Video Game / Super Kirby Clash

"Long, long ago, in a faraway realm, there was a beautiful, peaceful land called the Dream Kingdom. One surprising day, Hornhead went on a rampage across the Seaside. And so it came to pass that Team Kirby set off on an adventure to restore peace to the kingdom..."

— Opening

Super Kirby Clash is a spinoff game from the Kirby video games for the Nintendo Switch. It is the "sequel" of sorts to Team Kirby Clash Deluxe, which, in turn, is the "deluxe" version of the Mini-Game of Kirby: Planet Robobot, Team Kirby Clash. It was released in September 4, 2019 in North America, and September 5, 2019 in Japan and Europe. The game is "free to start", meaning that while you can download and play it for free, it also features microtransactions that can help you to progress.

As in the original Team Kirby Clash, players can assume one of four roles:

• Sword Hero: Based on the Sword ability. A quick-witted, blade-wielding Kirby that gets up close and personal with foes, using his Sword to inflict rapid damage, particularly with his Spin Slash. His shield can project a force field that defends himself and allies from enemy damage.
• Hammer Lord: Based on the Hammer ability. A Kirby that wields a hefty hammer, the Hammer Lord has the highest damage output of all the roles, especially with the power of his mighty Hammer Flip attack. However, the weight of his weapon hampers his mobility and ability to fly.
• Dr. Healmore: Based on the Doctor ability from Planet Robobot. A Kirby that carries a wide array of flasks with dubious contents, Dr. Healmore can utilize medical equipments as weapons and various elemental attacks that hit in a wide range. His Charged Attack can summon a field that heals allies, and he revives fallen Kirbies faster than other roles.
• Beam Mage: Based on the Beam ability. A Kirby that wields a staff imbued with the powers of electricity and time, Beam Mage is a long-ranged damage dealer that can pack on the pain using his collection of beam spells and electric attacks. His Charged Attack, Time Beam, has the ability to stop time if it hits its target enough times.

Just like Team Kirby Clash and Team Kirby Clash Deluxe, up to 4 players fight various bosses under a time limit and gain experience and Character Levels to increase their abilities. This game features more bosses and difficult challenges compared to the previous game. There are Fragments obtained from bosses that you can use to buy rarer equipment, as well as Gem Apples that you can gain from either completing achievements, harvesting them from the Gem Apple Tree, or purchasing them with real money. The in-game Shoppe now sells new equipment (weapons and armors) that strengthen your fighters, potions that temporarily empower you, new Codexes that give permanent upgrades, Stickers (new to this game) that are used for in-game chat, and Gem Apples.

Quests are now split into two kinds: Story Quest and Party Quest, each with their separate "vigor" that is consumed whenever you go into a stage, and regenerate in certain intervals. Party Quests let you play with friends online, or locally. There's also the Adventurer's Bell that can be used to summon a number of Wandering Adventurers to help your quests; it can only be used once per day, but paying with Gem Apples lets you do it more. amiibo is also supported, granting Fragments for scanning various amiibo, and the Shrine of Passwords lets you enter passwords (usually given via the official Kirby Twitter account) that gives you Gem Apples, Support Items and/or Fragments.

The story progression is further expanded from Team Kirby Clash Deluxe: there are now 8 areas and each area has even more fights, the tougher of which you have to unlock by spending Gem Apples and/or beating the harder "Ordeal" bosses; doing the latter also unlocks new areas and fights, and lets you purchase better gear.

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Tropes occurring in this work

• Absurdly High Level Cap: Surprisingly averted. The max level is 100, but given how utterly nuts the hardest Quests get, you will need all the help you can get. The True Final Boss has a recommended level of 90, which isn't too far from the max level compared to a lot of games.
• Achievement System: Meeting certain objectives awards "Heroic Missions", a list of achievements that award Gem Apples and Rare Fragments. There are now 900 of them, and they're now associated with a mechanic called Heroic Rank, which raises your Level Cap when you clear enough Heroic Missions.
