YMMV / Kirby and the Forgotten Land

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • The ending to the final boss of the Ultimate Cup Z, where Elfilis turns into a tiny speck of light that gets absorbed by Elfilin, has led to many interpretations of the character. The associated figure description says that Elfilis's soul willingly returned itself to Elfilin, but fans are unclear on whether this means Elfilis is a Graceful Loser who pulled a proper Heel–Face Turn, or that they're still evil and they finally got what they wanted. A third camp thinks that they simply knew when to give in to their heroic half, regardless of their alignment. The Japanese, Chinese and Korean versions are a bit more clear in some areas, and less so in others: these versions say that Elfilis was reborn as a speck of light, but do not mention that Elfilis "willingly" returned to Elfilin.
  • One YouTube comment puts the Final Boss in a different light; was Elfilis truly malevolent, or did they come in peace before the inhabitants of the New World attacked them? Then, after a brief struggle, during which the story was twisted to make Elfilis seem like the bad guy in this situation, the alien was captured and experimented on for more than thirty years, with the constant cheery voice of the tour guide finally driving them completely to insanity, unable to escape the voice of the tour guide even in their dreams. It would explain Fecto Forgo’s undying will to escape Lab Discovera, their attempts growing increasingly desperate as they doggedly refuse to be put back in that situation again, and in the end would mean they tragically became the very villain the New World's inhabitants made them out to be. This also paints the action of trying to collide Popstar into The New World in a different light. Was Elfilis really doing it out of spite? Or did they decide that they would rather get obliterated by a planet collision or by Kirby's hand than be trapped in that test tube again?
    • However, the Japanese version includes some nuances in the Dream Discoveries Tour speech that refute this interpretation and make the character seem vile and dangerous from the word "go", namely that Fecto Elfilis's invasion attempt was initially targeted at the New World's defenseless animals. Following that, Elfilis either ended up causing such widespread damage or was so gratuitously violent (it's not exactly stated) that Lab Discovera became "anxious about the risks" to their civilization, deciding to capture it as a sort of Godzilla Threshold before it could attack them next. Supplementing this is the Japan-only Perfect Support Guide, which provides further explanation: Fecto Elfilis routinely flies across the universe and conquers planets for the purpose of assimilating the inhabitants and satisfying their ambition, and is implied to kickstart their invasions by bombarding the planet with meteors in a similar manner to what they do when they lose half of their health as the Final Boss. The New World just happened to be the first planet that could successfully fight back. Fecto Elfilis's spiteful Colony Drop at the end of the game is partially explained by what happens when Elfilin is absent: Fecto Forgo becomes an even less rational, Psychopathic Manchild exaggeration of Fecto Elfilis's regular vile behavior due to losing some of their intelligence and maturity along with Elfilin's empathy.
  • In the post-game, King Dedede refuses to speak to Kirby, with one of the Waddle Dees explaining that the King is upset that Kirby went off to rescue the Waddle Dees while he was being controlled like a puppet. Is Dedede mad at Kirby for not making his rescue the top priority? Or is Dedede mad at himself for needing to be rescued and not being the one to save his subjects? Given that the Waddle Dee also explains Dedede is thankful for Kirby's actions and his silence is simply due to resting up from his wounds, the latter seems like the more likely scenario.
    • It also must be noted that while Dedede doesn't directly speak to Kirby he still gives him a blueprint for one of the most powerful copy ability evolutions in the game and actually responds to his greeting you can do with the press of the d-pad, something that even Meta Knight doesn't do. This very much suggests that he's merely tired and doesn't hold any grudge against Kirby.
• Annoying Video Game Helper: Elfilin is utterly, heart-meltingly adorable, but he has a habit of flying over to the nearest parts of Waddle Dee Town in order to encourage Kirby to go there — no matter what the player's plans are — with a loud and high-pitched "heeey!". However, the developers do their best to avert this in the postgame, where he lets you know if you've collected all the pieces of Leon's soul in a given area in one of the most helpful Anti-Frustration Features in the game.
• Awesome Music: Has its own section on the series page.
• Breather Boss: From the end of the main campaign: Fecto Forgo, despite the memorable shock factor of its introduction and a not-insignificant creep factor, is very easy compared to its preceding and succeeding bosses. Its two attacks are slow and easy to dodge, and it doesn't have a second phase or a lot of health. This is likely invoked, because it's in its incomplete form and its real form is much worse.
• Broken Base: Dedede's redesign for this game is arguably his most divisive redesign yet (which is saying something given how inconsistent Dedede's design is). Some fans love the design for effectively being a modernized version of Dedede's design from Kirby's Dream Land 3 and Kirby 64 and finds it to be very endearing, unique and adorable looking, while others find it to look very weird and Off-Model compared to the usual look for Dedede and are baffled as to why HAL overhauled his design again when he already had a perfectly fine and well received design in Kirby Star Allies and Kirby Fighters 2.
• Common Knowledge:
  • Right before the Final Boss: The Dream Discoveries Tour says that Elfilin split off from Elfilis 30 years after research began on Elfilis, not 30 years prior to the present day, as it's sometimes misinterpreted. It's unknown how many years elapsed between Elfilin splitting off and the present day. Even the Juno Songs adaptation gets this wrong, with the lyric "thirty years, and here we are".
  • While Forgotten Land's localization is a noticeable and much-appreciated step up from the translation of the previous game, an endgame remark that Elfilin is the "missing half" of Fecto Elfilis is often taken literally to mean that he represents exactly one half of Fecto Elfilis's original mind, being the purely good half to Fecto Forgo's purely evil half. The Japanese version never says such a thing, using the much more metaphorical word kataware, meaning "missing/broken piece" or "part of a whole", to describe him. Combined with supplemental material from the Perfect Support Guide, the truest-to-the-text explanation is that Elfilin is a small part of Fecto Elfilis's brain that represents compassion and love as well as higher reasoning, essentially serving as The Conscience, while Fecto Forgo represents everything else, and without Elfilin to keep them in check is an immature, violent maniac that is free to indulge all their worst impulses. To the English version's credit, this is a one-off slip, with Fecto Elfilis's Gotcha Capsule saying Elfilin is a "small, compassionate soul that hid behind invasive ambitions".
• Crosses the Line Twice: On one hand, Fecto Forgo being captured, studied, and then experimented on by the inhabitants of the new world is pretty much the perfect backdrop for an apocalyptic science horror story. But on the other hand, the fact Lab Discovera thought it was an appropriate idea to repurpose the whole thing as a big tourist trap and put the creature on full display even after Forgo was effectively put into a coma, along with the "tour" featuring cheesy cheerful music and an overly-enthusiastic narrator, makes the whole thing wrap back around to slightly hilarious. One can just imagine that Fecto Forgo merch was sold at some point.
• Demonic Spiders: Orabiroos are extremely frustrating. Due to their erratic jumping, they are extremely difficult to hit or avoid, especially compared to their smaller cousins the Rabiroos, and they deal a lot of damage.
