2022 Games of the Year: Kirby and the Forgotten Land

Kirby and the Forgotten Land was a quick playthrough for me.  It came out on a Friday and I had beaten the game by Saturday night.  But length isn't all that matters in a game.  This actually ended up being an excellently timed palate cleanser of a game for me.

Coming off of playing Elden Ring, this was exactly what I needed.  A quick, fun, and easy platformer that kept throwing interesting new twists my way.  I feel like Kirby platformers never reach the heights of Mario platformers but they feel like a close cousin.  I could feel a lot of the design philosophy of Mario Odyssey while I was playing through Kirby and the Forgotten Land.

Ultimately, this game was a little too easy for me.  I played on the harder difficulty mode, still cleared every level on the first try, and got almost all the secrets in my first pass through a level as well.  I never felt inspired to swing back through a level I had finished because I had already kind of picked the bones clean.

That being said, Kirby and the Forgotten Land would make for the perfect intro 3D platformer game for someone that hasn't played one before.  It's approachable, not too hard, but still interesting and with high production values.

Being great for new players but landing on the easy side for me means that Kirby lands in the bottom half of my running list for the year.  This is what the rundown looks like now:

1. Elden Ring
2. FFXIV Endwalker
3. Horizon Forbidden West
4. Pokémon Legends: Arceus
5. Halo Infinite
6. Vampire Survivors
7. Kirby and the Forgotten Land
8. Nobody Saves the World
9. Unpacking
10. Tunic

Kirby and the Forgotten Land slots into seventh for the moment.  I'm still going back to Vampire Survivors regularly which is why that edges it out but there's no question that Kirby was more enjoyable for me than Nobody Saves the World.  The Nintendo magic goes a long way here.