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Super Combo Cast #18 - Kirby and the Forgotten Land
This month (June’s episode) is Kirby and the Forgotten Land, the first fully 3d Kirby game, which seems strange to say given the long and storied history for the pink puffball, but it’s true. Check out the liner notes here, and watch out for Shovel Knight at the end of July!
We had a lot of good things to say about Kirby; it’s a feature-complete, excellent introduction to 3D platforming for all ages. With accessibility options and lots of things to do to progress, including a full coop campaign with a waddledee friend, an arena mode, a robust upgrade tree with challenge levels and lots of options to explore (or not), there is little reason we’ve found not to give it a shot.
In particular I liked the way each level rewards exploration by providing clues if you’ve uncovered some aspect of an existing “secret” or path to saving more waddledees (which is a thing you do in ever level, and also how its boss levels are gated). Especially for younger gamers, this kind of scaffolding is great for replaying levels. In a year that also includes the technological wizardry of gatchapon zonite vending machines in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Kirby also has great collectibles in the form of gatchapon figures you can find throughout the levels. We also enjoyed the “mouthful” set pieces in the game, where Kirby is meant to take on the shape and abilities of certain objects (rather than remaining relatively similar to standard Kirby size) to solve puzzles or progress further in the game.
Our current game, for end of July’s podcast, is Shovel Knight, which is Yacht Club Games’s seeming forever game (although new original IP is coming this year from the developer). This game it could be argued kicked off a retro-platforming-inspired renaisance(?). It’s NES aesthetic and screen-by-screen transitions straight out of Megaman are memorable and nolastgic for gamers of a certain age, while the mechanics are modernized and updated for 2014 (and 2023). The game has been additionally supported with multiple (3!) campaigns added to the original, which drastically changes up the movement and experience of the levels.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit supercombotech.substack.com
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By Toben and AlexThis month (June’s episode) is Kirby and the Forgotten Land, the first fully 3d Kirby game, which seems strange to say given the long and storied history for the pink puffball, but it’s true. Check out the liner notes here, and watch out for Shovel Knight at the end of July!
We had a lot of good things to say about Kirby; it’s a feature-complete, excellent introduction to 3D platforming for all ages. With accessibility options and lots of things to do to progress, including a full coop campaign with a waddledee friend, an arena mode, a robust upgrade tree with challenge levels and lots of options to explore (or not), there is little reason we’ve found not to give it a shot.
In particular I liked the way each level rewards exploration by providing clues if you’ve uncovered some aspect of an existing “secret” or path to saving more waddledees (which is a thing you do in ever level, and also how its boss levels are gated). Especially for younger gamers, this kind of scaffolding is great for replaying levels. In a year that also includes the technological wizardry of gatchapon zonite vending machines in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Kirby also has great collectibles in the form of gatchapon figures you can find throughout the levels. We also enjoyed the “mouthful” set pieces in the game, where Kirby is meant to take on the shape and abilities of certain objects (rather than remaining relatively similar to standard Kirby size) to solve puzzles or progress further in the game.
Our current game, for end of July’s podcast, is Shovel Knight, which is Yacht Club Games’s seeming forever game (although new original IP is coming this year from the developer). This game it could be argued kicked off a retro-platforming-inspired renaisance(?). It’s NES aesthetic and screen-by-screen transitions straight out of Megaman are memorable and nolastgic for gamers of a certain age, while the mechanics are modernized and updated for 2014 (and 2023). The game has been additionally supported with multiple (3!) campaigns added to the original, which drastically changes up the movement and experience of the levels.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit supercombotech.substack.com