Kirby/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
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Revision as of 17:46, 19 February 2024 by Robkelk (talk | contribs) (added That One Boss)


These things about Kirby are subjective - not everyone will agree with all of them.

  • Alas, Poor Villain:
    • After you defeat masked Dedede in Kirby Super Star Ultra, you get a surprisingly depressing scene of King Dedede sulking off into the sunset as somber music plays. Thankfully, it makes a transition into heart-warming since King Dedede's Waddle Dees slowly go and follow him, showing that no matter how many times he's defeated, they will never abandon their king.
    • While they're among the most loathsome villains in the series due to the sheer scale of their crimes, both Queen Sectonia from Triple Deluxe and President Haltmann from Planet Robobot are very pitiable figures once you learn more about them: both were benevolent authority figures twisted into insane, sociopathic monsters by corruptive outside influences (and in Haltmann's case, grief over his daughter seemingly dying in an accident). With the former's death being treated as a Mercy Kill that her best friend and possible lover has to get involved with, no less and the latter's ultimate fate being genuinely nightmarish, they have plenty of sympathy from the fanbase.
  • Alternate Character Interpretation: Kirby is quite a cocky Jerkass in Kirby's Avalanche (even though the game is not technically canon).
    • More famously, Kirby is notable for being a much less straightforward hero then most of them, notably eating definitely sentient beings alive, releasing Eldritch Abominations on a daily basis, and sometimes, going on quests and slaughtering people for rather... ambiguous reasons. (In Squeak Squad: cake.) This led to many alternative interpretations of Kirby.
      • Brawl in the Family plays with this; for instance, Meta Knight once says to Dedede: "Like it or not, you and Kirby aren't that different, but where he has childlike optimism, you have untempered malice."
      • There Will Be Brawl plays with it too, and how.
      • Sonic for Hire plays this as well in this episode. He then becomes somewhat of a regular character throughout the series, doing psychotic things like randomly eating people for fun and setting a bar on fire.
    • Dedede has a LOT more friends than Kirby in the games. Pretty much his only in-game friends outside of Kirby 64 are all created by him somehow.[please verify] Pretty much everybody else has tried to kill him at least once.
      • Three of his friends in that game have tried to kill him too. (Adeleine was a victim of two Demonic Possessions, though.) But he's been shown to spend time with his friends there and with the Dreamland 2 and 3 friends.
    • How evil is Galacta Knight? He's noted to be strong enough to be capable of destroying entire planets and was sealed away because of that power, but the games are vague on if he abused it or not. So he's either a psychopathic, planet-busting Blood Knight; a cranky, violent, but otherwise neutral figure looking for a good scrap; or a monster... but one of the Ancients' own making after he was sealed away without him actually doing anything wrong.
  • And the Fandom Rejoiced: After about 6 years of delays and hiatus, the Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards Wii follow-up was finally confirmed for a release. Needless to say, fans exploded with Tears of Joy. They did so even more when it was revealed Meta Knight, King Dedede, and the bandana Waddle Dee were playable characters in Kirby's Return to Dream Land.
  • Anticlimax Boss: Waddle Dee. In Revenge of the King, he is the last boss before King Dedede. He's laughably easy.
  • Awesome Music: There are a massive list of songs from the series that are just plain amazing to hear, a list can be found here.
  • Complete Monster: Marx of Kirby Super Star and its remake, Kirby Super Star Ultra, is sometimes considered this. The fact that he fused with some of Nova's parts to bring himself Back from the Dead places him even further in this category, although this has died down since he was introduced as an ally in Star Allies.
    • Nightmare from Kirby: Right Back at Ya! is the franchise's biggest example, compared to the Generic Doomsday Villain he was in Kirby's Adventure: instead of being a vague threat only encountered at the end, he's a mass murderer of intergalactic proportions and an arms dealer who sells dangerous monsters to people who would happily abuse them.