• Draco in Leather Pants: The Big Bad is perhaps the nastiest villain in the entire franchise. Fecto Elfilis is a sociopathic alien invader who enslaves the Waddle Dees, assimilates the Beast Pack when they are no longer of use to them, and even attempts to kill Kirby by hurling a planet at him out of spite at losing. But if you look at fanart of them from the Japanese fanbase, you're just as likely to see them trying to cut a cake◊ or eating apples with Kirby and friends◊. This character's significant wow factor and traumatic backstory (if you ignore the fact that they brought it upon themselves) probably has something to do with it.
• Epileptic Trees:
  • Since the reveal trailer, fans have theorized that the lost civilization serving as the main setting of Forgotten Land — which resembles a post-apocalyptic Earth — is none other than a thawed-out Shiver Star, finally freed from its Endless Winter. Other theories claim that this planet and Shiver Star are both post-apocalyptic versions of Earth but they exist in alternate dimensions, as the opening cutscene showed Kirby getting sucked through a dimensional portal. Alternatively, fans theorize that Shiver Star was where the people of the new world went to when they abandoned it after being able to warp between dimensions, only to abandon Shiver Star afterwards.
  • When Elfilin the Ridiculously Cute Critter was introduced, the entire fanbase started to theorize that he is evil due to the series having a slight trend of seemingly cute and innocent characters betraying Kirby.^note This is despite the fact that there have only been two characters in the entire series who were introduced as friendly before ultimately betraying Kirby and both of them just stand back and let Kirby do their dirty work after being the ones to prompt Kirby to go on the adventure in the first place. Every other new ally ends up accompanying Kirby on his adventure, and Elfilin isn't even the one who instigated Kirby's adventure, at least not directly. Come the game proper, everyone was proven wrong when it's shown that he remains loyal to him, and even performs a Heroic Sacrifice in the game's ending to close off the connection between worlds. He does, however, wind up being the final boss — not out of his own free will, though, and it's more that he's just part of it.
  • Since the discovery that a company called the "Lightron Works Company" was previously active through decoding the Cipher Language present in every trailer, fans had been theorizing if this had anything to do with the similarly-named Haltmann Works Company and whether or not they had anything to do with the state of the world. This was taken further upon the release of the demo, where the Downtown Grassland stage has a chance of dropping the "Lightron Works Sign" collectible, which mentions that not only did Lightron split up, but rival companies rose up and started corporate battles.
  • Once it became clear that the villains of the game, the Beast Pack, were Uplifted Animals, many fans began to theorize that they were somehow related to other animal characters such as King Dedede, the Animal Buddies, and the Squeak Squad. King Dedede was indeed revealed to have a connection to the Beast Pack (though it was only because he got brainwashed), but it's still unknown about the other two groups, since neither appear in this game.
  • The butterfly that was involved with Morpho Knight in Star Allies is shown again in the intro here, making people theorize that it's going to be connected with the plot somehow. Sure enough, Morpho Knight reappears as an extra boss.
  • After the game's release, a common theory among fans is that the original inhabitants of the New World became the Ancients of Halcandra who built the Lor Starcutter, Nova, and Star Dream, having traveled to and settled there after harnessing the technology to imitate Elfilis's dimensional warp abilities, possibly even in the form of the Lor and other Starcutters like it, before abandoning it. Some have even noted a resemblance between Elfilis's containment facility and the interior of Nova. Tying in with the earlier Shiver Star theory, Shiver Star is also thought to be another one of the Ancients' settlements that was also abandoned, perhaps even the one they traveled to immediately after leaving the New World.
• Even Better Sequel: Kirby Star Allies was well-received, especially once all of the post-launch support was implemented, but was criticized for being too easy, having flat and unmemorable stages, and not innovating much from the previous three games of the same style, resulting in a more mixed reception in comparison to them as a result. This game, by contrast, received extremely positive reception from fans and critics for gracefully transitioning the series to 3D, implementing many new tweaks to the formula, such as upgradable Copy Abilities and Mouthful Mode, to keep things fresh, and having creative stage design with a more balanced difficulty curve, generally being seen as a return to form for the series after said game.
• Evil Is Cool: The Final Boss might be a heartless alien invader, but their design, theme, and fighting style are nothing short of awesome.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Tropic Woods has been called "Alolan Whispy" due to this counterpart of Whispy Woods being a palm tree, similar to Alolan Exeggutor. It's especially funny considering that Whispy Woods has the same origins as Exeggutor.
  • Kirby's car-based Mouthful Mode was quickly nicknamed "Carby" after it was revealed.
  • Kirby's Cone Mouth ability has been named "VLC Kirby" by fans, due to the VLC Media Player using a traffic cone as its logo.
  • The Ranger ability (and its upgrades) are frequently called "Gun" by players because, well, it's a gun.
• Fetish Retardant: Thanks to her massive hips, far larger than the rest of her comparatively twig-like body, Clawroline looks a lot like the designers tried too hard to make her sexy, to the point where it wraps back around to being weird instead. Her actual in-game appearance may be intentionally invoking this, though, in that many of her movements are deliberately silly and cartoonish.
• Fountain of Memes: Pretty much the second the Mouthful Mode was revealed, several memes spawned out of it, especially the Car Mouth form.
• Friendly Fandoms: Surprisingly enough, with Elden Ring during the lead-up to this game's release. Despite the two games being complete opposites in almost every way, quite a few fans and even journalists found the demo's cute, inviting atmosphere, relatively low difficulty even on Wild Mode, and forgiving combat mechanics to be a perfect de-stressing complement to the FromSoftware-signature brutal atmosphere and gameplay of Elden Ring (example 1, example 2, example 3). It helps that Forgotten Land released exactly one month after Elden Ring.
• Game-Breaker: As per usual for a Kirby game, certain abilities turn boss battles into an absolute joke:
  • Star Bullets in this game got an absolutely monstrous base damage buff to remain viable in tandem with the existence of the Evolved Copy Ability system. Their damage doesn't scale, however, meaning you can swiss cheese pretty much the entire first half of the game's bosses without a Copy Ability simply due to how absurdly overtuned Star Bullets are.
  • Perhaps the greatest Game-Breaker is a move you always have: dodging an enemy's attack before it hits you puts Kirby into Bullet Time. In this state, the world slows down, and Kirby can counter-attack for more damage. Not only that, but for abilities whose attacks can charge, like Hammer or Sword, the counter-attack does as much damage as if you charged the attack slightly. Additionally, the time to reach maximum charge is shortened significantly if you do charge it (and not just because the enemy is slower). You can dodge with every ability except Gigant Sword^note though Ice and its variations have a special shield that normally prevents dodging, you can pull it off if you release your shield right before you dodge, and the game is very generous as to when your dodge counts as "perfect".
  • Just having Bandana Waddle Dee with you absolutely trivializes the boss missions. Normally, you'd have to be careful with not getting hit, using certain abilities, and/or beating it in a certain time, but the game doesn't count Bandana Waddle Dee. Using this, you can play defensively while Bandana Waddle Dee himself dishes out damage on the bosses, meaning that you can complete a bunch of missions in one fell swoop.
