History YMMV / KirbysReturnToDreamLand

** Hammer's infamy carries on into this game. It's made worse with Dedede, who naturally keeps his Hammer even after using Hammer Throw, meaning he can just spam the powerful attack as much as he wants. In ''Deluxe'', Hammer was nerfed because Hammer Flip was updated to its modern and less efficient version that requires Kirby to charge it, making it useful only for scoring incidental hits. However, at the same time, Dedede was significantly buffed; the developers gave him his dash attack and up special from ''Smash'' as new moves, and his neutral aerial attack is now an aerial Hammer Nail instead of a spin, which comes out much faster. He doesn't even mind the Hammer Flip nerf as much, since his is now stronger, and his Hammer doesn't do passive damage; since ''Return to Dream Land'' scales damage down if a hit is "comboed" into, that means he will always be hitting for maximum damage.

** Hammer's infamy carries on into this game. It's made worse with Dedede, who naturally keeps his Hammer even after using Hammer Throw, meaning he can just spam the powerful attack as much as he wants.
** The two new abilities added in ''Deluxe'' are truly worth experimenting with.
*** Sand has Leaf's invulnerable guard combined with a spammable close-range combo that's as simple as mashing B, strong anti-air that outputs equally effective DPS, and sand castles to lay "traps". It may not be particularly flashy, especially compared to its buddy Mecha, but [[BoringButPractical it'll easily get the job done]], to the point of being able to completely trivialize ''Deluxe'''s buffed-up True Arena.

* EndingFatigue: A bit in the main game, due to the final level sequence being very long. First you fight Landia, who's set up to be the final boss... then there's a twist cutscene, a lengthy UnexpectedShmupLevel with its own boss, another cutscene, then the ''actual'' final boss, which has two phases (the first of which ends on a FakeoutFadeout). It can feel like the game keeps snatching victory away from you at the last minute. Later ''Kirby'' games would still have long final levels, but they make efforts to lessen the fatigue by clearly setting them up beforehand, concretely dividing the segments, and also ditching the idea of having actual levels between the bosses.

* UnfortunateCharacterDesign:
** ''Deluxe'' gives us Hydriath, a water-elemental variant of Goriath fought in Magolor Epilogue that has a crown with a water tendril coming out in lieu of Goriath's hair plume. Like Goriath, Hydriath also has a GoldenSuperMode as a ShoutOut to the [[Manga/DragonBall Super Saiyans]]. However, this results in the water tendril turning gold too, which makes it look like a tendril of piss.

** Fiery Puffer also suffers a bit from an unfortunate palette choice that gives him [[BlackfaceStyleCaricature pitch black skin and giant, pink lips]].

* UnfortunateCharacterDesign: ''Deluxe'' gives us Hydriath, a water-elemental variant of Goriath fought in Magolor Epilogue that has a crown made of water in lieu of Goriath's hair plume. Like Goriath, Hydriath also TurnsRed by turning gold in a ShoutOut to the [[Manga/DragonBall Super Saiyans]]. However, this results in the water crown turning gold too, which makes it look like a crown of piss.

** The Spark ability in this game combines the classic Spark (hold down attack to erect an electric force-field) with the Plasma's charged-shot mechanic from ''VideoGame/KirbySuperStar'' and ''VideoGame/KirbyAirRide''. However, this time you can charge Spark by shaking the Wii Remote, which can quickly and easily fully charge the shot. Combined with the fact that the fully charged blast deals ''ludicrous'' damage to just about anything, it can take down even the FinalBoss in less than a minute. As a bonus, hitting the attack button while holding up or down will fire a lightning bolt to the edge of the screen in that direction, instantly hitting everything either above or below you regardless of your charge level.\\

*** Mecha seems to have something for everyone. Not only is it good for close-range attacks (the Flaming Mortars in particular are spectacularly spammy against airborne bosses), but it also allows for you to repeatedly shoot at enemies from a distance, the latter of which can be handy if you want to keep your distance from a particularly hard-hitting foe. Additionally, the air power provided by its rockets (which puzzles that require Fire to solve will accept) is arguably easier to control than that of Kirby's normal VideoGameFlight.

* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: How much of Magolor as a villain was him and how much was the Master Crown? We know at minimum he was willing to both attack Landia and con other people into doing his dirty work to get his mitts on the crown, but was he out to conquer the universe the whole time? Or did he just want a rare artifact or stronger magic and the whole “Welcome your new overlord” spiel was the Master Crown already taking effect?

* GoodBadBugs: In ''Deluxe'', if the player mods the game to play it without character and object outlines, it causes Kibble Blade and HR-D3 to become larger in size though the fights still function normally.

* ScrappyWeapon: While effective in what it does including its SocializationBonus damage buff, returning ability [[VideoGame/KirbyStarAllies Festival]] in ''Deluxe'' catches flak for being another limited-use SmartBomb in a game with already two of them (Crash and Mike), leaving it superfluous when its slot could've opened up potential for using old fan-favorite abilities in ''Return to Dream Land'' such as [[VideoGame/KirbySuperStar Yo-Yo]] or [[VideoGame/KirbyPlanetRobobot Archer]].

