Topic: Kirby and the Forgotten Land

@chipia I mean, to be honest, BotW has mastermode, which makes the game hard as hell to beat. I could use all the items I have, and still be bested by most of the monsters in the game.

@Joeynator3000 Also yeah, this is way more akin to 3D world than odyssey. The levels seem structured, but in 3D this time around.

...Ah well...it'll be funny hearing everyone complain when they figure it out themselves. lol

I mean, the Pokemon games were big and open...but, the problem was that it was just...empty. Also super laggy if online.

This literally looks like a normal Kirby game but in full 3D, just like 3D Land/World. You even see a goal area and it seems like the objective is to save Waddle Dees for some reason. lol

It seems open world. I don't think it's level based. I haven't seen anything that makes me believe it is level based. The trailer even shows the central city "HUB", with bridges connecting to other parts of the map. So it's probably neither like 3D World, nor Odyssey lol.

@Octane Idk its giving me a big sunshine vibe.

Pretty sure it’s level based.

Per the game description:

Take control of the powerful pink puffball, Kirby, and move around freely in 3D stages

But whether it is or isn’t, I don’t really think too many people are going to care one way or the other. Nobody’s going to be “disappointed” because it doesn’t really matter. 3D is 3D. How that 3D is structured is kind of tangential to the reason people are excited. People loved Odyssey, but people also loved 3D World. It’s not like 3D games are “only fun” when structured a specific way.

Also, as for Zelda BotW, that was a reasonably challenging game for me and I am a little above average in skill level. There’s always going to be people who boast about how easy a game was and how they could beat it blindfolded with one hand. But I think if you ask most normal gamers, they would agree Zelda BotW was reasonably challenging. I know I died more times than I care to remember.

@SeaFishelle
The Wild areas were never pitched as being more than walled off sections of the game, the rest of which was clearly shown to be more traditional.

This game is not going to have “portions” walled off as 3D. The entire game will be 3D. It could be like Odyssey with a hub or it could be like 3D world with levels, but it doesn’t really matter at the end of the day. Both are viable approaches people enjoy.

I just know everyone's going to think it's open world, then they find out the truth and be completely disappointed and I'll be like "told ya so" lol

@Joeynator3000 That's kinda how they framed it. Should've shown a menu screen or level select screen if it isn't. Of course people are going to think open world based on the trailer.

@Octane I mean, most initial trailers don't usually show the GUI or menus. It's just best not to assume that something's open world until it's shown to be.

@JaxonH I'll probably be disappointed if I get the game for full price, and it ends up not being good like how it was when I bought star allies. Star Allies tainted my view of this series to be honest.

@VoidofLight
I'm pretty sure anyone would be disappointed if they bought a game (for any price) and the game wasn't good. That's not exclusive to Kirby.

@Snaplocket at launch it was short, and had nothing but the campaign. Can't say anything about the content they added after launch, since I dropped it entirely, but the game took me less than 3 days to beat, and it was easier than Triple Deluxe. The puzzles were dumbed down, since it was built to be multiplayer, and they didn't know how to make it a fun game for people playing it singleplayer. I'd rather play a 2D mario than Star Allies, and I despise 2D Mario.

I never really expected the wild areas to be massive or open world. I just expected them to be like most pokemon areas, but on a bit of a bigger scale.

I actually think having separate, somewhat linear levels is generally a better approach for 3D platformers than trying to make something more open. It makes it much easier to just focus on good level design, fun platforming and a large variety of different levels. Having a hub to run around in can be fine but the whole game doesn't need to be open like that.

Has there ever even been an actual open-world platformer? Even Mario Odyssey has mostly small and separated regions. However I think a platformer with a world as open as BOTW could be very interesting, although I doubt that Kirby is going to do that...

@BenAV It seems like the "levels" will be similar to Odyssey, quite open (based on the theme park, desert, and beach levels). They don't seem to be very linear. The game probably won't be "BOTW open world", but it seems like there's some kind of connection between the levels. Like if you could walk from one level to another in Sunshine for example. Or maybe that's all just one giant level. Hard to tell.

I agree. Joseph Anderson is right when he says that they seem like they were thrown together in a prototype 3D Mario Maker. I don't understand how most critics gave this game a pass on that.

In regard to the linearity vs. open world debate, Gamexplain did a pretty thorough analysis of the openness of what was shown in the trailer.

To summarize, the game appears to be more like 3D World than Odyssey. The level design largely corrals you in a particular direction and the camera seems to automatically pan as you round corners implying no camera control.

I do think a 3D World approach is better for HAL's first attempt at 3D since it would be easier for them to make, but I would like to see them open things up further down the road. And I would be fine with either (although I didn't like 3D World because the game played too similarly to a lot of past Mario games but that style of platformer can still be fun).

My larger issue with what we've been shown has been how empty the levels look. And I don't mean in terms of the abandoned city theme, I mean there's... not a lot to interact with. You have wide open areas with nothing but 1 or 2 enemies, very few star coins, blocks, and overworld puzzles, just a ton of background scenery and not a lot of gameplay substance. It kind of reminds me of SwSh (and a couple of instances in previous 3D Pokemon games like XY and SM) where you had all of this beautiful and interesting background scenery you want to explore but you're walled off from doing so and the actual content you can interact with is very simplistic and uninteresting. I'm very surprised more people aren't calling HAL out on this, it seems plain as day to me.

@chipia Not a full one, but Bowser's Fury is side mode that's a proof of concept for one. Make something about 6-8 times that size and I think you've got the recipe for an open world platformer.

@Bolt_Strike Not to defend a kirby game, since I've been ripped off in the past, but it's kind of dumb to compare a rpg game to a 3D platformer. A better comparison would be 3D world, which had similar issues with some of it's levels as well. 3D world had a couple of areas like the sprawling Savannah level, where there was just this massive open space, but nothing in said open space to really do.

The other levels mostly had enemies and collectables, which is a standard for 3D platformers, and this game seems to have those as well. It's just that some places in these levels just seem more open, and due to that it's empty. It's also important to note that people probably don't get onto HAL for this, given it's the first time they ever truly developed a 3D platforming game.. at least the first time the Kirby team has.