Every Kirby Game, Ranked

– March 31, 2022

Updated March 2023 to add Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe

First appearing in 1992, the Kirby game franchise has gone on to span 15 main games and over a dozen spinoffs, with cumulative sales ranking it among the best-selling game properties of all time despite (or because of) being limited to Nintendo devices. Those games center on the titular character, a cute 8-inch-tall pink sphere (his species has no official name) hailing from the Planet Popstar and created on our planet by Masahiro Sakurai (then of HAL Laboratory, the Japanese developer of several Nintendo-exclusive series that continues to make Kirby games to this day).

Games in the main Kirby series are platformers (typically side-scrollers) that are usually distinguished from the competition by Kirby's unique abilities including inhaling his enemies and copying their powers. In the gallery on this page, we rank all 15 of the games in the series from worst to best by Metascore, which captures the consensus views of professional critics. (And, at the very end of the gallery, we rank all of those spinoffs as well.)

All photos courtesy of Nintendo unless otherwise indicated.

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77 Kirby's Return to Dream Land [aka Kirby's Adventure Wii] (Wii, 2011)

(tied at #10) Kirby's second and final Wii release—but first in the main series—borrows elements from a canceled GameCube release originally scheduled for 2005. It's a fairly typical entry in the series, enhanced by new(-ish) elements like "Helpers" (first seen in Super Star) and ultra-powerful Copy Abilities called "Super Abilities." As is the case with many of the games in the series, there were some complaints about Dream Land's lack of difficulty and overly familiar structure, but most reviewers found it charming enough.

“Although Kirby's Adventure Wii lacks the dazzling visual inventiveness of Epic Yarn, its chunky, vibrant look is never less than charming, and is complimented by a style of play that eschews challenge for a subtly enveloping comfort blanket of Nintendo delight.” —D-PAD Magazine

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