Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe

Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe is a remake of Kirby's Return to Dream Land with a notable visual upgrade and a great outline art-style. This 4-player adventure adds new content such as "Merry Magoland", a mode filled with sub-games new and old, as well as the "Magolor Epilogue" where Magolor must atone for his misdeeds. This time, it didn't take 11 years from start to finish!

This would be Vanpool's last Kirby game they developed along with Hal, as Vanpool would close their doors 3 months after the game came out.

To do: Lots. Kirby has several unused animations King Dedede also has some unused animations Merry Magoland has several animations from FL and unused ones Unused Code Leftover code from the original Wii project, comparisons Replace unanimated PNGs with animated GIF versions Some enemies such as Cappy, Waddle Doo, Craby, and Sparky have unused damage expressions, Tick too has an unused expression like found in Kirby's Return to Dream Land RTDLDX supposedly has more leftovers from Kirby GCN, and they are supposedly easier to yell apart? https://x.com/JC_Players_/status/2098223595059114137

This page or section needs more images. There's a whole lotta words here, but not enough pictures. Please fix this. Specifically: Boxart indicates a possible save banner and title screen difference.

Unused Graphics#

Landia#

In romfs\gfx\Step\Chara\Landia\Model.bfres.cmp, there are textures that are Landia's eye once it goes to phase 2 or angry for both the normal and ex model. However these are unused since the file itself in romfs\gfx\Step\Chara\Landia\Motion.bfres.cmp, the texture animations for them are blank. However giving them a texture animation makes it works again.

Video showcasing the edit:
320px

Ability Stars#

In romfs\gfx\Step\Item\SuperAbilityStar\SuperAbilityStar.bfres.cmp, there are blank black textures in its files, which are "Icon.00", "Icon.01", "Icon.02", and "Icon.04". These are likely to be the unused test, Super Cutter, and Super Spark textures from the Wii game. These were probably made blank as to keep the ability order the same.

Unused Animations#

Kirby#

Kirby has a ton of animations left from the original version of Kirby's Return to Dream Land, but also some new ones. default08 seems to be a weird test 50 frame animation of some sort with Kirby's limbs move far from him. Wait6 is an unused wait animation found in lots of other Kirby games never being used.

Meta Knight#

Meta Knight also has a ton of unused animations like Kirby. DamageElectric is one where he stands still with his eyes slanted for 12 frames.

Internal Project Name#

The game's internal name is "Ark", probably both in reference to Magolor's ship, the Lor Starcutter, and the heavy use of Christian themes in Magolor Epilogue.

References#