• Allegedly Free Game: This game is free to download, but if you need a lot of Gem Apples quickly, you're gonna need some real money. Buying 5,000 Gem Apples will also upgrade the tree in the town so that it will produce 2,000 of them when it's harvesting time.
• Alternate Continuity: Carrying over from Team Kirby Clash Deluxe, this game takes place outside of the main Kirby continuity in an Alternate Universe called the Dream Kingdom (as opposed to Dream Land). Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe reveals that the Kirby Clash universe isn't so far removed from the main series as it seems.
• Amazing Technicolor Battlefield: The Decisive Battlefield and, new to this game, the Dreamscape.
• Ambiguously Related: It isn't clarified whether Parallel Susie and President Parallel Susie are supposed to be the same individual or two similar beings from different universes. The former is implied by how Parallel Susie settles down in the Castle Village after the President's final defeat, but the latter is implied by the flavor text and how the President's Business Suit has different corporate logos on it compared to Parallel Susie's.
• An Adventurer Is You: Each of the four roles fill some of the categories as in the original sub-game:
  • Sword Hero - DPS/Tank hybrid (specifically the Scrapper subtype with his quick attacks, and with his special party shield)
  • Hammer Lord - DPS (specifically the Blademaster subtype, somewhat ironically)
  • Doctor Healmore - Healer (with a bit of Alchemist mixed in since he is able to create elemental attacks with his vials via Science Lab).
  • Beam Mage - Status Effect Guy (Time Stands Still, to be exact) mixed with Ranged DPS.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • When you're fighting flying enemies (e.g. Greater Doomer, Kracko, Telepathos), Beam Mage's Time Beam attack will become more effective and will stop the enemy in less amount of hits. It's to compensate the fact that, well, they're flying and thus the Time Beam cannot hit them most of the time.
  • The more Gem Apples you buy from Magolor, the bigger the Gem Apple tree in the hub grows, causing it to bear more Gem Apples and making it easier to obtain more without paying. After you buy 5,000 Gem Apples ($40 USD), the Gem Apple tree hits the maximum size — you can still buy more, but since the tree bears 2,000 per harvest and it won't grow any more, there's no reason to.
• Art Evolution: Thanks to the shift in consoles, the graphics become much cleaner to look at, with the models being brought up to the caliber of Kirby Star Allies. One notable example is Landia, as his teeth are now fully modeled and visible in his mouth rather than just being flat textures.
• Artificial Brilliance: Unlike the AI helpers in earlier Kirby games, the teammates in this game are fairly good at dodging and attacking, with only a few hiccups. Of note is that they won't pick up Team Meteor pieces while time is stopped because of a Beam Mage's Time Beam, as they know Team Meteor cancels out the timestop.
• Artificial Stupidity: Of course, even with how brilliant they can be, there are still some facepalm-worthy moments.
  • If a healing area is casted, and it unfortunately spawned below an enemy, which is about to fall, they'd run for the healing area. Same when it's on the ground and they're covering the area.
  • They don't seem to remember how to float sometimes, leading to repeated bumps into the enemy, which causes damage, and sometimes even a KO.
  • If needed food spawns and it's right next to an enemy, more often than not, they'll break their back to get it, oftentimes losing far more health than eating said food would give back.
  • When a boss gets furious or when a new boss enters in a battle with two or more, the AI Kirbys will charge up attacks, oftentimes to their max charge level and then let loose. However, since the enemy is invincible during the entire time they spawn or get furious, that means any attacks unleashed at that time won't deal any damage.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: It is very tempting to redirect all attention towards a Rare Fragment or Star Chest on the off chance the boss drops one, damage be damned. Ditto for a Power Tablet, although less so.
• Autobots, Rock Out!: It's pretty much standard for any Galacta Knight appearance. Aeon Hero (Light) and (Dark) take it up a notch: Can you say "Galacta Knight but with symphonic metal?"
• Award-Bait Song: In a first for the Kirby series, Super Kirby Clash has a vocal theme called "Green Tree Memories from Kirby," performed by Natsumi Iwaide.
