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Reviews Digital Foundry || Kirby and the Forgotten Land on Nintendo Switch: The Digital Foundry Tech Review

I

ILikeFeet

Warpstar Knight

Nintendo's blob-like icon returns for a brand new Switch adventure that sees the series transition into full 3D for the first time... and it's superb. John Linneman has the full DF Tech Review.
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  • is that fucking Fragile Dreams music? deep cut, John
  • inhaling has a bit of auto-aim, as does spitting out object
  • flight is limited
  • best controlling game in the series
  • camera akin to 3D World
  • Unity was used for specific things, but the main game isn't using it
  • 810p to 1080p, changes often
  • 720p handheld most of the time
  • no AA as typical of most Nintendo games
  • background DoF cleans up distant aliasing
  • dynamic and static objects cast shadows, not too high quality
  • geometric and texture detail is far denser than 3D World
  • baked GI
  • nice water
  • little details make the world feel lively
  • distant objects animate at half rate
  • John loves the stylish UI
  • capped at 30fps, though some menus are 60fps
  • number of objects and physics might have resulted in a 30fps game instead of 60
  • Mario Odyssey and Bowser's Fury run at a lower resolution to maintain its 60fps
  • 30fps is stable in gameplay
  • performance dips are rare
  • input latency is low
  • supports surround sound
    • music in stereo
    • sfx in the back channels
  • Hirokazu Ando composes the game, knocks it out of the park
  • John thinks it's one of the best Kirby games
  • level design is top notch and power ups (like mouthful mode) add a lot
 
I'm just glad to hear that it properly supports 5.1 surround sound :D Drives me nuts when Switch games don't support it!
 
This is such a assured and polished looking game. His comments on the audio mix are reassuring!

Also re.: 5.1 surround: I bought a surround set specifically for my Switch. xD Let's hope whenever the succ comes out that they've got more CPU time for surround again. Fortunately a few games with great surround sound still made the purchase worthwhile.
 
manfromthedam said:
This is such a assured and polished looking game. His comments on the audio mix are reassuring!

Also re.: 5.1 surround: I bought a surround set specifically for my Switch. xD Let's hope whenever the succ comes out that they've got more CPU time for surround again. Fortunately a few games with great surround sound still made the purchase worthwhile.
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Switch has a seperate DSP chip that handles all sound; has nothing to do with the CPU.

The only reason why so many games lack 5.1 sound on Switch is down to laziness/budget/corner cutting (and the occassional weird decision; such as with Smash Bros and it not having 5.1 because it's a 2.5D sidescroller). And also because Nintendo don't mandate 5.1 surround sound support on Switch like they do on Wii U (probably because they allow for handheld-only games); which gives 3rd parties a convinient loophole which they use to cut corners with.

When it comes to First Party titles? Everything from Nintendo EPD supports 5.1 without exception; and their surround sound mixes are usually excellent. Same with Capcom, they always do an excellent job with their 5.1 surround sound mixes on every platform; including Switch. Monolith Soft need a kick up the arse however, as all of their Switch titles are 2.1 only.

Luigi's Mansion 3 and Monster Hunter Rise have the absolute best 5.1 surround sound mixes on the platform however. Genuinely excellent! Metroid Dread's 5.1 mix is also very good too :)
 
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Excellent analysis by DF. Jonh Switch reviews are the best ones, to the point the others review of Switch games feel lacking in comparison. To put in meme words, Jonh analysis have "Soul" :)
Unrelated, but sad that Triangle Strategy will be skipped by DF it seems. Wanted to know how the HD-2D technique has evolved and if they're using newer UE4 builds(Newer UE4 builds have better Switch performance as we can see with Fortnite).
 
Unrelated, but I'm still waiting for their review of Stranger of Paradise because there is something REALLY wrong with all the versions.

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That said, other than what I assume is the game loading in new assets, which causes an occasionally spike, it seems the game runs solid at 30fps. Would be nice for a 60fps experience, but Kirby does have a lot of objects on screen, and as John points out, a lot of physics based stuff, so likely a CPU and GPU (possibly Memory Bandwidth) restrictions.
 
Mendinso said:
Unrelated, but I'm still waiting for their review of Stranger of Paradise because there is something REALLY wrong with all the versions.
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Yeah, I'm surprised that they're so late with this. Wonder if they're being bound by some sort of NDA... like they were with Elden Ring...
Mendinso said:
That said, other than what I assume is the game loading in new assets, which causes an occasionally spike, it seems the game runs solid at 30fps. Would be nice for a 60fps experience, but Kirby does have a lot of objects on screen, and as John points out, a lot of physics based stuff, so likely a CPU and GPU (possibly Memory Bandwidth) restrictions.
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This is the most likely thing. Bokeh DOF is very expensive on Switch, especially when running at full 1080p; and is usually the main reason for FPS drops with major Switch titles. This game's Tilt Shift asthetic is probably the biggest reason why it can't hit 60FPS.
 
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Mendinso said:
Unrelated, but I'm still waiting for their review of Stranger of Paradise because there is something REALLY wrong with all the versions.
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right now, Alex is covering Ghostwire Tokyo, probably for PS5 as well. either Tom or Rich could do it if they're not covering other game
 
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Man Kirby looks good, really shows how good HAL is with graphics. It’s up there with Super Mario Odyssey (or even better)
 
Excellent results; dynamic 1080p docked with visuals this nice is a great turnout, and its reassuring to hear the performance dips of early footage have been ironed out.

The fast load times are another big plus.

I'll have to play through it myself to be sure, but I'm thinking this definitely has a chance of earning a spot in my personal Switch graphics hall of fame.
The lighting and colour palette are absolutely gorgeous, and it just looks so lush and appealing.
 
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the demo looked great so unsurprising - not fussed about 60fps, pushing the visuals + density/physics etc... is a good trade off
 
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