Kirby Producer Discusses The Return To Dream Land

Kirby's Return To Dream Land has been available for a couple of weeks now, and fans have been enjoying the pink puff ball's return to form. We recently had a chance to discuss the new title with producer Kawase Shigefumi, and you can read what he has to say below.

GI: Kirby’s Epic Yarn was somewhat consequence-free. What made the team decide to go back to a more traditional system with health bars and limited lives?

Shigefumi: The development team and concept for Kirby’s Return to Dream Land are totally different than they were for Kirby’s Epic Yarn.
Kirby’s Return to Dream Land carries on the traditional style of the Kirby series and adds new surprises, like four-player gameplay and Super Abilities. Our goal in developing this game was to enable players to experience a new game in the classic Kirby mold.

Do you consider Kirby’s Return to Dream Land to be a spiritual successor to the previous Dream Land games, or a totally new experience?

It’s a totally new experience. Our goal was to create a game with new elements for series fans to enjoy that would also enable people who are new to the Kirby series to enjoy its fundamental appeal. That’s why both people playing a Kirby game for the first time and longtime fans are sure to enjoy this game.

Was the game always built for four-player co-op, or was that feature inspired by the success of New Super Mario Bros. Wii?

New Super Mario Bros. Wii does indeed feature four-player co-op, but we improved upon this idea with our system, which enables players to come in and out at any time. We think that this system will make it easier for family and friends to enjoy joining the game.

Traditional platforming hazards like falling deaths are less frequent since all four characters can fly (or repeatedly jump in Waddle Dee’s case). Did you have to increase the enemy difficulty to combat the ease of navigation?

Designing a level in an action game isn’t all about how many pits you have or how strong the enemies are. We have to combine and adjust these factors in intricate ways. In multiplayer gameplay, enemies and allies are mixed together on the screen. If a player rushes too much, he or she may inhale an ally or get in another person’s way. Multiplayer gameplay has its own unique challenges, and this fact also has an effect on the difficulty. The levels are designed to get harder and harder as the game progresses. We adjusted the game over and over again while receiving feedback from our testers to ensure that experts wouldn’t be disappointed by excessive simplicity and that novices would find themselves improving naturally.

The “Face To Face” health system really makes it look like the characters are kissing each other after they eat food items. Are we seeing this right?

It really does look like the characters are kissing doesn’t it? I’m fond of how the characters share affection with each other and help each other out to progress through the game.

When anyone besides player one dies, it takes away from the shared life pool. However, if player one dies, everyone goes back to the last checkpoint. Why is this system in place?

We use this kind of system so that players two through four can jump in and out anytime during the game.

The last three Kirby games (Return to Dream Land, Epic Yarn, and Mass Attack) have all been wildly different. Where does the series go from here? Can we expect sequels to any of those three, or were they one-off experiments?

Kirby is a very flexible character when it comes to game design. I think we’ll see sequels and completely new games that match the desires and aspirations of developers and players. Please look forward to finding out what form Kirby will appear in next.