Kirby and the Forgotten Land director, Tatsuya Kamiyama, recently explained to IGN why it took the acclaimed series so long to transition to 3D. Talking during a session at GDC 2023, Mr. Kamiyama explained that one of the biggest obstacles the team faced when creating a 3D platformer staring the iconic pink puffball was Kirby’s spherical shape. This issue arose from the fact that in a 3D platformer the lead character is generally faced behind the camera and if players couldn’t tell which way Kirby was facing when pulling off an attack it could certainly lead to frustration on the player’s part. To solve this problem, HAL gave Kirby and the Forgotten Land players a little bit of help with aiming. Thankfully they achieved their goal making the perfect 3D Kirby game as highlighted in our 9.5/10 review of the game back in March last year.
“When you rotate a sphere, you can’t really tell that it’s being rotated. Kirby has a simple, spherical design, so it’s difficult to tell which way Kirby is facing when seen from behind. For Kirby’s ranged attacks, it’s a significant issue if the player even slightly misjudges which way the character is facing. Kirby attacks by inhaling enemies and spitting them out. For this reason, if you miss, you have to look for another enemy to inhale, which is very frustrating.”
Kamiyama speaking to IGN
“Kirby’s ranged attacks in Forgotten Land will automatically target enemies if they meet certain criteria based on a points system. Enemies are assigned points if they’re already roughly in the direction Kirby’s facing (so Kirby obviously can’t hit enemies that are directly behind him, for instance), and receive more points if the enemy is dangerously close to Kirby, or important in some way (such as a boss). Additionally, attacks while Kirby is on the ground won’t target on airborne enemies, but airborne homing is stronger to account for how hard it can be to aim while in the air.
The actual homing itself is intended to be subtle, so that ideally players don’t notice it’s happening – otherwise, Kamiyama says, they might not be motivated to aim at all. Most of the homing takes place in the first frame of the attack, then significantly drops as the attack continues. And there’s additional corrections happening for depth, such as if Kirby is trying to hit an enemy that appears to be next to him but is really slightly behond or forward. This prevents attacks from missing in a frustrating way when the way the fixed camera was angled makes it look like they should hit.”
Thanks to Greatsong1 for sending in the news tip!
The only problem they had is that didn’t want to bother in the first place, I love 3D games and I always know which way my character is facing, I’m not stupid.
Kirby games aren’t only made for you though, so your comment is completely irrelevant. The kind of aiming required in Kirby and the Forgotten Land is a classic game design problem and is accentuated by Kirby’s shape as he does look pretty much the same from all sides. Remember as well that these games are designed to be playable by young children. Kirby and the Forgotten Land does a good job of helping the player aim. Unfortunately not all of us are blessed with your genius, so I’m glad they took the time to properly design it rather than just assume the player can work around it.
I don’t buy it, honestly. When Kirby wears a hat, this really isn’t an issue. The only time it might be an issue is if Kirby is holding something in his mouth and is going to spit it out. That’s… not really a good enough reason to say “Nah, 3D Kirby wouldn’t work.”
Actually, I can see how they might actually think that. On the gaming side, it seems ridiculous to say spitting things inaccurately would ruin the game. But they have to design most the levels and bosses to be beaten with no copy abilities so they probably playtest basic Kirby painstakingly.
Oh well. It’s not like we got a bunch of bad 2D Kirby games while waiting for a 3D one.
I’ll take a 2-D Kirby any day over a 3D one anyhow.