  • On the new ability front, we have Ranger, which is basically Archer on steroids. Most normal enemies including the Giant Mooks become jokes when you can snipe them from way beyond their range. Fully-charged pellets do about 75% the damage of a fully charged Hammer Flip, except you don't have to risk getting close to put out this level of damage. Most bosses don't have much in terms of long-range attacks, letting a skilled Ranger player whittle them down with impunity. Should bosses actually try and get close, it has one of the more effective counterattacks in the game if you dodge attacks at the last second, allowing three three-shot volleys in if you mash the attack button. Unlike most other abilities, Ranger has the honor of having the only charged attack in the game you can actually dodge out of, and as the counter is a projectile it has a better chance of actually hitting the enemy back considering some bosses will already be out of reach of short-range abilities after dodging certain attacks. Ranger's evolutions obviously improve on these qualities, with Noble Ranger trading in charged high-damage pellets for More Dakka and Space Ranger's charge attack which, in addition to being more powerful than base Ranger's, shoots out as a massive ring that produces an even more massive electric Area of Effect upon hitting surfaces and bosses that put out long-lasting extra damage after its already incredibly powerful initial hit, while also causing a short hitstun which delays the boss' movements and attacks.
  • Hammer is just as busted as it's always been, especially with its returning combo attack from Return to Dream Land allowing for two quick slams followed by a slightly slower but more powerful finishing slam. As always, the Hammer Flip is the ability's trademark move for maximum damage and is accessed by charging the swing by holding down the attack button, resulting in a deceptively far-reaching fiery sweep of the hammer. Of course, spamming the Giant Swing by short-hopping, attacking in the air, then repeating as soon as you land is ever the popular option for maximizing DPS. Its evolutions obviously improve on this, with Toy Hammer adding extra hits to its combo attack, Wild Hammer trading in speed for upping the damage considerably, and Masked Hammer outclassing both in terms of speed and power, being the most overpowered Hammer has ever been (capable of decimating even Chaos Elfilis's health with a fully charged Hammer Flip, making the faster charge from dodging even more broken). Finally, in a first for the series, Hammer is a much more common ability now, as the Mookie enemies can grant Kirby this when inhaled, not just Bonkers or Dedede's hammer.
    • Toy Hammer in particular, especially if you power it up, is by far the most powerful ability to use in the Colosseum, since it takes Hammer's already-high damage output and puts it on rapid-fire, making it a Lightning Bruiser. Thanks to its version of Hammer Flip having the shortest charge time out of any of Hammer's variants, in addition to it being a one-hit attack instead of multi-hit like Masked Hammer^note When a boss or miniboss reach a certain health threshold, they do a brief animation that gives them heightened defense before going to their next state, meaning any additional hits will fail to do full damage (if they're not cancelled outright by a cutscene starting). However, if a single, powerful hit is connected before this health threshold is reached, all of that damage carries through into the next state, meaning that Toy Hammer's single-hit Hammer Flip can cut through, and even sometimes outright skip, additional states of bosses with ease, all of the top speedrun times for the Colosseum have been set using Toy Hammer.
  • Sword has always been the Jack of All Stats in terms of Copy Abilities, but its evolutions turn Sword into the most powerful it's ever been in the series. Gigant Sword is basically Hammer with better range and even comes with a spiked shield when you guard that, despite the ability's namesake, renders you fully invulnerable to all standard attacks (the tradeoff being that you cannot dodge with this ability) on top of being able to move while guarding, albeit very slowly. The spikes on the shield even do slight contact damage. Its charge attack stacks up with Hammer Flip on top of having better range and a slight shockwave effect. Meta Knight Sword ups the speed of a lot of its attacks and gives Kirby access to sword beams, allowing for quick damage at a distance provided you have full health (or have the extra lifebar powerup active). Morpho Knight Sword is faster than the Meta Knight Sword, can grow to be even larger than the Gigant Sword when charged, it's capable of healing Kirby when using certain moves on enemies, gives Kirby a significantly improved dodge where he goes totally intangible for a good second, and its power and speed levels are already maxed, yet can still be upgraded to up its power past the maximum — Purposely Overpowered does not BEGIN to describe it. Though at that point in the game, the only real challenge left is Ultimate Cup Z and the final Superboss.
  • Fire is given a massive buff in the form of a damage-per-second burning ailment if the target is burned for long enough. This status effect lasts for an awfully long time and can be increased with more fire. Couple this with the Fire ability's ultimate evolution, Dragon Fire, which is not only more powerful but has a greater range and an aerial that makes it easy to stay away from danger, and you barely need to even touch a boss — they'll turn to ashes on their own.
  • Fire's antithesis, Ice, is just as broken, if not even more broken than Fire. Like in past games, Ice is capable of freezing enemies solid. The big difference in this game is, bosses can now be frozen as well after sustained damage, and will take massive damage when the ice breaks in a cold snap. This effect only ramps up with each evolution of Ice. In addition, Ice is only one of two abilities in the game that doesn't take chip damage while guarding, the other being Gigant Sword, so it's a great ability to use in the No Damage boss missions.
  • Crash’s upgrade Time Crash. Not only is it super powerful, but activating it causes time to slow down, which also completely reduces the enemy movement while dealing tons of damage. And the kicker? If you kill enemies, you can keep the slowed time going. It turns No Damage missions into complete cakewalks, and it’s quite telling that the game has to make bosses live on a sliver of HP just to prevent players from completely abusing its power.
  • While Cutter is far more useful here than it typically is, Buzz-Saw Cutter, its second evolution, goes beyond useful and into overpowered. While it can safely shred enemies from a distance (especially in tight quarters due to its ability to ricochet) and catch items, its real utility is against bosses, as it absolutely annihilates them by allowing Kirby to relentlessly pump out damage from a distance, while also being able to hold the blade in place to constantly damage a boss until he recalls it to cause a great deal of damage on the return run.
  • All abilities can now have the capacity to be this with the damage upgrade system that's accessed late-game. Combine this with the attack boost plus the hard-hitting abilities such as the ones listed above, and you can start ending bosses so fast that they won't even get the chance to turn red!
• Genius Bonus:
  • The final boss theme is called "Two Planets Approach the Roche Limit". The Roche limit describes the point where a satellite is destroyed due to its gravity being outweighed by the tidal forces of the body it's orbiting, which is more or less what the final boss tries to invoke in the cutscene that follows the boss fight.
  • Besides their battle theme, a lot of the Final Boss's attacks (as listed in the Perfect Support Guide) contain references to astronomy, including the phenomenon of green flash, the binary star system Antares, and even the Fermi Paradox.
  • Ring-Mouth Kirby's structure and ability to fire blasts of air are based on vortex cannons.
  • The new Mini-Boss, Fleurina, is a swan with hurricane powers, but she's also a ballerina. Get it?
• Goddamned Bats:
  • Sssnackers. They have a deceptively long range with their attack and force you into mashing the Control Stick to break free if they hit you with it, take more damage than usual enemies to kill because of their larger size, and chase you relentlessly once they spot you. They are especially annoying in Treasure Roads, where getting hit by them practically guarantees that you will not make the target time.
  • Bernards (the sheepdog enemies that give you Ranger), can be somewhat annoying to deal with thanks to their ranged attacks and perfect aim.
• Good Bad Bugs:
  • If you enter the Tropic Woods arena in a certain way, the boss battle will start without the introduction cutscene. Because the boss hasn't "started", the game doesn't properly check if you took no damage, used the right Copy Ability (in Tropic Woods' case, you have to defeat him without any Copy Ability), and beat the boss under a certain time. If you beat the boss in this state, then all of those conditions are considered cleared automatically.
