In games like Kirby Super Star and Kirby’s Return to Dreamland, the new friend Kirby and crew make has turned out to be the true villain in disguise. Marx and Magolor used Kirby to their own gains, and due to how those two seemed cute and friendly like Elfilin, plenty of fans thought that the new critter would be the main antagonist in Kirby and the Forgotten Land. However, instead, Forgotten Land subverts this franchise trend by making Elfilin the villain yet not at the same time.

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ID-F86, aka Fecto Elfilis

Fecto Elfilis is revealed at the end of Kirby and the Forgotten Land to be the “other half” of Elfilin. This other half is called an “invasive species” to the new world as it appeared and attacked the wildlife found on the planet. Through the descriptions of the creature’s many figures, it’s explained that it was once an invader of planets for its own gain before being captured by the scientists of the new world. Once captured, its spacial teleportation abilities were experimented with and studied until the researchers understood it enough to create technology to warp the world’s main population across space.

Once the populace had the power to traverse through space, eventually the new world was as forgotten as the title suggests. For what the game implies to be potentially millions of years, ID-F86 was left in the Eternal Capsule, alone in its own psychic dreams as it hated being in captivity. Unstable without Elfilin, it couldn’t escape without turning into the same blob known as Fecto Forgo. It also lacked the energy to break out of its prison, which is why it brainwashes Leongar and the Beast Pack to capture the Waddle Dees as a work force.

Kirby and the Forgotten Land’s Elfilin

Elfilin is Kirby’s guide to the Forgotten Land, aiming to save the Waddle Dees of Waddle Dee Town. While that starts out rather simple enough, he’s actually stated to be a “subspecimen” branched off of ID-F86 that was created in some sort of “warp experiment incident.” The use of the word “incident,” and how the world is now abandoned by the people who used to live there, implies Elfilin may have been purposefully made to take the spacial warp creature with them. The difference in name has been theorized by fans to be due to his classification being “ID-F87.” He was never recovered by the scientists after his escape, and Elfilin himself tells Kirby that before ID-F86 possessed Leon, he was friends with the Beast Pack.

According to Fecto Elfilis’ figure, Elfilin is the “small, compassionate soul” that lurked within the invader. If the word “soul” is taken literally, that may explain why Fecto Elfilis is unstable without Elfilin as part of it. Whatever the researchers did, they pulled ID-F86’s soul out of its body, and now it cannot sustain itself. While ID-F86 wants to rejoin with Elfilin, it’s very clear that Elfilin disagrees. The only way that the two combine in the game is through force, or by Elfilis being bested by Kirby until only a tiny fraction of it willfully joins with Elfilin in control.

Kirby and the Forgotten Land describes these two as halves of each other, yet they couldn’t be more different. The cutscene in which Elfilin is forced into Fecto Forgo is even called “Gemini Reunion,” as if the two were twins, yet they aren’t at all equal. ID-F86 has the power to summon meteorites and make vortices anywhere it wants, and it even had the power to potentially crash the Forgotten Land into Planet Popstar. Elfilin, however, used all of his power to where he had to be nursed back to health after saving Kirby’s planet. The true ending of Kirby and the Forgotten Land sees a small portion of Elfilis going back into Elfilin peacefully, and it would be rather interesting to see how that affects Kirby’s newest friend if he becomes a recurring character in the series.

Kirby and the Forgotten Land is available now on Nintendo Switch.

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