten Landare solid too, with praise heaped on its experiments with Copy Abilities, upgrades to combat, bonus challenges, and more. All in all,Kirby and the Forgotten Landseems to be a standout game even for theKirbyfranchise, meaning it deserves the honor of a proper sequel.
TheKirbyfranchise doesn’t often have direct sequels to individual games, perhaps thanks to theKirbyfranchise’s unstructured timeline, butKirby and the Forgotten Land’s innovations make it worthy of an exception. While the game’s plot wraps itself up nicely, HAL Laboratory could derive an idea for a sequel by studying Nintendo’s work onSuper Mario Odyssey.Its journey through many highly diverse worlds, as well as the new abilities Mario gained with Cappy’s help, seem like prime concepts to adapt into aForgotten Landsequel.Kirby and the Forgotten Landis already an ambitious game, but a sequel could go even further.
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Learning from Super Mario Odyssey
Kirby and the Forgotten Land’s various levels are already quite diverse. Not only does Kirby move through a long list of different biomes, but he visits different types of ruins as well, ranging from amusement parks to industrial districts. A sequel could go even further by traveling between lots of different worlds, however.Forgotten Land’s Elfilin possesses remarkable powersover portals and interplanetary travel, meaning he could serve as a gateway to worlds, characters, and enemies far more diverse thanForgotten Landcontained. Chasing a new enemy across the universe while befriending a wide range of adorable aliens sounds like a great angle for aForgotten Landsequel plot.
A sequel could add toForgotten Land’s gameplay with Elfilin’s help too.Super Mario Odysseyfamously introduced Cappy, who allowed Mario to perform a range of new hat-throwing tricks, including possessing enemies to overcome obstacles. Elfilin’s ability to open and close portals has a similar amount of potential. AForgotten Landsequel could have Elfilin accompany Kirby through levels and open up portals in certain places to help Kirby solve puzzles. He might also help Kirby teleport around the battlefield in combat to ambush enemies or evade attacks, adding an extra level of skill expression to combat alongsideForgotten Land’s robust Copy Ability upgrades.
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Kirby and the Forgotten Land’s Sequel Potential
Kirby and the Forgotten Landdoesn’t just deserve a sequel because of its strengths; it would be a great way to improve on the game’s shortcomings as well. For example, theKirbyfranchise isn’t known for its difficulty, and whileForgotten Landhas some moments of significant challenge, it tends to be pretty easy overall, even during the newly added Wild Mode. AForgotten Landsequel could turn up the heat with tougher enemies, more complicated puzzles, and so on. After all,Super Mario Odysseyintroduced some major challenges of its own, in spite ofSuper Mario’s generally approachable design. AForgotten Landsequel could do the same forKirby.
SinceForgotten Landis still such a new release, fans will have to wait quite a while to find out what HAL Laboratory wants to do next. Reusing many ofForgotten Land’s core components could make development of a sequel easier, but if it were tofollowSuper Mario Odyssey’s premise, there would still be a lot of new work to be done. Regardless of HAL’s eventual sequel plans, though,Kirby and the Forgotten Landis clearly a new benchmark forKirbygame design. HAL’s next installation in the series needs to learn fromForgotten Land,whether it’s a sequel or not.
Kirby and the Forgotten Landis available now for Nintendo Switch.
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