The original Kirby’s Return to Dreamland released in 2011 and was a large milestone for the franchise. It was the first proper mainline Kirby adventure on a home console in over eleven years. It ended up being the framework for every mainline title until 2022’s Kirby and the Forgotten Land. After twelve years and a shift in the franchise’s direction, Hal Labs decided to remake this game for the Switch. This excited me as I’ve loved this title for quite some time. It was my first Kirby game and is one of the largest reasons why I still love the franchise to this day. New content that served as a proper follow up to the story’s ending as well? Yes please!

The story starts out with the four main characters having a relatively normal day in Dreamland. We see Kirby holding a cake while running away from King Dedede, Dreamland’s king who was once a major antagonist, and his bodyguard Bandana Waddle Dee. We also see Meta Knight, a round guardian of Dreamland, sitting there when out of nowhere a ship appears from a portal. The ship comes crashing down and the four heroes decide to go after it. They find an egg-shaped alien by the name of Magolor there and decide to help him fix his ship so he can return to his home, Halcandra.

One of the biggest draws to this game is its four player local co-op. You can play through pretty much every mode with up to four players all on the same system. If you’re not player one, you can pick between King Dedede, Meta Knight, Bandana Waddle Dee, or another Kirby. All of these characters have unique movesets and are very nice options. Sadly these extra characters aren’t playable in story mode unless you’re player two. You can only play as them in the boss rush mode.

The gameplay is relatively simple. Throughout the levels you have some platforming sections that you can avoid using Kirby’s infinite floating jump. Occasionally there are sections where Kirby has to launch out of a canon and these are generally the harder sections of levels. Scattered around them you can also find Energy Spheres which serve as collectibles that unlock side content. These spheres are normally locked behind a puzzle or are just hidden behind a breakable box.

Throughout the levels there are enemies that you can suck up using Kirby’s signature inhale ability. Through this ability the core gameplay shines. Certain enemies throughout the stages give Kirby special abilities after being inhaled. Most of these abilities essentially give Kirby an entirely new moveset. There are around twenty-five abilities with three of them being simple singular attacks that destroy the entire screen then disappear and one that just does nothing. Three of the twenty-five abilities are new to the remake. Festival is one of the aforementioned simpler abilities that just is a singular attack. Sand allows you to throw sand around at enemies, hide in it, and create sand castles that do a ton of damage. It’s personally one of my new favorite abilities to use due to how fast the sand comes out. Mecha gives Kirby a few mechanical parts that allow for quite a few different weapons including mines and lasers.

There are special types of copy abilities in the Super Abilities. In a couple levels per world you find a special enemy marked with stars. If you inhale this enemy you end up with a stronger version of one of five existing copy abilities. All of these abilities essentially end up being a screen nuke that can be used multiple times. The sections where you have these abilities have a bunch of large destructible objects marked with stars. At the end of these sections behind an obstacle you find a special platforming section where you lose your Super Ability. These sections are often tougher auto scrollers with a miniboss at the end.

The boss fights are all incredible. In them the game’s mechanics come together. There’s at least one boss fight per world, with several minibosses scattered around as well, and these are some of the biggest highlights of the game. During these fights you have to avoid various attacks while either firing whatever the boss throws at you back at it using Kirby’s inhale or by using any of the many copy abilities outside of the Super Abilities . Halfway through the boss enters what I call rage mode where its attacks change up and there’s usually some slight design change to the boss. These fights are where the copy ability system’s many alternate attacks shine through. They can be used differently depending on the boss and sometimes help prevent you from taking damage. While most of the early bosses are relatively easy, later on they end up being very challenging.

If you feel like taking a break from the main stages, you can do a few challenge stages. You unlock these by collecting the energy spheres scattered across the levels. Each of the challenge stages are centered around a copy ability. It’s usually a timed platforming gauntlet with enemies scattered about. Each stage uses every move that an ability has. There are a few medals you can go for by clearing them in a certain amount of time. There’s sadly no reward for clearing all of these outside of bragging rights.

After you beat the main story you unlock three modes: Magolor Epilogue, The Arena, which is a boss rush mode, and Extra Mode. In Extra Mode you play through the main story but harder. In it you have reduced health, tougher enemies, and harder bosses. It’s a fun mode that once completed, unlocks the True Arena. The True Arena is essentially The Arena but with the harder bosses from Extra Mode, as well as an exclusive boss. This is the ultimate challenge, and one that Kirby fans love to practice.

Now, since this is the Deluxe edition you might be wondering, what’s new? Well, when you beat the main story you unlock the Magolor Epilogue. In this mode you have a handful of stages where you play as Magolor, the aforementioned egg shaped alien. In it you collect a lot of small orbs called “magic points” that you use to upgrade your abilities. You don’t have any copy abilities in this mode so you have a bunch of upgradeable abilities that you unlock over this mini campaign. There are also ability challenges that are locked behind having a certain upgrade for an ability. At the end of each world of this mode there’s a slightly altered version of a boss from the main game. These bosses are slightly harder than their previous counterparts. The mode’s a fun little extra added onto an already great Kirby title.

Alongside the Magolor Epilogue there’s also a new Merry Magoland mode. This is essentially a minigame hub. Throughout the main story you unlock ten different minigames with the energy spheres, but you don’t need to unlock them to play them. If you go to Merry Magoland you can play all ten any time you want. There are extra challenges for the games as well. These add replayability and reward you with special statues of characters from past adventures. All ten of these can be played with up to four people. Out of the ten minigames, seven of them are from previous Kirby titles, one is from the original Return to Dreamland, and the remaining two are brand new. Though sadly, due to the Switch lacking the same features as the Wii, one of the two from the original had to be cut.

The game looks very good for the Switch. The original looked good and it just looks better this time. The areas are well designed, the characters pop out with the newly added outlines, and the color palette is very clean. In all my playtime it all ran at a smooth 60 fps with no frame drops.


The original Return to Dreamland already had one of the franchise’s best scores, and this remake leaves it largely unchanged. Most of the game’s songs were ported to the new version with minor upscaling, but there were a few that got remade. The main songs that got changed were the final boss’s themes. Alongside the few remade songs, both the Magolor Epilogue and Merry Magoland come with their own set of new songs. These new songs are all great and can feature neat easter eggs for longtime fans of the franchise.


The game’s content is very tame on a moral front. Any combat is family friendly with no blood or gore and there’s no language in the dialogue. The only thing worth mentioning is that Magolor has some sort of “magic” that’s never really touched upon. There’s also the “mouth-to-mouth” ability in co-op play where it looks like you kiss your friend to share a healing item with them. This has no sexual undertones.

Overall, I loved this remake. As a Kirby fan who’s first proper experience with the character was the original Return to Dreamland, the remake holds up incredibly well. I highly recommend it to anyone who likes Kirby, 2D Platformers, or is interested in checking out the franchise. The title’s also a great pick up for families with its accessibility and co-op.

-Amiibo