    • Not only is Hyness a doomsday cultist trying to summon Void Termina and have it destroy the universe, if not reality itself, but he's willing to use his loyal followers' corpses as weapons before sacrificing them to Void. He seems to turn over a new leaf by the end of Heroes of Another Dimension, but whether it's a genuine redemption on his part or Heel Face Brainwashing by way of the Friend Heart is left to the player's imagination.
  • Crazy Awesome: King Dedede. He's the king of Dream Land, wears a pimp coat, and fights with a hammer. Also? He is a blue penguin. Masked Dedede takes this Up to Eleven.[context?] Also, his hammer doubles as a flamethrower and a rocket launcher.
  • Crowning Moment of Awesome: The series has its moments, but above them all stands the Kirby Super Star segment "Revenge Of Meta Knight", where you get to hear the bad guys becoming progressively more and more afraid of you while you singlehandedly destroy Meta Knight's airship!
    • The whole "storm the castle while your enemies panic" bit is repeated in the final level of "Revenge of the King" in Super Star Ultra.
    • Meta Knight wishes to have released the strongest warrior in the galaxy, locked away for fear of his power, for the sole purpose of kicking said warrior's ass. Which he proceeds to do. [1] Why? For training purposes. Or fun. Or just to prove he could.
    • We have an entire page for it here.
  • Crowning Moment of Funny: Kirby Super Star again. When you start "Milky Way Wishes", the tutorial tells you that you can't copy your enemies' abilities as you previously did. Cue Kirby's obvious, hilarious Oh Crap.
  • Cult Classic: Air Ride has been getting more and more popular each year since its release.
  • Draco in Leather Pants: Many Kirby fans think Zero is a lonely, sad being that just wants some friends - though this does have some basis in canon, as it's stated that it can't feel positive emotions and wants to destroy the world out of jealousy. The awesome battle music probably helps (especially the Zero 2 music mentioned above.)
  • Ear Worm: Pick a song, any song from the games. It doesn't help that the games have a habit of endlessly recycling and remixing music used from previous games.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse:
    • Galacta Knight of Kirby Super Star Ultra. At that point, he had only showed up for one battle and didn't even get a single line of dialogue, yet already fans are spinning Fan Wank about his origins and clamouring for him to appear in another game. They got what they wanted not only in Kirby's Return to Dream Land, but in Kirby: Planet Robobot and Super Kirby Clash.
    • Meta Knight, to the point where he gets to be a playable character in Air Ride, Nightmare in Dreamland, and Super Star Ultra, and now Return to Dreamland. His Face Ship, the Halberd, is a major plot point in the Subspace Emissary and the only original Kirby stage in the game.
    • Adeleine from Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards. For being a minor character in two games, she has quite a fanbase - possibly helped by Brawl in the Family, where she's a prominent character. When she finally returned in Star Allies, saying that fans were thrilled is an understatement.
    • Nightmare - despite only appearing in the second game, its remake, and the anime, fans remember him and want him to make a comeback. He's not as popular as Marx, but memorable nonetheless, and fans were pleased to see him return for Super Kirby Clash in the form of Another Dimension's Parallel Nightmare.
    • Ribbon. Kirby's first love interest, and the only person to ever kiss Kirby.
    • Bandana Dee, a Waddle Dee with a bandana seems to be rapidly gaining popularity, especially after the announcement he was playable in Kirby's Return to Dream Land. Lampshaded by his pause screen description in the game, which calls him "everyone's favorite idol".
    • Magolor seems to be quickly becoming this. It probably helps that he has one of the best character designs in the whole Kirby series, and that when he pricks his ears down, his cuteness rivals Kirby's. Until he steals Landia's crown, that is. He still has quite a bit of popularity regardless, especially owing to his appearance and redemption in Kirby's Dream Collection Special Edition, and subsequent appearances in Team Kirby Clash Deluxe, its sequel, and Kirby Star Allies.
