Kirby and the Forgotten Land (2022) + Star-Crossed World DLC (2025)

(10/10) + (9/10)

I was right.

Ok, so getting to play Star Crossed World was a homecoming for me. In the Spring when this was announced I made a whole reaction essay, analysis, speculation, and hypothesis about the final boss. I was hearing those little speculations here and there that it would be Galacta Knight, and as someone who was actively burned the last time I tried to connect my fave to this game (and then AGAIN in RTDLDX), I had very strong opinions on why I believd it couldn't be the case. So strong in fact, that despite this sort of bet being held to me by no one, I swore to see the boss first with my own eyes to confirm that I Was Right.

This was hard given the Switch 2's price and my own being a broke college student, but I had some strategies. Namely, I bout the Switch 2 edition of the game before I had the console, hoping that at some point I may be able to find someone with a console willing to let me borrow it to play. This never came to fruition throughout the Fall and Spring, and eventually by Christmas I just opted to buy the console and play my DLC. But then I realized that, I hadn't played KATFL in a long time, and I wouldn't really be able to appreciate the game without a well-needed replay, so that came first.

Kirby and the Forgotten Land is probably the best Kirby game hands down. It is amazing visually, mechanically, NARRATIVELY. Hands down the best story in the series, which I GUESS is surprising for some people to hear because the game doesn't have a lot of cutscenes like its predecessors of Robobot or KSA, but CHRIST the environmental design and the character of the world is immaculate, I remember crying at Wondaria when I first played the game overwhelmed by the message of it all. The message that our love of life and fun and joy as a species will live on beyond us. Even when everything we as a society was is reduced to ruins the fellow living creatures that succeed us will understand and continue to connect with it -- it is executed so quietly and simply, and GORGEOUSLY! Fuck.

My favorite stages are probably Alivel Mall (Staff Side) and the Burning, Churning Powerplant. The first is a majestic recontextualization of the earlier mall levels, which in themselves are beautiful little moment of seeing an entertainment and social space brought to life again. And seeing that energy still with the malls in even worse shape, and even starker image of how these relics will be consumed by time, is powerful. It will continue to be valued as long as it remains in any capacity. And then the powerplant is just a great throwback to other iconic mechanical stages in Kirby, a genre of level I shouted out in the Kirby Interest Hell. And that song was my favorite because of how well it works as a penultimate stage theme as you race to the end to save your little buddy.

And yes, I still loooooove Elfilin so much, he is such a little goober. Like how this game was misconstrued as "Le Dahkest Kirby GAEM!!!" because of its playing with dystopian themes despite its incredibly optimistic twist, Elflin was misunderstood upon first impressions. It was understood to well he would be some kind of twist villain, but the role he ended up playing in relationship to that boss is another simple but elegant story, that to me is about learning to accept different sides of yourself and grow past them. He's been a favorite of mine since because I love Kirby's cute but kind of fucked up characters, especially when they are deeply earnest like Elfilin. AS WELL AS ADORABLE LITTLE CREATURES OOO LA POOKIE!!

And that goes to the center of all of this: GOD AM I SO HAPPY THAT THE DLC BOSS WAS ABOUT ELFILIN AND NOT GALACTA KNIGHT! I. WAS. FUCKING. RIGHT!!! And my reasoning in that essay still stands, Kumazaki and the creative staff have new fish to fry, new ideas to explore, and they are FRESH. I still need to 100% the DLC campaign to get all the ideas together, but I really love the final boss and how it plays into the slight cosmic horror but also beauty that Kirby plays with constantly. I also like that Kumazaki in interviews has talked a lot about Neichel, the fictional singer of the world and her feelings as a native there. You can tell his passion is for everything new he makes and not JUST playing with old tropes over and over. Not that there aren't Kirby Lore-isms to look at, but its your choice to be an idiot and overlook the main narrative and themes just to obsess over that.

Overall, LOVE Kirby and the Forgotten Land -- always have, always will -- and I love this series and I'm happy my appreciation for it as it is payed off. I'm looking forward to sinking my teeth more into these details about the world of my favorite Kirby game specifically and for whatever stories and worlds they create next, God bless Hal Laboratories and NO one else!

Kingdom Hearts R-TFD: "Do No Harm" (2025)

(10/10)

Unlike Hazbin which I was able to wrap up real quick in December, this is something else coming over from 2025 I was watching with my friends on recommendation of them and not me, hence it actually being a great thing to share and not a trauma-bonding watch experience. I remember finishing the very first episode and being absolutely flabbergasted by how hysterical it was all because of the choice of Holly to voice Sora like Joe Pera whoever that is -- I don't even know but it is such an insane, almost visionary choice. I was regularly amazed by how much that choice specifically managed to make the fandub match and sometimes surpass the surreal beauty of Kingdom Hearts as well as really ground the chaos of everything else.

