Across its 30 year history, there's never really been a Kirby game like the Forgotten Land - a fully 3D adventure that's quite the departure for a series that's always revelled in its simplicity, this is a showstopping effort from HAL Laboratory that's come from leftfield. It's not quite the revelation that Super Mario was when it added the Y axis into its playbook, but for a series with as long a history as Kirby it's still quite the jolt.
Having played through the opening world of Kirby and the Forgotten Land - a short collection of five self-contained stages, plus a few bonus levels with tight time restrictions to boot - it's clear that HAL Laboratory has landed the transition. It's also clear that this is a Kirby game through and through - and given how Kirby and the Forgotten Land might have attracted the interest of players who've not touched a Kirby game before, it's worth running over exactly what that means.