| SNES | Kirby Super Star HAL Labs/Nintendo, 1996 |
85.74% |
| WII | Kirby's Epic Yarn Good-Feel/Nintendo, 2010 |
88.48% |
| WII | Kirby's Return to Dream Land HAL Labs/Nintendo, 2011 |
80.50% |
| WII | Kirby's Dream Collection: Special Edition HAL Labs/Nintendo, 2012 |
81.29% |
| NS | Kirby Star Allies HAL Labs/Nintendo, 2018 |
73.30% |
There are some other stinkers in the mix: Air Ride, Dreamland 3, and Avalanche - but these spinoffs or non-major releases.
Kirby's Return to Dreamland got handicapped by critics coming out so soon after Epic Yarn. If Epic Yarn hadn't come out, it likely would have been in the ~88/89% range in its place when considering other lapsed franchise returns to home-console of similar quality. All the same, Kirby's Return to Dreamland and Epic Yarn both had the majority of reviews being 8s, 9s, and 10s, while Star Allies is mainly 6s and 7s.
This is the biggest decline of any mainline Nintendo series I can think of since Lylat Wars > Star Fox Assault.
Kirby's Dreamland 3 is going to come up, it's a mainline game in the franchise, despite the fact that very few people even knew of its existence. I think I was one of the few people that managed to get my hands on this rare "gem." Most people didn't play this until 2009, and despite the fact it originally launched after the SNES lifecycle, it looked primitive, like a launch title. This was especially confusing considering Kirby Super Star had both up to date visuals and inspired design; this isn't a case of people not enjoying what happened to DKC3 - as the game maintained trends and advanced over its predecessors; this is more like a case of DKC3 instead going back to the graphics and design of the Battletoads Battlemaniacs design and graphics. It is almost as if they had the game shelved since around launch, opted instead to do Kirby Superstar after, and then later considered "You know what guys? Why the hell not? We're almost done! Let's pull that old Kirby DL3 off the scrap heap!" Considering the obscurity of the title, along with its questionable development (seems like leftovers), I tend to omit it in a similar way that I omit all Harvest Moon games from the franchise after Marvelous stopped making them!
EDIT: And yes, I know Adventure is missing as well, but it doesn't look like Gamerankings recorded any reviews for it.
I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.
