TheKirbyseries has always been a repository of experimental spin-offs treated with a surprising amount of care. Even back in the day,Kirby’s AvalancheandKirby’s Dream Coursewere noteworthy games, andKirbyonly spread out further with multiple touch-controlled titles and several flavors of fighting game.Kirby’s only GameCube entry wasKirby’s Air Ride, and no one who’s spent time with that game will accuse it of lacking content. It seems like the tendency forKirbytitles to implement plenty of minigames for other titles to build on is a recursive loop, something that might have resulted inKirby’s Dream Buffet’s creation.
This fast-approaching competitive multiplayer title will be the next spin-off in theKirbyseries after the acclaimed mainline entry that wasKirby and the Forgotten Land.Kirby’s Dream Buffetopens with Kirby being shrunk to a minuscule size by the Dream Fork, giving him the perfect opportunity to gorge himself on titanic desserts. Three other Kirby’s appear alongside Master Hand,Crazy Hand, and some Waddle Dees, and the four puffballs get to work competing to see who can eat the most. It’s clearly based on the classicKirby Super Starminigame Gourmet Race, but it also draws a lot of obvious inspiration from the contemporary competitive multiplayer titleFall Guys.
RELATED:Kirby’s Dream Buffet Looks A Lot Like Fall Guys
Fall Guys Sets The Stage for Kirby’s Dream Buffet
It’s difficult for anyone who’s seenFall Guysin action not to draw several parallels withKirby’s Dream Buffet. The two games are cut from the same cloth, both focusing on multiplayer action and similar colorful art styles.Kirby’s worlds consist entirely of dessert whileFall Guysstages can be made of anythingfrom similar sweets to woodland areas to abstract shapes and machines. Kirby and theFall Guysbeans look similar, and can both be heavily customized with costumes and colors unlocked through play.
That play is deliberately simple, with most of the onus put on moving and jumping with deliberately awkward controls.Fall Guyscharacters waddle everywhere and can interfere with one another through body blocking and grabbing, while the four Kirby’s all rely on rolling like in some pastKirbyspin-offs. The Kirby’s can also attack one another, but in their case they can take advantage of power-upsbased onKirby’s Copy Abilities. Although these abilities might appear more destructive than the mundane shoving inFall Guys, they won’t instantly stop another Kirby from winning.
Kirby’s Dream Buffet Diverges From Fall Guys
There may be a lot of similarities betweenKirby’s Dream BuffetandFall Guys, but those serve to highlight the massive differences between the two games. The first and probably biggest is thatKirby’s Dream Buffetis not a battle royale, and may not even be a live service title. Even though it is a competitive party game with the same general structure of races, minigames, and some kind of final challenge, it only hosts four human players per match. UnlikeFall Guys, these players cannot lose a match until the final results are tallied. The goal is to collect as many strawberries as possible, not just place the highest to qualify for the next round. Placing high yields more rewards, but neither it nor knocking a player off of a course will guarantee their failure.
Kirby’s Dream Buffetalways alternates between racecourses that emphasize collecting strawberries and power-ups, and mini games that see the Kirby’s competing for strawberries.Fall Guys, on the other hand, almost always starts with a straightforward race, and then jumps between a variety of specialized courses that can do anything from dividing players into teams to forcing them to solve logic puzzles.Fall Guys' final rounds are similarly diverse, whileKirby’s Dream Buffetalways concludes with the hybrid of aSuper Smash Bros.match andMario Party’s Bumper Balls game. Combined with the ability to play offline with another player,Kirby’s Dream Buffetis an overall more structured and relaxed take onFall Guys' chaotic and tense Battle Royale parties.
Kirby’s Dream Buffetwill be released August 17, exclusively for Nintendo Switch.
