gsk I hadn’t looked at this thread in forever, so when I opened it again yours was the first comment I saw, and somehow I had never played or even heard of Trip World. I absolutely loved the look and idea of Gimmick when I first saw it a few years, but I don’t think it’s physically possible for me to get past level three in that game. (I’m terrible at games.) I just played Trip World today, and it was actually playable for me – and of course it’s great, so thank you for the recommendation.
As a side note, I don’t really feel like Gimmick or Trip World are all that much like Kirby beyond aesthetics. To me, they’re at the nexus of my two favorite platformer subgenres: games where touching enemies doesn’t necessarily kill you (exemplified by SMB2/Doki Doki Panic) and games where any slight slope will have you slipping down it at top speed (which I suppose is exemplified by Sonic – but with Sonic’s focus on speed it doesn’t really feel the same way).
I kind of wish every company could be like Nintendo and create and entire mythology out of every single one of their franchises, because I’d really like to spend more time in the worlds of Gimmick and Trip World, especially after several decades of reiterations and fleshing outs.