Kirby and the Forgotten Land Mouthful Mode (Car)

       
 
 
Kirby and the Forgotten Land Mouthful Mode (Car)
Kirby and the Forgotten Land Mouthful Mode packaging Kirby and the Forgotten Land Mouthful Mode signpost Kirby and the Forgotten Land Mouthful Mode base Kirby and the Forgotten Land Mouthful Mode face Kirby and the Forgotten Land Mouthful Mode display Kirby and the Forgotten Land Mouthful Mode rear

 
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Background

Kirby and the Forgotten Land was the 13th game in the mainline Kirby series, but the first one in full 3D. Among the new features in the game is a "Mouthful Mode" that allows Kirby to swallow and control larger objects - a light bulb for illuminating dark areas, a vending machine for soda cans that can be used as ranged weapons, and a car for increased speed and strength.

 

Packaging

Karby is packed in a simple rectangular box with a window on the front panel to show off the statue. It's done in the bright colors of the game, with the grass, trees, and bright blue sky we saw there serving as the background. The bottom left corner of the window is die cut to allow for a photo of the statue, and the bottom right corner has the Japanese game title ("星のカービィ ディスカバリー"/“Kirby of the Stars: Discovery”). The end flaps repeat the title and photo, with the requisite legal info on the bottom. The inside of the box is lined in pink, and the statue is wrapped in plastic and secured between two snap-together plastic trays to keep it safe.

 

Casting/Paint

Most of the top half of the statue is a single piece of pink plastic representing Kirby in Mouthful Mode. The feet are separate red parts added to the back, but the arms/mirrors and eyes are cast as part of the pink shell. While there is a parting seam arcing up the sides to catch the arms/mirrors, it's as fine as one could hope for and disappears from most viewing angles. The only paint is the eyes, which are picked out in dark gray with purple and white highlights.

The bottom half of the statue is the still-visible car, an old and badly worn hatchback. Its base color is a blue faded nearly to gray with silver used for the bumpers, grille, and tailpipes. The finish is badly scuffed and pitted, and a heavy wash has been applied to give it an old and rusty appearance. While the panels aren't particularly straight, it looks like an intentional design choice rather than limitations of the material. The wheels are one piece each, with black treaded tires and silver painted hubcaps mounted on metal axles front and rear. The underside continues the rough and pitted appearance of the car's rockers, but in a darker blue to give it a more shadowed appearance.

 

Features/Accessories

A circular display base is included, with a small section of road and sidewalk. The road surface has a single manhole cover, diagonal lines that suggest (but are nowhere near sized for) a parking space, and two tiny spotted mushrooms. The sidewalk has three more mushrooms, several five-leaf plants, a pair of traffic cones with one knocked over, and a sign post with several bite marks in the signs. The sculpting is decent enough, though making it out of vinyl mean that the signs are much thicker than they should be. The vinyl also means that the sign and cones are a bit bendy, but given the nature of the environment it sort of fits the look. Paint is generally good, with a nice green fade around the plants to suggest moss or some other smaller plant life. Similarly, the sign fades from yellow to silver as if much of the paint has been worn away. There is a small issue with the star not being properly centered on the manhole cover, and the white paint used for the stripes on the cones and spots on the mushrooms could've used a second coat. Karby fits between the sidewalk and mushrooms, though there's no fixed mount point and both bumpers will hang off the sides of the base.

 

Accuracy

This looks just like the game model come to life. The shape, the colors, the difference between smooth Kirby and rough car, everything just looks exactly as it should. No scale is given or even implied, but if you consider the little two-door hatchback to be around the size of a classic Mini or Fiat 500, it's about 1/24 scale.

 

Overall

This is a fun little piece. It's not a really intricate or highly detailed replica, but it does exactly what it set out to do and looks great doing it.

 

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