  • Cone Mouth has a strange bug where if Kirby activates it while in the air, there is a brief window where he can perform a double jump. Using it in conjunction with the downwards spike can allow you to reach areas that you are normally unable to access in that state. In the second stage, you can use it to fight the Wild Edge mini-boss. And in "Alivel Mall (Staff Side)", it can be used to get out of bounds right before the end.
  • Certain abilities (Fire and especially Hammer) can perform a super-jump by exploiting the physics of their attacks, letting them bypass the height limitations put on Kirby's flight. This enables a number of skips and ways to get out of bounds. In particular, using a super-jump on the Ultimate Cup Z's final enemy during its second phase can trick the game into thinking the battle just started, and cause it to spawn another copy of the boss's first form. An alternate usage of the super-jump is to enter the Colosseum when no cups are selected, which starts a glitched one-round cup that can be used to grind Rare Stones faster than any other method.
  • Inhaling a mouthful object the frame you get hit by an attack allows you to "store" the object for later, allowing you to effectively use Mouthful Mode anywhere, even across different loading zones.
  • If you go out of bounds during the fight with the 2nd form of the True Final Boss, you'll respawn back into the arena along with a copy of their 1st form.^note You can have up to 6 of them at once before the game crashes due to all the visual effects. Unsurprisingly some players decided to use this glitch to create a Self-Imposed Challenge where the player tries to fight against 2 or more copies of the True Final Boss, turning the entire fight into a Bullet Hell nightmare due to their usage of Beam Spam and other attacks.
• I Am Not Shazam: The setting of this game isn't called "the Forgotten Land", but rather the "new world." Leongar does refer to it as the former during his pre-battle monologue, but it's more of a descriptor ("this forgotten land") than a proper name. In Japanese, however, the final Boss-Only Level of the game is called "Forgo-tten Land", which was localized as "Forgo Land".
• I Knew It!:
  • Some fans believed that the Kirby: Planet Robobot side game Kirby 3D Rumble (and its sequel Kirby's Blowout Blast) as well as Kirby Battle Royale were proof-of-concepts for an eventual 3D platformer installment, which did come true.
  • With Kirby Star Allies, most fans assumed that that game would be the last hurrah for the gameplay style introduced in Kirby's Return to Dream Land, and that the next mainline entry would have a drastic change to the gameplay like make the jump to 3D. Cue the next mainline game, which was this one, and yep, it's in 3D.
  • Due to the game's setting using Cipher Language, fans were able to translate several signs shown in trailers and found that three companies were previously active in the setting: Holine Corp., Alivel Holdings, and Lightron Works Company. Come the final games, the collectible figures confirm the deciphered names, with Alivel even owning a mall that appears in two separate stages. Likewise, fans were able to decipher that the theme park was called "Wonderia" before the final game confirmed it as the slightly-altered Wondaria.
  • Several fans correctly guessed that Morpho Knight would be returning based on the appearance of the butterfly in the opening cutscene.
  • Prior to the game's release, many predicted that Elfilin would betray Kirby and become the final boss, akin to Marx and Magolor. Well, they were right about the second part, as he does in part become the final boss, but not by choice; he unwillingly merges with the real villain of the game, Fecto Forgo, to become Fecto Elfilis.
  • Neichel's appearance at the 30th Anniversary Music Festival heavily implies, if not outright confirms, that the former inhabitants of the New World were human, which is the most common assumption by the fanbase.
• Like You Would Really Do It: From the end of Redgar Forbidden Lands, Dedede’s Heroic Sacrifice to save a single Waddle Dee before battling the Beast Pack by himself is certainly heartwarming and tearjerking, but you didn’t think they’d actually kill him off, did you?
• Magnificent Bastard: Sillydillo, the "Armor-Plated Prancer", is a deranged-looking armadillo working for the Beast Pack. After Kirby's main ally Elfilin is captured, Sillydillo lures Kirby into his lair with a doll resembling Elfilin. Battling Kirby, Sillydillo tries to capture him in a cage, and even utilizes a "dance partner" he made out of junk when his health gets low enough. Loyal to his King, Sillydillo makes a Heel–Face Turn when Leongar is saved at the end. In spite of his comical nature, Sillydillo proves himself to be quite the crafty adversary.
• Memetic Badass: Thanks to a One-Hit Kill attack where it traps Kirby in a cage and slams him into the ground, Sillydillo is jokingly compared to the eldritch final bosses Kirby usually fights at the end of his adventures.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Washed-Up Kirby^ExplanationThe reveal trailer had Kirby washed up on a beach. As this is a well-used trope, people edited the picture of Kirby washed up to include other characters like Link, Crash Bandicoot, Sonic, and Adol Christin.
    • Destiny Island Kirby^ExplanationThe reveal trailer has palm trees and beaches that look like Destiny Island from the first Kingdom Hearts game, causing people to joke that Kirby washed up on the island.
  • Kirby: The Last of Us^ExplanationThe post-apocalyptic world that's covered in vegetation drew many comparisons to The Last of Us (and its sequel by extension) due to having a similar setting.
    • Kirby: Automata^{Explanation (spoilers!)}Many people have made similar jokes with NieR: Automata for the same reason as The Last of Us, to the point where there has been crossover fanart of 2B meeting Kirby and vice versa. When the full game was released, the comparisons between it and the Nier series only grew stronger due to several similar settings (abandoned post-apocalyptic cities, deserts, and amusement parks) as well as the final boss battle taking place in a very similar setting as Drakengard's True Final Boss (which leads into Nier's story).
  • Kirby gets isekaied.^{Explanation (spoilers)}The plot of the game, which involves Kirby getting sent to a completely alien world, is commonly compared to the Trapped in Another World plot of 2010s anime. Made even funnier during the final boss fight where Kirby gets a Big Badass Rig Mouthful Mode and runs over Fecto Elfilis, since the same thing is the typical setup for low-effort isekai stories.
  • Nintendo AAA ($60)^ExplanationShortly after the game's reveal, one Twitter user (the very same behind the "Crunch No Crunch" and "You are an incel if you defend the $60 price of Metroid Dread" memes) negatively compared the game's graphics to Kena: Bridge of Spirits, which received a ton of backlash from those who find the comparisons unfair due to their differing art styles and the hardware differences between the Nintendo Switch and the PlayStation 5. Soon after, the tweet in question would quickly become used as a meme format, with many jokingly comparing the game to other random things.
  • Baseball player Kirby Yates is Kirby confirmed ^ExplanationKirby and the Forgotten Land was released on March 25, 2022 and Kirby Yates' birthday is March 25. Note that there's a related meme involving Yates signing a Kirby toy.
  • Evil Elfilin ^{Explanation (spoilers)}Since the series has had a common tradition of cutesy characters being evil, either secretly (Marx, Magolor before his eventual Heel–Face Turn) or openly (Taranza, Susie, the three Mage-Sisters), fans immediately began half-joking that new ally Elfilin will actually be a nefarious villain, or wondering what kind of Eldritch Abomination he'll turn into. As it turns out, they were half-right; Elfilin is actually the other half of Fecto Elfilis, but is noted to be the good part of them and remains a loyal friend to Kirby and co. when he isn't being controlled.