• A Winner Is You: The reward for defeating Aeon Hero (Dark) is quite underwhelming compared to the ending for defeating King D-Mind and Aeon Hero (Light), as all you get is a congratulatory message from Bandana Waddle Dee - you don't even get to watch the credits. That being said, exactly what he says is rather interesting, and could possibly be setting up a future Kirby game...
  Bandana Waddle Dee: Woah! Welcome back, Kirby! I'm so relieved you made it back safe! You beat the ancient hero, strongest warrior in the galaxy! I guess that makes you the strongest now! Do you think, maybe, in some far-flung future, the ancient hero might somehow come back? Well, if he did, I'll bet some young person like you would just step up and save the world again! Thanks SO much for everything you've done, Super Team Kirby!
• Bait-and-Switch Boss: Tougher: King D-Mind. It initially appears that Team Kirby will fight Parallel Nightmare at the Decisive Battlefield (the quest selection has a silhouetted portrait shown), but he instead opens a portal that summons King D-Mind. And like with Dark Taranza before him, King D-Mind turns against Parallel Nightmare, smacking him into the background before the battle starts. Unlike Dark Taranza, though, this doesn't kill Parallel Nightmare.
• Battle Aura: SDX equipment is enveloped in a faint aura of light that bears semblance to flame.
• Beam Spam: A number of Parallel Nightmare's attacks are just about firing as many explosive stars as he possibly can, with one attack in particular being a massive flood of stars from the background that strike the foreground at seemingly random, exploding all over the place.
• Big Bad: Most of the battles and chaos seem to be instigated by Parallel Nightmare, and Team Kirby repeatedly tracks and fights him until the end.
• Bling of War:
  • The Rarity 6 gear are all golden. They're also described as gears that older heroes used to use.
  • Even better is the Platinum Gear - not only do they shine and gleam brightly, but they have phenomenal stats. They also require one Rare Fragment each (along with 99 of other fragments and Gem Apples) to buy.
  • DX Gear also sparkles. Which turns said Platinum gear up a notch.
  • This game adds the Rarity 15 Starlight equipment, even more elaborate versions of the Platinum series equipment that have gold-colored headgear and equally-colorful weapons. The SDX Gear, also new to this game, also emit bright auras.
• Blocking Stops All Damage: As per the norm, Perfect Guarding (pressing Guard right before you get hit) prevents you from taking damage. Sword Hero's Guard can also summon a Deflector Shield that protects both the user and all allies within the barrier from taking any damage regardless of timing.
• Boss Game: The game uses the core gameplay of the 3DS mainline Kirby games, but is centered entirely around fighting bosses.
• Boss Remix: It's hard to tell at first, but "Save the Kingdom! Ordeal Quest" and "Save the World! Ordeal Quest" are actually arrangements of the Castle Village theme. It's made more obvious when the village music changes once enough Gem Apples are purchased with real money.
• The Bus Came Back:
  • Nightmare makes his return (or rather, his Parallel self shows up) in his first prominent role in a Kirby game since Nightmare in Dreamland, which itself was a remake of the NES game Kirby's Adventure, meaning he hasn't been in a new role since 1993.
  • Hornhead and Flame Galboros were last seen in Kirby: Triple Deluxe and now they both reappear here.
• Call-Back:
  • In Toughest: The Final Battle, Parallel Nightmare dies the same way Nightmare did in Kirby: Nightmare in Dreamland, Throat Light and all.
  • Galacta Knight turns against another being that summoned him from across time and space.
  • One of the Parallel Susies is the president of the Haltmann Works Company in her timeline, bringing to mind Susie's stated goal of rebuilding the company in Kirby Star Allies.
• The Cameo: As bosses are beaten, background characters from other Kirby games are seen:
  • In the Port Village, Taranza sits on Magolor's shoppe. Meta Knight is flying around in the background, occasionally landing near the water, Kine and Rick are hanging out on benches on the opposite sides of the screen, Coo will fly back and forth, and Francisca and Flamberge are hanging out near the water while talking.
