Kirby and the Forgotten Land has become one of the most successful franchise projects in recent years for Nintendo and HAL Laboratory. Since this game represents the franchise’s leap into a full-fledged three-dimensional adventure, many changes have been made to Kirby’s typical formula and exploration. Although some new abilities have been introduced, such as Drill, Forgotten Land also includes upgradeable variants of Kirby’s copy abilities.
The game also features a set of completely new abilities unrelated to the copying abilities known as Full-Mouth transformations. This allows Kirby to inhale and wrap his mouth around certain objects, which allows for different types of gameplay. For example, when Kirby sucks in a car, he can drive, move forward and punch through walls. This mode has caught on among fans because of some crazy objects that Kirby can inhale in the game, as well as because Kirby can stretch his whole body over each object. The origin of this game mechanics was described in detail by game director Shinya Kumazaki in a recent interview with Nintendo Dream, which was translated into English through Nintendo Everything.
Despite the fact that Kirby’s Mouthful Mode is a completely new mechanic in Forgotten Land, Kumazaki notes that he and his team have been trying to implement it for some time. He even shared a rough sketch of how it would work, mentioning that he “thought about Kirby inhaling mysterious triangles and squares and then transforming.” Specifically, Kumazaki and his team looked at Kirby’s shape-shifting ability, allowing him to do things that ordinary human characters couldn’t do.
This led to the creation of a full mouth mode in which Kirby could stretch his body in new creative ways, as detailed in Kumazaki’s outline of the game mechanics. While Kumazaki first considered the basic shapes to transform, he then thought that if he didn’t swallow them, he would instead accept other objects around him. This included cars, pipes and park objects reflected in Kumazaki’s sketches.
Some transformations seem to have been cut from Kirby and the Forgotten Land, as this sketch includes those where Kirby can be flattened, stretched by a number of mechanical arms, or even twisted his entire body like a corkscrew. The interviewer notes that while Kirby’s new forms are quite striking, the character retains her simple form as well as the character’s endearing charm. Kumazaki even notes that, despite Kirby’s adventures in the new world, he doesn’t fuss about details and is “cool-headed as always.”
Kirby and the Forgotten Land is already available on the Nintendo Switch.