  • "If I had a nickel for every time Kirby would reference Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, I'd have two nickels, which isn't a lot, but it's weird it happened twice." ^ExplanationUses the popular line from the Phineas and Ferb movie to point out how Kirby has referenced Gurren Lagann throughout Kirby: Planet Robobot, after the Nintendo of America Twitter account referenced the anime in a Twitter post to reference the Drill ability for this game.
  • In regards to Fecto Elfilis being referred to in the game as the "Ultimate Life-Form", it's become popular to have characters referred to as such in other media (eg. Shadow, Mewtwo, or Kars) reply with the "Am I a joke to you?" meme.
    • Relatedly, people have had fun replacing Elfilis with said Ultimate Lifeforms be it through art, photoshop, or mods.
  • Kirby eating Ed's bed^ExplanationMouthful Mode involves Kirby swallowing massive objects that he can't absorb, causing his body to stretch and warp over it to gain relevant abilities, like vending machines letting him fire soda cans as projectiles. Almost immediately, memes were made of Kirby swallowing Ed's bed, just like how Ed himself did in the show.
    • Hell, just images of Kirby failing to swallow anything remotely too big for him.
  • Carby^ExplanationThanks to Mouthful Mode, Kirby is able to swallow the entire top half of a car◊ and use it as transportation. Car-Mouth Kirby (as called in an in-game collectible) quickly became dubbed as "Carby" (or "Karby"), with fans immediately latching onto the concept due to the hilarious absurdity of a creature as small as Kirby being able to fit an entire car into their mouth (or half of it at least). Images of Kirby swallowing Lightning McQueen were especially common.
    • Truck-kun Kirby^{Explanation (spoilers!)}Going along with the isekai jokes, Kirby winds up defeating the Final Boss with a Mouthful Mode of a Big Badass Rig. The Truck-kun memes write themselves. The fact that Forgo is next seen in a world made from their own dreams helps in this regard.
    • Kirby's Got The Touch^{Explanation (Spoilers!)}People also noticed that the above mentioned Big Badass Rig looks similar to Optimus Prime's vehicle mode, even having flame decals like the live-action version. Cue nicknames like Optimus Kirby and Kirby-timus Prime, and editing the audio to use Stan Bush's "The Touch" from The Transformers: The Movie.
  • "IT'S THE APPETIZER!" ^{Explanation (spoilers!)}Fecto Forgo's design has sparked comparisons to the "appetizer" made by Mr. Krabs in "Squilliam Returns".
    • Alternatively, "it all started...when I was born".
  • Forgor 💀 Land^{Explanation (spoilers)}A tongue-in-cheek way to refer to the game that references the "I forgor" meme. It helps that the main antagonist is named Fecto Forgo, which is only one letter off.
  • "The whole city's on fire!"^ExplanationFans have joked that the final level of the game, Redgar Forbidden Lands, is this game's equivalent to Crisis City from Sonic 06, another city level that is also on fire. This has led to the use of the iconic line from that game being used to describe this level.
  • AND HERE WE ARE!^{Explanation (spoilers!)}The female announcer's voice that plays during Lab Discovera deteriorates into a disturbing ambient track that frequently repeats the phrase during the post-game. Fans instantly latched onto it as a sign of Forgotten Land's Darker and Edgier nature compared to previous games in the franchise. Also, many fans tend to recoil in fear due to the fact this plays right before Chaos Elfilis' second phase in The Ultimate Cup Z, and for many first time players, this usually translated to death.
  • Where did the love go Kirby?^ExplanationThe food sharing mechanic in co-op was changed from a kiss to a high five, causing fans to jokingly complain that they can't make Kirby characters make out anymore. Some variations of the meme also note that Kirby, Elfilin, and Waddle Dee all sleep together in the same bed and that the kiss was replaced with something much more intimate.
  • Sillydillo is the strongest Kirby boss^ExplanationIf Kirby gets caged by Sillydillo and fails to escape in time, he slams the cage into the ground for a One-Hit Kill, even with Spring Breeze's extra health plus the extra lifebar powerup. No other boss in the main games (even the eldritch or reality-warping final bosses) could One-Hit Kill Kirby, though Star Dream Soul OS' Desperation Attack comes close. Even bottomless pits and getting crushed — which are instant death in most games in the series — simply remove a large chunk of health in this one. As such, a kooky armadillo somehow hitting harder than cosmic entities did not go unnoticed by fans.
  • Kirby Souls / KirBayonetta ^ExplanationThe dodging ability being boosted to have a "perfect" dodge that allows for complete avoidance of damage when triggered at the moment of impact, alongside activating a Bullet Time state for counter-attacking, drew plenty of comparisons to FromSoftware games and Bayonetta, which was helped by there already being Friendly Fandoms between this game, Elden Ring, and Bayonetta 3.
  • Kirby using ZA WARUDO/Kirby ate Dio Brando^ExplanationCrash’s upgrade Time Crash quickly drew JoJo fans’ attention for being much like the very memetic time-stopping powers of the Large Ham antagonist Dio Brando.
  • I am going to split up into three ^ExplanationA memetic lyric sung by the Final Boss in this infamous video, which attempts to adapt their boss music to lyrics in the vein of Man on the Internet or Juno Songs. It's... something.
  • Kirby at the Waddle Dee Cafe^ExplanationOne of the mini-games has Kirby working part-time at a cafe. Due to how difficult Frenzy Mode is and how failure results in a lot of angry Waddle Dees and Kirby being depressed (and how success likely still results in a low satisfaction rate), some have compared it to soul-crushing food-service jobs in real-life.
  • Drip Dedede^{Explanation (minor spoilers)}A Game Mod of King Dedede that's covered in memes, such as the Griddy, "I love lean", and other bits of 2020s Surreal Humor, that manages to be gobsmackingly hard in spite of its memetastic coat of paint. It became popularized when Failboat took on the challenge of actually defeating Drip Dedede. View it in all its glory here.
• Memetic Psychopath: Because of Kirby's reputation for being betrayed by characters who initially seem friendly (namely Marx and Magolor), people quickly began theorizing and joking about Elfilin secretly being evil long before the game even released. Jokes range from him cheerfully telling Kirby outright that he'll be the final boss to Kirby just being suspicious and keeping his distance from Elfilin until his innocence is proved. As it turns out, this is only half-true; Elfilin is the "good" Literal Split Personality of Fecto Elfilis, who ends up becoming the final boss. Elfilin ultimately pulls a Heroic Sacrifice to stop Elfilis from destroying everything.
• Moral Event Horizon: The Final Boss crossed this by revealing they mind-controlled Leongar into enslaving hundreds of Waddle Dees, then assimilating Leongar and several members of the Beast Pack — without any care for their genuine efforts to help them — just to get to Elfilin and consume him as well to complete themselves. If it that wasn't enough, then they definitely did cross it when, in an act of desperation, they decide to open a giant portal to Popstar with the intention of causing the two populated planets to crash into and destroy each other. All simply to get rid of Kirby and his friends.
• Narm Charm: Yes, Kirby does indeed defeat the Ultimate Life Form by essentially running them over with a rocketing truck. But the execution of said scenario is no less epic than usual Kirby fare, despite the ridiculousness of finishing off a final boss in a way that should be almost impossible to portray seriously.