  • In the Castle Village, Hyness will fly along the background, Gooey rolls around behind the quest sign near a Parasol Waddle Dee, Parallel Susie is relaxing on Magolor's Shoppe, Zan Partizanne is relaxing by herself on a bench near the right edge of the screen, and Adeleine and Ribbon are near the left edge of the screen with Ribbon floating above Adeleine who is hard at work on a painting.
  • In a similar vein to the Lor Starcutter appearing in Galacta Knight's "space beam" attack in Planet Robobot, the Jamba Heart will sometimes appear when Aeon Hero uses the space beam.
• Cap:
  • You can only have 20 heroes summoned with the Adventurer's Bell; getting any more after that point will cause the oldest heroes to leave.
  • You can buy up to 5000 paid Gem Apples, which will level up the Gem Apple Tree to the max, which will now give 2000 Gem Apples per harvest. It's still possible to buy more Gem Apples with real money, but the game will try to discourage you from doing so.
  • The level cap is 100, although the cap is now tied to Heroic Missions. Raising your Heroic Rank by clearing Heroic Missions will increase the cap by 10 Levels at a time.
• Charged Attack: Each role possess one: Sword Hero's Spin Slash, Hammer Lord's Hammer Flip, Beam Mage's Time Beam and Doctor Healmore's Healing Area. The last one also has the Science Lab move where he creates a special concoction that explodes with different, random effects.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Strangely, in spite of most of the Star Allies Dream Friends appearing in this game as cameos, both King Dedede and Susie are absent, with both being substituted by their Evil Counterparts.
• Circling Birdies: If you or a teammate gets stunned for overdoing a guard, they'll have a halo of stars circling their head. Likewise, whenever a boss gets hit by a Team Meteor, they'll have the same thing, albeit with a different effect. This is averted with Aeon Hero in all of his forms.
• Collision Damage: Most bosses use this, with some rare exceptions, like Whispy Woods.
• Combat Resuscitation: If one of your team members lose all of their HP, they can be revived by having another member walk close to them and press Y to revive them with half health. Beware, however, that the more you revive, the longer it'll take to revive.
• Combination Attack: The "Team Meteor". By collecting 4 Power Tablets that the boss drops (after they Turn Red), your team then enters a "minigame" where you have to stop the moving circle right in the middle of an arc in order to strengthen your resulting meteor attack. The boss will be stunned after that, leaving them open for further attacks.
• Composite Character:
  • The Greater Doomer has attacks from both the Fire and Ice Sphere Doomers from Kirby's Return to Dream Land, but in a Non-Elemental flavor.
  • Mr. Frosty's design in this game is based on his smaller, rounder design in the 3DS games but integrates elements of his Star Allies design, including detailed fur and a light blue denim patch on his behind.
• Damage-Sponge Boss: Like in previous Kirby Clash games, the bosses all have high amounts of HP. As you get better gear, you might find the battles easier and easier, but usually, to get better results, you'd like to break up the damage-boosting potions as well before the fight, especially with the later bosses.
• Dark Is Evil: Aeon Hero (Dark). He’s basically Aeon Hero (Light) on even more steroids.
• Dark Reprise: "Decisive Battle with a Mighty Boss," the battle theme that plays in certain Tougher Story Quests and against the first phase of King D-Mind's Revenge is a dark and depressing version of Castle Lololo.
• Death Mountain: The Empyrean.
• Defend Command: Like in previous Kirby games, all Kirbys can block incoming attacks; but Sword Hero has it better thanks to his Hero Shield that puts up a Deflector Shield in a certain radius around him, giving extra protection to his teammates and dispersing most projectiles.
• Demoted to Extra: Most of the main villains of Team Kirby Clash Deluxe end up as this thanks to the removal of the Black Mirror plotline. As such, Taranza is kicked out of the Big Bad role in favor of Parallel Nightmare. In one quest, Team Kirby mistakes him for Parallel Nightmare and then fights him; he then joins the heroes afterward.
  • King D-Mind is reduced to the Disc-One Final Boss of the game thanks to still appearing via Parallel Nightmare's dimensional rifts
  • Parallel Landia, the third-to-last boss of the game, doesn't show up until the near end of the game as one of the Super bosses.
