Kirby and I, it seems, have grown up alongside each other, while remaining largely separate. I have been living my life, Kirby has been living his. A lot of what I've been doing in my life, though, is playing games that are almost, but never quite, Kirby. Over the last few years I have played a few Kirby spin-offs, but the main adventures I have left quite alone. Instead, I've been hanging out with Mario, Wonder Boy, the running man from Impossible Mission. (I love that guy.)
Now, though, I've met Kirby on his own territory, in the form of Kirby's Return to Dreamland Deluxe, for the Switch. This is a fancy version of a Kirby game for the Wii, I gather. It comes to the Switch with a handful of new things - most excitingly new abilities based on sand and mechas. Reading around I gather that Return to Dreamland was not Kirby at his very best. A lot of reviewers thought it was boring. But to me, separated from Kirby for so long, it is all new, in a manner of speaking. As such, I'm finding it quite a weird game to play.
What I mean is that it's similar enough in the basics to other platformers I have played to be constantly, jarringly different every few moments. And these sudden shockwaves of oddness are everywhere. Over the last few days they have become the things I have played for. Where is the next thing that will surprise me, that will feel wonderfully off?