• Nausea Fuel: This game has a major, stomach-churning case in Fecto Forgo, a turquoise and pink, room-sized wall of flesh and goo made from Fecto Elfilis' incomplete body and its attempt to assimilate Leongar and various Beast Pack enemies into its being. It's barely describable with mere words, covered bottom to top with deformed animal heads, warped protruding eyes, and myriad tentacles, constantly writhing and making downright disgusting squishing noises as it pursues Kirby down a narrow hallway. Not to mention that the background music accentuates how much of an unholy abomination it is with the wails of animals. It is easily one of the most horrific boss designs to ever grace a Nintendo game, with many players remarking it is a stone's throw away from being a Resident Evil boss and possibly made them genuinely sick or terrified.
• Nightmare Retardant: Sillydillo himself is tame compared to some of the lategame nightmare fuel, but everything leading up to his lair and fight can be extremely unsettling. However, once he starts to pull out a doll during his third phase, the cutscene ends up making the battle either very funny or very annoying rather than scary.
• Older Than They Think:
  • This isn't the first time Kirby ends up exploring what looks like Earth After the End; Shiver Star in Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards is designed like Earth, and is after a permanent, global winter.
  • Although it is the puffball's first mainline 3D platformer, it is not his first 3D outing. Besides Kirby Air Ride, which was a 3D racing game, Kirby: Planet Robobot featured Kirby 3D Rumble, which had Kirby traverse through small 3D areas sucking up enemies, a concept that was soon expanded upon afterwards in Kirby's Blowout Blast. Shortly after that game, there was Kirby Battle Royale, which had Kirby fight enemies with his Copy Abilities in a 3D space. Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards and Kirby Star Allies also had occasional 3D sections (largely for their final bosses).
  • The reveal of the Ranger ability has led to many reactions and jokes regarding Kirby wielding a gun. However this is not the first time Kirby has wielded firearms, as he did so in the Kirby's Adventure "Quick Draw" and Kirby Super Star Ultra "Kirby on the Draw" sub-games, and also briefly wielded a gun in the second episode of the Japanese and Chinese versions of Kirby: Right Back at Ya!. Kirby can also wield guns in Super Smash Bros. if he sucks up Bayonetta or Joker, both of whom are from M-rated games; or if he picks up a gun-based item like the Ray Gun, Super Scope, or Steel Diver. He also has a gun in the "Scope Shot" minigame in Kirby's Return to Dream Land. Granted, this is the first time Kirby has an ability that lets him directly use a gun in proper stages, rather than just on sub-games or other games entirely.
  • This also isn't the first game's used a Drill ability, as Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards many years prior had it as a combo ability with Stone and Needle. Both function rather differently, though.
  • This game isn't the first time that Kirby's Copy Abilities were upgradeable. Kirby: Squeak Squad also had Ability Scrolls that would upgrade Copy Abilities by giving them new techniques or effects.
  • This isn’t the first game where a Whispy Woods Expy isn't the first boss (which Gorimondo takes that place instead); Whispy Woods himself wasn't the first boss in Kirby's Epic Yarn, Team Kirby Clash Deluxe, and Super Kirby Clash, to name a few examples.
  • Lab Discovera's announcer isn't the first time human voice acting was used in a Kirby game. Not counting the anime, there was actually a decent amount on Kirby's Epic Yarn thanks to the narration in the cutscenes, Kirby's Avalanche, with the occasional voice lines playing during matches, Kirby Tilt 'n' Tumble having the game's title be announced on the title screen, and the announcer in Kirby Battle Royale. That said, this would be the first time it's a diegetic element.
  • Some newcomers to the series have said that the game's finale involving a terrifying fight against an Eldritch Abomination is a nice change of pace from the typical Kirby formula. Among the fanbase, however, it's just another Friday, especially considering the previous game had what's heavily implied to be a God as its final boss. The only thing that's all that different with this game's version is that Fecto Forgo is extremely visceral, compared to previous final bosses which could still be slightly cute.
  • Kirby has transformed his body into a car before as well as other objects in Kirby's Epic Yarn.
  • Dedede's redesign is not entirely new to this game. The design is very close to his look from Kirby's Dream Land 3 and Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards, though the designers have admitted that they weren't intentionally invoking that design and it's more of a happy coincidence.
• Padding: The missions in and of themselves are a nice addition to gameplay, but they have a considerable flaw. Because the game will not tell you what you need to do unless you either complete the whole mission, part of the mission (such as collecting or destroying multiple items), or will tell you after you complete the stage, it makes it pretty difficult to complete all of a stage's missions in one go. As such, multiple replays of stages are likely, especially for first-time players. You also have to complete the stage in order for the mission to be marked as finished, meaning that you can't quit the stage early. Bosses also have missions associated with them, so it's likely you'll be replaying those as well in order to get every last mission down.
• Popular with Furries:
  • Clawroline, the female leopard boss that was briefly shown off for the February 9th, 2022 Nintendo Direct, instantly caught attention from the furry fandom thanks to her very attractive design. She swiftly gained fanart mere minutes after the Direct's conclusion. She only got more popular after the full game revealed that she's an Affably Evil Punch-Clock Villain who's only fighting Kirby to protect Leongar, and she makes a Heel–Face Turn to help save him in the post-game.
  • Elfilin also has a few furry fans who were smitten by his adorable design and loyalty to Kirby, especially come the Final Boss in which he does a Heroic Sacrifice to close off the connection between Popstar and the New World after Fecto Elfilis' defeat.
  • The Big Bad has a positive reception among furries by virtue of Fecto Elfilis having a sleek, brightly colored design, which incorporates the features of lots of different animals. For example, it has a fox's tail, deer-like horns, and a fluffy fur "scarf" around its neck. Some have jokingly compared it to fursonas they've seen elsewhere on the internet.
  • Even the common Awoofies have their fans, due to their cuddly appearances and frequent engagement in Villains Out Shopping making them immensely huggable.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • The game doesn't tell you what the missions are for that stage until you either clear it, make progress on it if it's a multi-part mission, or clear the stage. Furthermore, if you clear a stage with more than one mission uncleared, the game will only tell you how to clear one of them. With how cryptic many of them are, this pretty much forces you to replay stages.
  • The pause menu offers a function to restart a Treasure Road, but not an ordinary stage or boss, which makes the damage-less and timed missions during boss fights a bit more tedious since you have to exit a stage and re-enter it (or suicide Kirby) if you mess them up.
  • The game relies very heavily on mashing the Control Stick on several instances of the game's stages or boss fights. On a console infamous for its Joy-Con Drift, many people aren't fans of a few of the Mouthful Modes relying on this or requiring Control Stick mashing to escape some boss attacks. The final boss requiring this to free Elfilin from its back and dragging the fight longer if the player fails these inputs just adds salt to the wound.
• Scrappy Weapon:
  • Bomb was never too standout in earlier games aside from exploits in Star Allies, but it's especially outclassed in a 3D environment. It has to rely on Bomb Bowl for fast damage, since aiming and throwing bombs requires Kirby to stand still and aim them (without having the lock-on or high speed/damage of Ranger). Even then, its damage output isn't too great, and it lacks the versatility and movement provided by most other abilities. Its first upgrade, Chain Bomb, emphasizes setting up multiple bombs at once to create massive grouped explosions, but getting them all out without accidentally blowing one up early can be a crapshoot. The second and final upgrade, Homing Bomb, makes it easier to hit faster bosses, but the tracking on the bombs is inconsistent and their movement usually plays poorly with chaining.