  • Even Better Sequel: The original Kirby game was a fairly standard side-scroller that was pretty enjoyable for what it was, but was laughably short and easy (although the latter is compensated by the unlockable Hard Mode--and it lives up to its name) and didn't even allow you to copy abilities! Kirby's Adventure then came out on the NES and blew the original out of the water by offering more levels, the series-trademark copy abilities, and a save feature! Kirby's Dream Land 2, while not quite as good as Adventure, at least brought these improvements down to a portable level.
  • Evil Is Cool: Kirby villains as a whole tend to be very popular. While a lot of them are Generic Doomsday Villains such as Nightmare, Dark Matter, Zero, 02, and Necrodeus, they make up for their lack of personality with their awesomely creepy designs and memorable encounters. Meanwhile, better-fleshed out villains like Marx, Magolor, Queen Sectonia, Taranza, Susie, and President Haltmann are strongly characterized, go through genuine development, and - in the case of Haltmann and Sectonia - are ridiculously tragic in spite of their appalling villainy. Then you've got King Dedede's more malicious outings where he's your typical hammy and fun Nintendo villain, as well as Epileptic Woodsman Void Termina with the crazy implications its existence has for multiple villains and heroes in the series. Uniting them all is amazingly fun boss fights, great boss music, and intriguing lore, which results in one of Nintendo's strongest rogues galleries yet.
  • Fridge Brilliance: Why are the Big Bads of the games usually so nightmarish? Because it's Dream Land - it's only fitting.
  • Fridge Horror: Jim Sterling gives a lecture on the Fridge Horror of the Kirby franchise in this episode of the Jimquisition.
  • Game Breaker: You can destroy The Arena (and later The True Arena) in any game with Hammer and Plasma/Spark: the former has Hammer Flip, which has one of the highest damage outputs of a non one-time-use ability in the game, and the latter provides an extra shield when fully charged. This makes them both Awesome Yet Practical.
    • If you master the quick charge trick, the aforementioned Plasma power from Kirby Super Star becomes the most broken power the series has ever seen. It was slightly Nerfed in the DS version, requiring more charge-up time.
    • There's also Tornado, which has the amazing ability to kill almost every boss in the series. Every boss in Squeak Squad can be killed very easily with it, including the final boss. Cranked Up to Eleven in Kirby's Return to Dream Land, where stronger moves were made available. You can annihilate Magolor Soul pretty easily with Tornado. It's an Infinity-1 Sword in comparison to Super Abilities.
    • Also Hi-Jump, at least in Kirby's Adventure, which not only does high damage to bosses, but makes you invincible while doing so and sends you out of harm's way. Not always useful outside bosses, however.
    • The Copy Helper, TAC, in Kirby Super Star and Kirby Super Star Ultra. Normally, it allows the helper to copy abilities like Kirby himself. But if there's no power to copy (mostly on bosses), it just does massive damage! And it's spammable! See for yourself, especially 2:52. TAC completely heals every time you copy a power, and when they guard, you become immune to all damage as well.
    • In Dream Land 2, Coo + Parasol can rip apart everything including the angry Propeller Bombs. The whole thing got a well-deserved nerf in 3.
    • Chu Chu's Clean power trivializes pretty much any midair segment (short of those that require quick movement).
    • From Return to Dream Land onward, Water and its sister ability Poison are hilariously overpowered thanks to the crazy amounts of invincibility frames their attacks provide, as well as their safe ranged attacks and Poison's Damage Over Time mechanics.
  • Gannon Banned: While "evil/sociopathic Kirby" jokes were once popular (see Alternate Character Interpretation above), they've worn out their welcome a long time ago. It's no surprise that fans get mad when people seriously say that the lovable pink puff is evil despite being a textbook friendly good-hearted hero (albeit with a bit of a brutal streak).
    • Some parts of the Kirby fandom don't seem to accept any other variations of the name "Meta Knight", such as "Meta-Knight" or "Metaknight".
  • Goddamned Bats: The Bronto Burts and Pteran placement in the later levels of Dreamland 3 rival that of the Medusa heads in the early Castlevania games. And yes, also bats.
  • Hell Is That Noise: Combining this with Most Annoying Sound gives you the final phase of "Revenge Of Meta Knight".
