We need to talk about that final boss in Kirby and the Forgotten Lands
Kirby and the Forgotten Land
Alright. So last warning, I’m going to absolutely talk about everything that happens at the end of Kirby and the Forgotten Land. Last chance to walk away.
Okay, still here? Let’s go.
So, it starts off as a lot of Kirby game final moments start. You have to face off against a clearly mind-controlled King Dedede. This time he comes at you a little harder than most though.
After you beat him and Dedede reawakens, he immediately sacrifices himself to a wave of enemies so that you and some Waddle Dees can escape to an elevator. It’s at this moment we start on a tour of one of the darkest moments in a Kirby game ever.
On the elevator ride up, the entire lab facility powers up and in something that absolutely jarred me a voice comes over the P.A. A real voice. In English. Normally all talking is done via written text so suddenly hearing a real voice shook me.
The voice is a recording for a guided tour that speaks about how the facility was used to house a being that came to the planet and threatened all life. In true human fashion, they captured it to experiment on it. Clearly that went well.
As the elevator reaches its destination you find out what’s powering the lab. Thousands of hamster wheel-like turbines, each with a Waddle Dee in it forced to run. It’s a scene straight out of the classic film Metropolis.
You make it to the room the being is supposed to be in and you find it and… it’s gross looking. Basically an alien fetus in a jar. And in front of it, guarding it, is a lion, the one running the game’s Beast Pack.
He explains that the being sent all the humans to the land of eternal sleep (yikes) and, not understanding what that actually means, became jealous that the creature didn’t send the animals as well and angry that the humans would abandon the world. He then states that as he tires of you, he’s no choice but to devour you.
As you fight the lion and it’s health gets low, there comes a point in which you knock it down and when it gets back up his eyes are glowing, flames are coming off of it, and it’s fighting more like an actual lion. Feral and nashing. It’s at this point you realize the lion is no longer home and the fetus has taken control.
Upon completing the fight, the fetus awakens and you find yourself surrounded as the fetus melts into a light blue gloppy mess on one side of you and a swarm of animal enemies floods into the room on the other side. Just as Kirby is about to start fighting, the blue goo shoots tendrils at the animals, snagging them as they panic and absorbing them and the lion into itself, growing bigger until it becomes a disgusting pile of animal heads and vacant eyes. It chases you into a corridor where it is now looking like this.
DAMN. Seriously, this thing is horrible. And it’s slowly pulling itself down the corridor as you both run from it and try to fight it.
Eventually, you win, but it then captures your big-eared buddy and absorbs it into itself (you find out they’re two halves of one being) and takes off to the roof with Kirby giving chase. It’s there that it becomes a “perfect being” which is something like a Seraphin mixed with that watery creature from Sonic’s Adventure.
You beat it and then absolutely destroy it in one of Kirby’s best Mouthful Modes ever.
If you want to go all in on spoilers though I’ve comprised a “best of” video showcasing some short scenes just to give you a feel of what this all looks like in motion.
So, what’s up HAL Laboratory? Why do you keep doing this? I’ve attempted to figure this out but found absolutely nothing online talking about it. It definitely adds a dramatic end to these games but, as a parent, it’s also a bit troubling. My kids each have their own copy (because I’m a damn fool who keeps buying multiple copies) and they’re each halfway through the game. Meanwhile, I’ve beaten the game after they’ve gotten fully invested and have now begun preemptive damage control, trying to ready myself for the inevitable nightmares that will come from this chimera oozing its way into the subconscious of my children.
I’d never ask them to change their games. I’m not about that life. I’m still salty Bioware caved to demands in Mass Effect 3. But I would love to know what the thought process for this is. They always market their games as games for children and then reveal some eldritch horror at the end.
Maybe this is why, if you look at the original box art for Kirby’s Adventure back on the NES, it features Kirby inhaling existence itself revealing a shadowy void beneath. Maybe that was their warning to us as it was the game that started the trend. That Kirby would give you pink cuteness but eventually pull back the curtain to reveal the darkness that lies behind everything. Kirby himself becomes the metaphor for the darkness that can generate when one swallows down the negative things that affect them. Or maybe I’m looking way too deeply at the pink puffball. But when you stare into the abyss of Kirby’s mouth…the abyss stares back. Normally with a giant demonic singular eye.
