GameSpot called Kirby and the Forgotten Land the best Kirby yet while leaving 20% of Kirby un-inhaled.

First exhibit: GameSpot awards Kirby and the Forgotten Land a 9/10 while openly admitting the reviewer was at 80% completion. That is not a review score, that is a weather forecast from a man standing indoors with a damp hat. If one-fifth of the game is still hiding in the bushes waving tiny Waddle Dee arms, maybe do not bring out the ceremonial 'best entry in franchise history' trumpet like the spreadsheet has reached enlightenment. The math aint mathing.

The review spends its opening doing a full true-crime podcast about Kirby being a pink eldritch vacuum, which is funny, sure, but it also eats word count like Kirby inhaling a filing cabinet. By paragraph one we have Thanos, Frankenstein, HAL Laboratory, and existential horror; by the actual critique, the piece is already wearing a novelty mustache and juggling lore grenades. It is criticism as cotton candy: large, pink, technically present, and gone the second you ask it to support a 9.

Then comes the scoring crime scene. The reviewer notes stale mini-boss repetition, weak hub activities, uneven co-op where player two gets demoted to Spear Intern, completion objectives that require replaying boss levels with specific abilities, and the fact that they did not finish everything. Somehow all of that enters the calculator and exits as a 9/10, like feeding complaints into a printer and receiving a birthday card from Nintendo. A ruler made of soup would produce firmer measurement.

This is the GameSpot house style at its most plush-toy evasive: enough detail to look responsible, enough charm to dodge accountability, and a score so friendly it should come with a tiny affiliate link wearing a party hat. The review is pleasant, readable, and allergic to consequence. It pats Kirby on the head, writes down 'minor gripe' six times, and still hands over a near-perfect score like a substitute teacher bribing the class with stickers.