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: One look at this commercial for Kirby's Adventure and suddenly the concept of Kirby's Epic Yarn becomes all the more hilarious.
    • Also, Marx's mouth laser attack. "Imma Firin Ma Lazah!"
    • Rick the Hamster. With the Stone ability, he can roll.
  • It's Easy, So It Sucks: The games may be easy, but this is generally averted - they were actually designed to be very easy, yet nobody seems to have any problem. This becomes quite weird when you hear this trope being invoked elsewhere, since how many other games allow you to fly over most of the stage without even having to find a power-up?
  • Jerkass Woobie: Some sources on the English side claim that Zero wants to have a friend, but it cannot. Who could love or be friends with a giant eyeball? Zero is also an entity that feels only negative emotions and is unable to feel happiness or any positive emotion. It attacks Dreamland because it thinks that if it cannot be happy, then neither can anyone else. Sad, isn't it?
  • Magnificent Bastard: Without a doubt, Meta Knight. In fact, even leaning more towards being a Guile Hero in Kirby Right Back At Ya.
    • Marx, who arranged for the sun and moon to fight and used Kirby to summon Nova so he could wish to take over Popstar.
    • Yin-Yarn lands himself right in this spot since he demonstrates his plan to take over Dream Land by having his fake Waddle Dees capture the real ones and then capturing and brainwashing Dedede and Meta Knight and sending them to Patch Land to fight Kirby under his control so he can have Dream Land all to himself. And, unlike most other villains, Yin-Yarn actually succeeds in taking over Dreamland.
  • Memetic Badass: During the Boss Rush in Super Star, you will have to fight a Waddle Dee with five times the health of a normal Waddle Dee. It's still a Curb Stomp Battle Breather Boss (he doesn't move, and you can still inhale him.) A video on the internet portrayed him as an unstoppable god of destruction (via a player who thought it would be hilarious) and the fandom has pumped him up ever since.
    • Kirby himself is this. There are Nintendo fans who firmly believe the pink puff's badassery is only rivaled by Captain Falcon.
  • Memetic Mutation: Gourmet Race has become one of the most remixed songs on YouTube. Sand Canyon and Candy Mountain/Skyhigh are hot on its tail. Stupid Statement Dance Mixes of Lucky Star voice clips to the tune of various Kirby Super Star tracks are also quite popular.
    • [when?] There was a YouTube fad involving Dedede screaming random things after getting beaten at the end of Spring Breeze.
    • INVINCIBLE CANDY! (A running gag on Something Awful Let's Play of any Kirby game, second only to...)
    • DELICIOUS! (Whenever any food item is eaten, but especially Maximum Tomatoes.)
    • The "Kirby ASCII Dance": (> ")> <(" <) (^ ")^ (v ")v
    • Kirby's Epic Yarn brings us Kirby's arrival in Patch Land and his observation that the grass feels like... pants.
  • Moral Event Horizon:
    • Necrodeus split Kirby into ten and quickly killed off each individual form, and he only survived because the last Kirby made a miraculous escape. And this is at the start of the game.
    • Queen Sectonia in Triple Deluxe introduces herself by trying to kill Taranza, who was nothing but loyal to her, for failing to defeat Kirby, establishing just how wicked and twisted of a creature she is.
    • Hyness in Star Allies pulls an even worse one. He tosses around his loyal henchwomen like ragdoll as weapons to batter Kirby with, and then sacrifices them and himself to resurrect Void Termina.
    • If you thought Necrodeus was vile, just wait until you see Fecto Forgo. They brainwash all the animals, open a vortex to capture the Waddle Dees for slave labor (with the convenient side effect of Kirby getting knocked out), brainwash King Dedede into capturing their other half Elfilin, try to crash their world into Planet Popstar (which would've killed billions, Kirby included), and shatter Leongar (the boss fought just before Fecto Forgo absorbs him)'s soul into 300 pieces. And after they're absorbed by Morpho Knight they absorb it back to become Chaos Elfilis. After their defeat and final fusion with Elfilin with the latter now in charge, it's not clear if they did a Heel Face Turn or are still evil and finally got what they wanted all along.