* HeartwarmingInHindsight: Magolor thanking Kirby for his help in fixing Lor Starcutter and him stating to hope that they could be friends forever is this as of ''Kirby's Dream Collection Special Edition''. While this line [[spoiler:was originally implied to just be him sucking up to Kirby to help him get the Master Crown]], Magolor's actions in ''Dream Collection'' (he built Kirby an entire theme park as an apology for duping him) make the line genuine.

*** Mecha seems to have something for everyone. Not only is it good for close-range attacks, but it also allows for you to repeatedly shoot at enemies from a distance, the latter of which can be handy if you want to keep your distance from a particularly hard-hitting foe. Additionally, the air power provided by its rockets (which puzzles that require Fire to solve will accept) is arguably easier to control than that of Kirby's normal VideoGameFlight.

*** Sand has Leaf's invulnerable guard combined with a spammable close-range combo that's as simple as mashing B, strong anti-air, and sand castles to lay "traps". It may not be particularly flashy, especially compared to its buddy Mecha, but [[BoringButPractical it'll easily get the job done]].

* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: [[spoiler:Galacta Knight's appearance as a surprise {{Superboss}} in The True Arena. He doesn't make an appearance anywhere else in the game, meaning he has no explanation, canon or [[LooseCanon otherwise]], as to why he even appears unlike in his earlier and later appearances, and he flies away as quickly as he shows up upon defeat.]]

* RemadeAndImproved: Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe added a lot of new content, while also improving upon a lot of things. One of those things is the True Arena fight with [[spoiler: Magolor Soul. In the original game, it was a visually appealing, but underwhelming fight that was already done in EX Mode. ''Deluxe'' changes it by altering the colour of the background, giving Magolor Soul the "Supreme Ruler's Coronation - OVERLORD" theme from ''VideoGame/KirbyStarAllies'' and altering his moveset to be far more challenging. Additionally, both of his phases have unique Pause menu lore.]]

*** [[spoiler: In ''Deluxe'', the second phase of Magolor Soul in the True Arena has three major changes outside of the music. One; as Magolor Soul is staggered, he produces a Gem Apple that can replenish a little bit of lost health. Two; the second phase has his eyes vanish as the Crown's eye remains in his mouth for the rest of the fight, Three; Magolor Soul begins using new attacks, and old ones in new, even more difficult arrangements. In that order, Magolor uses what little magic and control he has left to heal Kirby, fully succumbs to the Crown's will in the process, and can no longer stop it from using everything in its arsenal.]]

** Added in ''Deluxe'', the Sand ability is deceptively powerful. It has Leaf's invulnerable guard combined with a spammable close-range combo that's as simple as mashing B, strong anti-air, and sand castles to lay "traps". It may not be particularly flashy, especially compared to its buddy Mecha, but [[BoringButPractical it'll easily get the job done]].

* GoodBadBugs: In ''Deluxe'', if the player is playing the game without outlines, it causes Kibble Blade and HR-D3 to become larger in size though the fights still function normally.
* HeartwarmingInHindsight: Magolor thanking Kirby for his help in fixing Lor Starcutter and him stating to hope that they could be friends forever is this as of ''Kirby's Dream Collection: Special Edition''. While this line [[spoiler:was originally implied to just be him sucking up to Kirby to help him get the Master Crown]], Magolor's actions in ''Dream Collection'' (he built Kirby an entire theme park as an apology for duping him) make the line genuine.

** A lot of the missions in Merry Magoland are extremely hard to achieve, namely those that involve clearing the hard difficulty in certain subgames. Special mention goes to the hardest difficulties of "Magolor's Tome Trackers" and "Kirby on the Draw", where you get a full taste of what [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard a cheating bastard the computer can be]]. Even if you're able to overcome this (or [[spoiler:bypass it by getting four controllers and leaving only yours active to dominate the competition]]), there's still the hardest difficulties in single-player subgames like "Egg Catcher" and "Samurai Kirby", both of which rely on you to react at your fastest to a ridiculous degree.

** In the Deluxe version, there is a mask of [[VideoGame/KirbyTripleDeluxe Taranza, a bug that looks like her, and Sectonia]]. Anyone who has played ''[[VideoGame/KirbyPlanetRobobot Planet Robobot]]'' should be familiar with [[spoiler:the Sectonia Clone turning into a being that resembled Taranza]]. The name of this mask? ''Old Friend''.

** A lot of the missions in Merry Magoland are extremely hard to achieve, namely those that involve clearing the hard difficulty in certain subgames. Special mention goes to the hardest difficulties of "Magolor's Tome Trackers" and "Kirby on the Draw", where you get a full taste of what [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard a cheating bastard the computer can be]]. Even if you're able to overcome this (or [[spoiler:bypass it by getting four controllers and leaving only yours active to dominate the competition]]), there's still the hardest difficulties in single-player subgames like "Egg Catcher" and "Samurai Kirby", both of which rely on you to react at your fastest to an almost inhuman degree.