Thanks to all the work HAL Laboratory has put into refreshing the franchise, Kirby and the Forgotten Land is already a star of the Switch in 2022. It's the first fully 3D Kirby game, but that's far from its only innovation. Kirby and the Forgotten Land includes difficulty options, and it enhances combat by giving Kirby's Copy Abilities evolutions that diversify combat throughout the game. It also introduces a mechanic called Mouthful Mode, where Kirby swallows a large object and gains special properties based on the object. Kirby and the Forgotten Land is littered with objects that Kirby can make use of to manipulate his environment.Mouthful Mode is definitely a creative part of the game that contributes a lot, but it isn't a perfect feature. Kirby and the Forgotten Land's co-op is pretty limited thanks in large part to Mouthful Modes, which bend Forgotten Land's level design and gameplay in some major ways. The feature's creativity comes with some costs, and that's something HAL Laboratory needs to learn from. While it would be great to see Mouthful Mode return in a future Kirby game, it'll need to be streamlined in some serious ways so that it doesn't get in the way of other important Kirby features.
Mouthful Mode's Pros and Cons
There's no doubt that Mouthful Mode deserves a lot of praise. Many of Kirby and the Forgotten Land's most inventive puzzles make use of Mouthful Mode. Kirby fans will find themselves fitting into holes in walls with the help of specific modes, dodging a lit fuse while moving a Mouthful Mode object into position, and much more. HAL Laboratory has clearly put a lot of thought into how each and every Mouthful Mode can uniquely impact Forgotten Land's levels, and it pays off. It doesn't hurt that Mouthful Modes help to mix up combat once in a while too.
Unfortunately, Mouthful Mode has a serious impact on Forgotten Land's co-op. While a singleplayer Kirby completing puzzles in Mouthful Mode is fun, there's no practical way that Kirby and the Forgotten Land could let multiple Kirbys run around its levels as cars, pipes, staircases, and more. The levels would have to be far bigger and more open to accommodate that. This means that Kirby and the Forgotten Land's second player is just Bandana Waddle Dee, but even then, the second player often gets attached to Kirby during a Mouthful Mode, meaning they have to sit and wait for the mode to pass. In other words, Mouthful Mode has a bad habit stifling the second player's ability to play the game.
Mouthful Mode's Future in Kirby
The mechanic may be imperfect, but that doesn't mean HAL should scrap it. If it takes another pass at Mouthful Mode in another Kirby game, then it'll just have to change how it affects other players. For instance, maybe Kirby will have smaller Mouthful Modes in the future that don't affect other players and are meant for solving small-scale puzzles rather than large ones. Alternatively, the next Kirby game could have open-plan levels that allow multiple players to all use Mouthful Mode at once. That level of freedom and cooperation could be a lot of fun.
Mouthful Mode certainly has potential to grow in the Kirby series. There are lots of object types and shapes that Kirby and the Forgotten Land didn't find a use for yet. The feature has an uncertain future for the time being, though; HAL says 3D isn't necessarily Kirby's future, which suggests that Forgotten Land isn't the franchise's new blueprint overall. The next game may prioritize new features over reworks on Forgotten Land's ideas. Still, it would be great to see HAL take a second pass at Mouthful Mode, improving on its strengths and polishing its flaws.
Kirby and the Forgotten Land is available now for Nintendo Switch.
