Huh, I didn't know the first Kirby's Dream Land was the best selling game in the entire franchise. It's by quite a long shot too.Forgotten Land was announced as the new best selling Kirby in Nintendo's last financial report recently
...except that Forgotten Land is catching up near it pretty handily. Wow.
I wonder why Star Allies didn't get similar sales. It feels like every franchise on Switch does really well, but the gulf between that and FL is pretty huge.Because it was $60 permanently while also being Star Allies
Forgotten Land was announced as the new best selling Kirby in Nintendo's last financial report recentlyThe report notes:
The majority of its popular content came in free post-release updates (just like Animal Crossing, Splatoon, etc.) but people who stopped playing it before the updates love talking about how little content there is in the game.I played it a few months ago and still didn't think it was that great. It's mostly just Kirby mega fans who liked the bonus content I think
didnt it come out around other First Party Nintendo games?No, it was released during a super dead period for the Switch. https://nintendo.fandom.com/wiki/2018#Notable_Releases
I got asked the question "how many frames is real life?" for example...
Aha, that makes sense. It'll be number 1 by the time the year is done though, I'm sure.
As for why FL beat KSA: it's a much bigger and better game. FL is considered one of the best Kirby games, while KSA is more in the middle to lower end of the pack. I think KSA would've sold as well as FL is now if it had been acclaimed - 2D vs. 3D doesn't have that much to do with it.
Maybe it reached the Kirby 64 fans out there, whoever they are
I don't think this is true at all. FL got a much bigger marketing push because it was the first real attempt into 3D, and it being 3D caused a lot of people who were only moderate Kirby fans, or maybe burnt out on the original style, to buy it to give it a try since it was something new and different. I'd wager there were a lot of people that tried it simply because it was 3D.Yeah, you're probably right that being the first 3D Kirby was a big deal. 2D Mario generally sells better than 3D Mario, but having a big first splash is a big deal.
EDIT: Now, it almost certainly has better legs due to being a better game, but 3D definitely had an impact on the initial sales rush.