Being a real-time fandub there isn't actually much to talk about it terms of like significance of plot, but it is a feat that over the course of the behemoth they managed to keep running themes and jokes going such as Sora's obsession with cardiology which is such a stupid-funny way to make ANYTHING of the Kingdom "Hearts". But oh God, speaking of nonsensical beauty the theme songs! When I first heard them being hyped up by my friend I didn't really get it cause it just sounded like "Simple and Clean At Home", BUT SOMETIME'S MOM'S COOKING GOES HARD! I really love it, I think more than the original Simple and Clean just because it is so good yet so meaningless. The only real meaning in it being the favorite queer tropes of erotic vivisection, a classic.

I have not been keeping up obsessively with the fandubs, I only really showed up for the Sonic games (and still haven't watched Shadow), but to God this feels like such an elevated project, it is MAGICAL to behold, and having the theme songs it does is really the ribbon on top. It makes me want to play the original Kingdom Hearts not JUST because I want to know what the hell they were dubbing over, but because I kind of hope now the original can elicit anything like this (or more specifically, Do No Harm the theme song) does.

Vividlope (2024)

(10/10)

The original idea for this list in relation to games was to motivate myself to actually beat them. I played the majority of Vividlope in December over my Winter Break and just picked it up again now to try and beat it for the review, but by the late game I would be able to just glance at a level's intro and almost be brought to tears by the idea of playing it.

Vividlope is a BRILLIANT game, and also difficult! I was sold on it by an underrated indie game showcase that marketed it as a great love-letter to the Dreamcast flair with a similarly simple and elegant mechanical design which is super true. All I could think during the first couple of hours was "Fuck, now THIS is a video game!" Like those games of yore it is so arcade-y which each level being a such a unique and fun experience that is always building on itself with new ideas and twists. And at the same time, there is an aesthetic flow throughout everything that means that even if individual worlds and levels don't stand out it's never lacking for character.

And in that fashion its also a deeply frustrating game to play at time. The perspective is very odd, the controls can be very demanding despite this. Enemies are intimidating from the beginning for how they interrupt the puzzles' flow, and they only get bigger and more complex as things go along, on top of more stage hazards. I am serious that you get to a point where you can look at a level and tell it will be such a bad time, sometimes just from ruleset of the map (I hate the infinite color loop...) But it's all GREAT. It is a mother fucking VIDEO GAME! And I've always loved every moment with it -- highly recommend, super underrated.

Forrest Gump (1986)

(9/10)

Voted "Favorite Unfinished Media of 2025" by and for me, I finally got around to finishing the book motivated by the work on my Media Awards and general New Years spirit. I read some 90% of it maybe last year and finished another 7% during some adventures trekking to the nearest local library by bus in the snow and getting thrown outside cause no one can bother to be open past 5 on a Friday. I ended up reading about Gump turning back to his vagabond life just as I was loitering inside a building myself, and it made it feel very cozy to come back to. The ending made me pretty emotional thinking about my growing wish to live a simple life, and I was very happy I read this instead of watching whatever the movie was about?

So, I picked this book up in the summer of last year after watching an interesting video essay about the movie's covert conservative messaging from its attempts to be 'apolitical' Americana fantasy. WHat most interested me - (besides this just being an overall fascinating essay which also gave me another recommendation in "Candide", which I hope to finish this year too) - were the descriptions of the original book with Gump being far more of a well-realized character who swears and fucks and calls the Vietnam War a load of shit. The fact that this poster child movie for representing the mentally handicapped took all the life out of a character originally written with nuance to turn him into this symbol really ticked something in me off, so on that and a general aim to read the sources of media essays I find, I started reading it and it was a fucking BLAST.

This book is so fucking funny, and yes, you will fall in love with Forrest Gump written by Winston Groom. The book is great both in its stupid situational moments and because Forrest has such a well-realized and distinct style of narration. It's narrated from his perspective start to end and in his southern dialect, but it is so vivid and simple at the same time. Just that detail alone does so much to paint Forrest as a character a lot beyond his label as an idiot even if a lot of the book is the joke of situations he gets into, though usually about how people around him react to him.

Even like dumbass shit like this running joke of him saying "I gotta pee" at inopportune times actually comes back for a fucking knock-out by the end when he's running for goddamn office and says it and it becomes a slogan. It's so dumb, its so silly, but also biting in just the right way. And as Deschanel says in their essay, yeah he has opinions on shit! The book is almost always pointed at American culture whether through Gump's own words or the ridiculousness he's put through, and there is an elegance to how it talks about him grappling with his opinions on harder things like grief and regret. You can tell its a lot that he either cannot or doesn't want to put his feelings into words but still feels them deeply and its humanizing.

I really recommend it because its great but still light enough most of the time that its almost a popcorn read. When I started reading it my idea was to watch the movie after I finished it, but even just from what the essay described I never want this character to be ruined for me by a retelling that turns him into a symbol of keeping your head down American fantasy instead of just being this creative character and cultural exploration. The both copies I read have Tom Hank's name bigger than Winston Groom's on the cover pisses me off.