  • And last but certainly not least, Dark Taranza. Originally the Big Bad of Deluxe, he is outright reduced to new gear for Doctor Healmore with the removal of the Black Mirror.
• Diminishing Returns for Balance: The more times you manage to stop time during a battle, the more Time Beams it'll take for the next time stop to trigger.
• Disc-One Final Boss: Defeating King D-Mind causes the credits to roll. However, Parallel Nightmare is still on the loose, so Team Kirby jumps right back into the action. This also unlocks the Castle Village hub area from the original Team Kirby Clash Deluxe, the Grasslands area, and Toughest bosses.
• Doomy Dooms of Doom: The naming convention for the Rarity 14 Sword Hero gear, based on Morpho Knight. The description for the headpiece even describes said character as "the knight of doom".
• Easter Egg:
  • If Colossal Spear Waddle Dee is allowed to live for an extended period of time, it may perform a rare animation where it turns to the camera and waves at the player.
  • Like in the previous game, if you talk to Magolor eight times in a row, he will eventually tell Kirby to get back to questing.
• Elemental Powers: Half of the classes in the game utilize elemental manipulation as the Sword Hero uses standard sword attacks while the Hammer Lord ignites his hammer on fire to attack.
  • Beam Mage: Time Manipulation
  • Doctor Healmore: A combination of Fire, Ice, Lightning manipulation that is randomized through Science Lab.
• Equipment-Based Progression: It goes parallel with your quest progression; whenever you clear certain Quests (usually right before or after Ordeals), you'll be able to buy higher rarity gear.
• Equipment Upgrade:
  • After clearing seven Tougher Story Quests, you can upgrade your gears to their "DX" versions in Magolor's Shoppe. Not all gear will be available to upgrade at the start, clearing more Quests will unlock more DX upgrades for later rarity-level Gear. All of them will require the "Rare Fragment" that the bosses drop rarely (or from completing harder Heroic Missions). DX items are shown as sparkling all over.
  • Clearing two Toughest Story Quests after clearing the Venom Kracko Ordeal also unlocks "SDX" upgrades, even more potent upgrades that can be purchased after buying an equip's DX variation.
• Experience Booster: The purchasable EXP Orb doubles your EXP gain for 30 minutes. The Mini version of it, introduced in this game, boosts EXP gain by 1.5x for 10 minutes.
• Final Boss, New Dimension: All of the final boss fights take place in an area called the Dreamscape that combines elements of the Fountain of Dreams and Another Dimension.
• "Get Back Here!" Boss: Whispy Woods will retreat to the background once he Turns Red. Pyribbit does it regularly, as do Telepathos and Taranza. Later, Parallel Susie and King D-Mind also will retreat to the background for some attacks. In a variant, there's also the high flying Landia. All of them make the objective of "defeating them in a certain time window" harder.
• Giant Mook: You'll fight a Colossal Spear Waddle Dee as one of the early bosses. It's just like a regular Spear Waddle Dee, only larger and slower. Later you'll fight Colossal Double-Team and Triple-Team where Colossal Kabu (the spinning moai head mook) and Colossal Hothead (the "Fire" mook) join in the fun. This game also adds a Colossal Driblee (the "Water" mook) to the mix as part of Team Colossal Quad.
• Green Hill Zone: The Grasslands.
• High-Class Glass: All Doctor Healmore outfits come with either a monocle or glasses.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • Parallel Nightmare summons King D-Mind to battle Team Kirby. The moment he appears, King D-Mind turns to Parallel Nightmare and immediately slugs him in the face with his hammer, blasting Parallel Nightmare into the background.
  • This ultimately proves fatal when Parallel Nightmare attempts to summon Aeon Hero (read: Galacta Knight), who, rather than booting him aside, outright slashes Nightmare across the back while the latter was distracted, and turns his attention to Team Kirby.
• Improbable Weapon User: While the other classes use sensible weapons, Doctor Healmore uses flasks. Justified, though, in that he uses it to spray medicinal water above him, create concoctions of Fire, Ice, Lightning, and most importantly, for his special move, Healing Area.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler:
  • The Rarity 14 Sword Hero gear is based on Morpho Knight, a key character in Star Allies who is meant to be a surprise.
