Kirby’s Dream Buffet is adorable, nonsensical fun that has Kirby and pals racing, playing, and fighting to win in a food-themed battle royale. It’s cute, it’s charming, and it’s real fucked up that we have to eat the things after the awards ceremony.
Underneath the friendly appearance it puts off, Kirby’s Dream Buffet is less like previous installments in the Kirby series, and is more similar to The Jungle by Upton Sinclair or Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser in how it dives deep into the dark underbelly of Kirby harvesting. While the rhetoric is heavy handed at times, Dream Buffet shatters the long held belief that Kirbys are organically sourced, farm-to-table meals and shows the tragic existence of a Kirby raised for slaughter.
The game comes with a huge slew of customization options from changing the color of your Kirby to giving it a cute little hat, all with the sole purpose of getting you more attached to your food. While traumatic, I can appreciate the attention to detail of having Kirby beg for his life as you reach for your fork. It’s those little details that really make a game shine, and Dream Buffet is no exception.
As for the gameplay itself, it’s a blast to compete against your friends in the main game mode, the Gourmet Grand Prix. Racing other Kirbys, navigating the obstacle courses and collecting strawberries and other treats to add natural flavorings to your Kirby is just wonderful, and you and up to three other buddies can all sit in silence at the end of a match wondering if you should finally switch to being vegetarian after witnessing the inhumanities on display in Kirby’s Dream Buffet.
Overall, the game is just a ball, with the different modes and unlockables providing hours of fun for whoever picks it up at the relatively cheap price point of $15. The story is outright phenomenal, and the choice to have the main focus be forcing Kirbys to dance and perform for our enjoyment so they can eat whatever slop we deem to provide shook me to my core. Kirby’s Dream Buffet was honestly the first game in a long time to make me openly weep, and I will readily recommend it to any Kirby fan that still thinks it okay to have Kirbys as a snack.
