You know everybody memes that Kirby games usually start out nice and friendly that end with you fighting literal nightmares but this time I feel like they are being unusually upfront about the darkness in the game.

Like you go to Shiver Star and Halcandra in other games but those are usually some of the last levels you visit. This makes me thing that the story is going to be noticeably darker this time around.

That was intentional. HAL thought Kirby would loose his baby's-first platformer (that's not an insult, it's his actual design ethos) if they made him 3D. But, since the Switch has a "Baby's first" on it already in the form of Star Allies, HAL is now free to say "Fuck it! Monkey in Detroit!"

But for the sake of completion, I will point out that Kirby has been playable in 3D 3 times: Air Ride, Blow out Blast, and the Overworld of Star Allies.