  • The Rarity 14 Flask casually spoils the Dimension Mirror's role in Sectonia's demise.
• Legacy Boss Battle:
  • The fight against King D-Mind is, more or less, just a reuse of the Shadow Dedede fight from Kirby: Triple Deluxe... up until he Turns Red.
  • The fights against Parallel Nightmare definitely qualify, since the original counterpart for him hasn't been seen in quite some time, and the vast majority of his attacks have been overhauled with some new versions, and a number of attacks added.
  • There's also the Aeon Hero, Galacta Knight, who got some new iterations of his attacks, and reappears after having gotten his fight stolen by Morpho Knight in Kirby Star Allies.
  • The fight against Taranza is a variant wherein the fight in this game, unlike the previous one, has no plot reason to exist other than mistaken identity on Team Kirby's part; this just allows for a new fight against Taranza to happen, and later iterations with a couple new attacks.
• Lethal Lava Land: The Volcano.
• Level-Up Fill-Up: If you happen to level up after completing a Quest, your vigor will be filled back to full.
• Light Is Not Good: Aeon Hero (Light), the Final Boss of Super Kirby Clash. He's basically Galacta Knight on steroids.
• Mad Scientist: Doctor Healmore has this for its Rarity 8 equipment: its armor looks like a Brain in a Jar headgear combined with goggles and its weapon is a beaker. The description states the brain is just a toy, though.
• Microtransactions: You can buy Gem Apples from Magolor with real funds, which also causes your Gem Apple tree's harvest to increase at certain intervals. Purchasing 5,000 of them levels the tree up to the point where it throws 2,000 at you in one harvest (every 12 hours). The game will actually still allow you to buy more Gem Apples, but it always warns you every time you go to use the shop that doing so will not level the tree up any further. As such you still can, but the game tries to convince you to just wait out the 12 hour respawn.
• Magical Girl: The Rarity 8 Beam Mage gear makes Kirby look like a Magical Girl.
• Mighty Glacier: Hammer Lord runs the slowest of all roles, but his hammer attacks deal the highest damage in the game (outside of Team Meteor) and he also has the highest stamina.
• Mission-Pack Sequel: The game is essentially this to Team Kirby Clash Deluxe, despite being on a new console.
• Money for Nothing: Based on how you play the game, one of two things can happen.
  • If you never spend any money, equipment progression slows down significantly at endgame due to the rising Gem Apple cost of equipment. As a result, you will find yourself hoarding a ridiculous number of each Fragment with nothing to spend them on because you're waiting to get more Gem Apples to use them.
  • On the other hand, maxing out the Gem Apple Tree produces the reverse effect, where the game constantly supplies you with a vast hoard of Gem Apples that you will eventually have too many of once you finish gearing your party and buying the Codexes.
• Money Multiplier:
  • Buying Gem Apples with real money will also make the Gem Apple Tree grow and can produce more Gem Apples.
  • You can purchase (Elemental) Fragment Codex items that permanently multiplies the amount of elemental fragments you gain, up to 3 times the amount.
  • Some equipment has a "Material Gain" bonus to add to how many items you get after winning a battle.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Like in the original, when your level is at a multiple of 5, in addition to your actual stat gains you'll also get a message saying that a "stat" such as Puffiness or Eye Sparkle increased (not that it matters). A very similar message appeared after defeating Computer Virus in Kirby Super Star.
  • The Rarity 10 and 11 gears^note In the previous game, they were Rarity 8 and 9 are based on several Kirby characters: Dark Matter Blade and Landia (for Sword Hero), Wham Bam Rock and Dark Mind (for Hammer Lord), Drawcia (complete with the Magical Paintbrush for your staff) and Magolor (for Beam Mage) and Chuchu and Taranza (for Doctor Healmore). The rarity 12 gears are Palette Swaps for them: Parallel Landia, King D-Mind's Revenge, Dark Taranza, and Shopkeeper Magolor.