  • Tornado and Needle struggle to keep up with other abilities in boss battles, since their main source of damage is picking up Drop Stars, and unlike the Boring, but Practical Star Bullets, Tornado and Needle fire them off at erratic angles, making it difficult to focus fire. They also suffer from poor range and don't have the damage to make up for it, unlike Hammer or Sword, and their evolutions contribute little to patching up the issues that they have. Tornado specifically also has the problem of being very tricky to control due to having the equivalent of ice physics but in the air, limiting its best damage potential to just entering and exiting twister form at point blank range. That said, Tornado is a favoured ability of speedrunners, as it has one of the fastest movements in the game and also allows Kirby to keep air time for a good while.
• Self-Imposed Challenge: By exploiting a glitch with the hammer ability, it's possible to fight both the Final Boss and its second phase simultaneously after taking it out once once. Even though the fight is a bit glitched up, many people have wanted to attempt fighting both at the same time to make for an even harder secret final boss. This can be taken even further to where multiple instances can be spawned.
• Shocking Moments:
  • When the first trailer in the September 2021 Nintendo Direct came out, it started with just showing what looked to be a post-apocalyptic city going through reforestation, with most assuming that the trailer was for Splatoon 3. It being revealed to be for a Kirby game of all things (and a 3D one at that) took everyone by surprise… unless they were spoiled by the Content Leak of the game's key artwork and logo a couple of hours prior.
  • The cutscene following completion of the first part of the tutorial. Who was expecting a song with vocals in a Kirby game? While it was done before in Super Kirby Clash, that was a spin-off game, and it was done in its end credits rather than near the beginning of the game. Not only that, but the entire song is in the conlang created for the game.
  • On the topic of vocals, the fact there is actual human voice acting in the game, specifically the recordings in Lab Discovera and the Forgo Land, selling just how alien the people that lived in the new world are compared to the Kirby norm, considering this kind of voice acting is almost entirely absent from the franchise. The only prior examples were the anime, Kirby's Avalanche (which was more Early-Installment Weirdness), Kirby Tilt 'n' Tumble (limited to an announcement of the game's title on the title screen), Kirby's Epic Yarn (which was done to fit the game's storybook-like tone), and Kirby Battle Royale (having an announcer during matches).
• Special Effect Failure: Most of the game manages to avoid this and looks absolutely breathtaking, but there is one recurring example: moving objects and entities in the background tend to be rendered at a much lower frame rate than the rest of the game. While this is understandable for programming purposes and isn't particularly noticeable with most common enemies, it can be rather jarring to look in the background and see a particularly large entity walking or swimming around at roughly five frames per second, sharply contrasting with the beautifully crisp movement in the foreground.
• Squick: A few fans find Mouthful Mode somewhat disturbing to look at due to Kirby's entire body deforming to fit the shape of the object that he inhales.
• Suspiciously Similar Song:
  • At times, the main theme sounds similar to the theme song for Perfect Strangers. Some of it also sounds like the Ocean theme from The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker.
  • Several fans noticed the opening notes to "Roar of Dedede" sound incredibly similar to Rodan's theme. It's hilariously fitting, seeing as how both of them are bird-like.
  • The bass riff of "Waddle Dee's Weapon's Shop" sounds similar to that of "Step Into Christmas" by Elton John.
  • The stage select theme for Wondaria Remains and the stage theme for The Wondaria Dream Parade are obvious homages to the Main Street Electrical Parade's "Baroque Hoedown".
  • The second measure of "The Fate of Two Worlds" sounds like the "Catastrophe" theme from Super Mario Galaxy.
• Sweet Dreams Fuel: Par for the course with the Kirby series. Not only is the new companion character Elfilin a Ridiculously Cute Critter, but Waddle Dee Town has various adorable activities such as fishing and gathering collectibles. This is even invoked by the developers, who noted that they wanted to talk about the "beauty" in the catastrophe instead of the ramifications of the abandoned land. There's also the abandoned Wondaria theme park; outside of the usual Amusement Park of Doom tropes, it's pretty sweet in context, as it's revealed by the related figurines that it's based on a popular children's book series about cute egg-shaped dogs who have adventures in space.
• Tainted by the Preview:
  • Some fans became upset at the third trailer's implication that Dedede is possessed yet again, if only because fans are getting sick of the trend of Dedede getting brainwashed by the villain in order to justify him as a boss at this point. Some others are annoyed that his design (mainly the face) has been changed again, although the design has been generally better-received than previous redesigns due to invoking his Kirby 64 look.
  • Some people don't like how there are very few unique Copy Abilities. Some people find it justified because it's a lot harder to incorporate many abilities from a game series that's been traditionally 2D, although some people think there should've been more variety. However, the evolved Copy Abilities make up for this somewhat, as each one adds significant variation to how each ability plays.
• That One Attack:
  • Sillydillo isn't that hard to do damageless with the right Copy Abilities and sufficient mastery of dodging… until he gets to about 40% of his maximum health and he pulls out a doll that he starts a Grand Pas de Deux with. This attack is huge, moves fast, and is too big to just dodge out of the way of. And he throws the doll twice afterwards in a Pas de Deux, which homes in on you. Without a Copy Ability that allows you to dash out of the way, or good reflexes, dodging these attacks are very difficult.
  • The postgame difficulty version of Fleurina has her creating a clone of herself, then she and her clone both home in on Kirby as they spin around the battlefield. They cover up so much space as they do so that it’s nigh-impossible to avoid getting hit without dodging.
  • The second phase of the postgame final boss has a special move where it fires several claw-swipe beams in a row followed by its laser-breath. This comes out fast, but is predictable and leaves it wide open afterwards. However, while Kirby is rushing to attack, Soul Forgo warps near him and lets out "Soul Crash", an expanding explosion that fills almost the entire room, dealing rapid damage while trapping him until it expires. The only way to avoid it is to get to one of the edges of the arena depending on the explosion's position. It's one of the few times in the game where the camera can cause issues during a boss fight, as it can be hard to figure out exactly where Soul Forgo warped to and then get to a safe spot in time.
  • Morpho Knight has an Interface Screw attack which turns the camera 90 degrees while keeping your directional controls the same if you happen to get hit, which can make aiming your attacks much harder.
  • Phantom Meta Knight’s "Force Falls" attack has three waves of rocks as opposed to just one. There is less time to rush over to the safe areas, and given the random arrangement of the rocks, if Kirby gets unlucky, he'll get crushed and take massive damage. This attack can quickly bring a full health bar to the danger zone, and although it’s possible to dodge the rocks as a last resort, the timing of the dodge is tricky. If Phantom Meta Knight is at very low health when he transitions into his second phase, it’s possible to attack him just as he flies up to skip the attack and by extension, his second phase, but Kirby will be warped to a random area of the battlefield when he Turns Red, meaning that it won’t always be possible to do so.