  • Never Live It Down:
    • In Kirby: Squeak Squad, Kirby went on a rampage over a piece of cake. In every other platform game, his goals are more noble, although some fans hang on to this one instance and insist Kirby is a Sociopathic Hero.
    • Some fans also hang onto the few times he's accidentally helped further a bad guy's goals as more evidence that he's a sociopath, never mind that it's only happened four times out of his many adventures, and three times out of four he had no reason to suspect that what he was doing was bad (especially since two of those times had a silver-tongued schemer manipulating him).
  • Nightmare Fuel: The series is placed in Dream Land, so it's obvious that the enemies are related to nightmares. And you WILL have them.
  • Periphery Demographic: Though the games were mostly geared for children just beginning to play video games, a good chunk of the fanbase are experienced gamers who grew up playing them and who gleefully return to each new installment, no matter how short or easy it is. From Super Star Ultra onward, the developers seemed to recognize this and would put in genuinely difficult secret game modes to challenge older veterans, as well as greatly expand on the series' lore in ways that make beloved older characters relevant once more.
  • Rule 34: Not even Kirby is immune to it. Once conventionally attractive female characters like Queen Sectonia, Susie and Clawroline were introduced, Kirby's porn scene exploded.
  • Scenery Porn - Kirby games, which are often produced late into a system's lifespan, will try to use the color palette at its greatest, resulting some truly impressive-looking backgrounds.
  • Self-Imposed Challenge: Doing a single ability run of any game's Boss Rush is popular among fans. Doing one on Squeak Squad Boss Rush is a tad harder - the game actually forces the Eleventh-Hour Superpower on you for the Final Boss, though you can willingly discard your ability, which starts bouncing around the screen as an inhalable star. If you discard your power, inhale the star, and hold it in Kirby's mouth instead of swallowing it, it'll still be in his mouth after you grab the Triple Star, at which point you can swallow your old power and get it back.
  • Squick: In Super Star (and a few other games with co-op). A player can share the effects of a recently consumed food item by walking up to their ally at which point the two get face to face for a second. There's really no other way to interpret this animation as anything but player 1 spitting up what they had just eaten into player 2's mouth...
  • Tastes Like Diabetes: The entire series, until Mood Whiplash kicks in and you fight the final boss.
  • Tear Jerker: The ending of Revenge of the King in Super Star Ultra. Poor Dedede. [context?]
  • That One Boss: Enough examples for their own page.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks / It's Easy, So It Sucks: Nightmare in Dream Land is markedly easier than the game it's a remake of, Kirby's Adventure... and it removed the rotating tower segments from Butter Building for no apparent reason. Fans were not pleased.
  • Too Dumb to Live: Kirby and Meta Knight in Kirby Squeak Squad. Why would freakin' Meta Knight steal a chest containing cake!? Meta Knight also fought Kirby instead of bothering to let him know that the chest contained the Monster of the Week. At least Kirby has the excuse of being childlike in his impulsiveness.
    • Meta Knight is shown to have a sweet tooth in some games, so Kirby has a reason to think the chest would contain his cake.
    • King Dedede and Meta Knight in Kirby's Adventure. Neither tells Kirby that taking the Star Rod will unleash Nightmare from his prison. Meta Knight is implied to be preparing Kirby for the fight with Nightmare, but that doesn't justify it.
  • Wild Mass Guessing: We've got a whole page for it here.
  • Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Zero can't feel positive emotions and is jealous of Dream Land's happiness, reasoning that if it can't be happy, nothing will be. Due to this, some of the Kirby fandom sees Zero as a Draco in Leather Pants.
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  1. ↑ Or not, since this boss fight, while not Nintendo Hard, is pretty painful the first few times, due to the fact that Galacta Knight is basically a computer controlled, white and feather-winged, extra-badass Meta-Knight with a lance and shield, making the fight as fun as it is awesome.
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