  • Chaos Elfilis's "soul" form has "Deadly Sun Grazer", which fully exploits Kirby's flight limitations in this game. It starts with a massive meteor shower that requires avoiding the shadows on the ground, but during this, a number of meteors stack up in one spot to create rock spires of varying heights. Kirby needs to quickly platform up to the highest stack, because Chaos Elfilis follows this up with a fiery charge that covers the entire arena and can only be dodged by being as high up as possible. They do this twice in a row before changing to other patterns.
• That One Boss: Sillydillo is a pretty large difficulty spike with many fast and hard-hitting attacks, including a cage that he can trap Kirby in and One-Hit Kill him if he doesn't escape in time, giant dance partner dolls that can home in on Kirby, and a rolling move that pretty much demands dodging. It also doesn't help that he spends much of the fight constantly moving around the battlefield, making him hard to hit and wasting precious time for players who want to complete the timed mission. That's not even counting how wildly he makes the camera spin around the arena during his second and third phases, and being the only three-phase boss in the main story.
• That One Sidequest: Though the game can be relatively easy to beat straightforward, there are a lot of optional missions that can really try the patience of many players. See them here.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • Some fans are unhappy with how the "healing kiss" (or maybe regurgitating food straight in the mouth) from previous games' multiplayer has been replaced with a plain high-five. While many fans only really saw it as a minor nitpick that they exaggerated for humor's sake, others genuinely disliked it enough to lobby proper complaints to Nintendo.
  • Some fans are also a bit upset that mini-bosses now have a brief invulnerability period after they Turn Red, which was initially only exclusive to bosses as of Kirby's Return to Dream Land. However, using a strong enough ability shows that they aren't actually invincible, just taking reduced damage temporarily. Fully upgraded abilities and/or strong-enough attacks can even damage them enough during their furious animation to finish them off as soon as they start moving again or even just straight-up one-shot them.
• Ugly Cute: Sillydillo looks incredibly bizarre and goofy but is oddly endearing despite that. Especially when he pulls out the armadillo dance partner and briefly makes googly eyes towards it.
• Underused Game Mechanic: Captured Roulettes are boxes that alternate between displaying a captured Waddle Dee or a Gordo, and turn into the thing they're displaying when broken. Even though they're one of the figures Kirby can obtain, suggesting they'd be a recurring puzzle element, they only show up twice in "Invasion at the House of Horrors" and never appear afterwards.
• Unexpected Character: Morpho Knight appears as a surprise boss in the Isolated Isles of Forgo Dreams, shocking players who assumed said character was a one-off (though some suspected it with how the butterfly was shown in the opening cutscene). More notably, said character appears without Galacta Knight, who was previously assumed to be a vital component to Morpho Knight's existence.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: The Big Bad, surprisingly enough for one of the most evil antagonists in the entire franchise, is regarded with sympathy by sections of the fanbase due to what happened to them when they were captured by the researchers of Lab Discovera. Without added context from the Japanese text and the Perfect Support Guide, what's mentioned in-story is that Fecto Elfilis allegedly tried to invade the New World, was forcibly captured and experimented upon for 30 years, split into Fecto Forgo and Elfilin during an experimental accident, and has been imprisoned in the Eternal Capsule for an unspecified length of time (after being used as a tourist attraction, at that) while the planet was abandoned, with only the repetitive voice of the Dream Discoveries Tour announcer — a voice that is shown to appear deep within Forgo's subconscious — for company. Some fans believe that Fecto Elfilis's violent behavior throughout the entire last act of the game came about in part as a result of them going insane from experiencing the Fate Worse than Death of what was essentially solitary confinement — and that's if they don't assume that Elfilis came in peace and was only captured because the scientists were wary of a potential Alien Invasion, not an actual one. Granted, the Eternal Capsule definitely didn't help Fecto Forgo's already tenuous sanity, but in context, such a fate was well deserved.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: With the exception of the above mentioned frame rate drop in regards to far away entities, the entire game is visually stunning and breathtaking. The mix between bright colors and atmospheric settings is amazing and almost every object, from the woolen cap of Sword to the scales on reptile-like enemies, have very detailed textures. It gets even better in cinematic cutscenes, where you can see individual blades of grass and Elfilin's fur.
• Win Back the Crowd: Despite Star Allies being a sales success, its critics weren't impressed with its relatively vanilla scope compared to the previous games, and combined with a string of more low-key spinoffs during the Switch era, it led people outside of the Kirby fanbase to assume the series had gone stale. With Forgotten Land making the long awaited jump to 3D and featuring a more unique After the End theming to the game, it's easy to see why this game has helped the series' reputation heal after a few So Okay, It's Average outings, to the point of experiencing arguably the biggest Newbie Boom the series has seen in recent years.
• The Woobie:
  • The game gives us one of the biggest woobies in Kirby history through Leon, who spends most of the game being Fecto Forgo's favored punching bag. Forgo brainwashed him before the start of the game, and then he's the first to get assimilated by Forgo upon being defeated in his initial boss fight. Then after Fecto Elfilis's defeat, Forgo drags him into their dream world, shattering his soul with the intent of using his body as their new vessel. When Kirby and Elfilin put all the pieces of his soul back together over the course of Forgo Dreams, it looks like Leon's going to be all right and even joins in their victory dance... only for Forgo to outright possess him and shatter his soul a second time for good measure. Fortunately, the Beast Pack comes through to give him a well deserved happy ending.
  • Elfilin has also had it rough. Being the compassionate part of Fecto Elfilis that eventually split away from the bitter, hateful Fecto Forgo and escaped Lab Discovera, Elfilin has mostly been on the run. He befriends the Waddle Dees that were sucked into the New World, only for them all to get attacked and captured by the Beast Pack. He befriends Kirby and they journey around saving Waddle Dees, but then a mind-controlled Dedede captures Elfilin again, taking him to the Forbidden Island for the Beast Pack’s plans to reunite him with Fecto Forgo. And just as Kirby rescues him again, Forgo is able to capture Elfilin and reunite the two halves to reform Fecto Elfilis again. And as if that wasn’t enough, after Kirby frees Elfilin for the third time, Elfilis decides to drop Popstar on the New World out of spite. The resulting tear in the rift forces Elfilin to use all his power in a Heroic Sacrifice to close the rift, tearfully thanking Kirby for everything. Thankfully, Clawroline is able to save him.
• Woobie Species:
  • Captured Waddle Dees, with their adorable "wa-wa, wa-wa!" cries for help. Not to mention how hundreds, if not thousands, of them were kidnapped and forced to continuously run on hamster wheels to power the disturbing Lab Discovera.
  • The lesser members of the Beast Pack are adorable when they aren't going after you, especially the sleeping Awoofies, to the point that you might feel bad for attacking them — this is their home, after all. This is even invoked by Leongar's speech. The animals of the new world lament that their precursors have left for some unknown land of dreams, while the animals stay behind in the crumbling remains. They hope the Great One will grant them the same miraculous power, so they can be with their precursors again.
• Woolseyism: The Big Bad's speech in the Japanese version, due to barely having enough energy to hold their body together within the Eternal Capsule, is rendered as a mix of hiragana and katakana to make it look garbled and distorted. Since this would be difficult to adapt to English, the localization turns them into a Terse Talker who can only speak in two-word sentences.

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