  • There's also the new Rarity 14 tier, which is based on other Kirby villains: Morpho Knight for Sword Hero, Masked Dedede for Hammer Lord, Sectonia for Dr. Healmore, and Marx (based on his Star Allies appearance) for Beam Mage.
  • King D-Mind is (according to Word of God) based on how Masked Dedede's mask looks like a toned down version of Dark Mind's helmet; thus D-Mind could be seen as the "Masked" Shadow Dedede.
  • From the second fight onward, Parallel Nightmare uses attacks that the original used in Kirby Mass Attack's Strato Patrol EOS sub-game.
• Nerf:
  • As in Kirby Fighters Deluxe, floating is nerfed to prevent infinite camping/cheesing in upper corners of the map.
  • Hammer's mobility is vastly reduced in this game to give it a Mighty Glacier role. While it still boasts monstrous damage output, the inability to move any faster than a normal walk and practically nonexistent float ability makes it much harder to cheese with Hammer.
• Nerf Arm: The Rarity 8 gear sets are funny-looking: fish-themed equipment for Sword Hero, a set of "lucky equipment" for Hammer Lord (complete with fake mustache), Magical Girl hair and staff for Beam Mage, and Mad Scientist-themed gear for Doctor Healmore. And they're fairly powerful too.
• Nintendo Hard:
  • The game has some outrageously brutal boss fights towards the Story Quest endgame, necessitating either Forced Level-Grinding or buying Gem Apples to get the best gear for your team to stand a chance, much less get Platinum Rank.
  • The Super+ Party Quests take this far harder in the post game, where even being at the same level as the boss can result in you taking 1/4 health damage from a single hit while wearing the best possible gear.
• Oh, Crap!: Parallel Nightmare's reaction when King D-Mind turns against him.
• Only I Can Kill Him: Any human-controlled player has to deal the finishing blow to any enemy fought. CPU teammates cannot; the sole exceptions are for when time is close to running out, using the Team Meteor for the final blow or when a human player is playing as Doctor Healmore.
• Our Dragons Are Different:
  • The Ice Dragon from Kirby's Dream Land 2 reappears here. This game also introduces the Electric Dragon that fights with electricity instead.
  • There's also Landia from Kirby's Return to Dream Land, a 4-headed winged dragon that can split into 4 smaller one-headed dragons when he Turns Red. It has two variants: Landia EX, returning from Kirby's Return to Dream Land, and Parallel Landia, returning from Team Kirby Clash Deluxe.
• Palette Swap:
  • Magolor appears in white and green coloration in this game. Once you collect everything from his Shoppe, he goes back to his usual white and blue.
  • Taranza has a more purple coloration than his usual red. He too goes back to normal after he's defeated in the Ordeal Quest against him.
  • Parallel Nightmare, (President) Parallel Susie, Parallel Landia, and King D-Mind are all this to their otherworldly counterparts.
  • The True Final Boss, Aeon Hero (Dark), is this to Aeon Hero (Light).
  • Roughly half of the new equipment added in this game is variations of previously-existing gear with modified stats, including a blue version of the fish hat for Sword Hero and a "princess"-themed version of the Magical Girl equipment for Beam Mage.
• Palmtree Panic: The Seaside is the first area, with the Grasslands now a late-game area instead.
• Play Every Day: You can harvest the Gem Apple Tree twice a day, once every 12 hours. You can also ring the Adventurer Bell every 24 hours which also gives you Fragments and more Gem Apples.
• Poisonous Person: Aside from the returning Miasmoros, there's Venom Kracko, a purple cloud with a reptilian eye. In addition to sharing most of his moveset with Kracko, he can spread poison clouds or acidic rain with various attacks that inflict heavy damage to the Kirbys.
• Post-End Game Content: After you clear all of the Story Quests, you unlock a number of new Party Quests to face off against at a considerably higher difficulty. The final Story Quest is "Super" difficulty and recommends that you be level 60, while most of the post-game Party Quests are Super difficulty and go higher than that. Clearing this content ultimately unlocks "Super+" difficulty Party Quests, which recommend that you be from level 85 to 90: this accounts for some of the hardest fights in the game, including the True Final Boss.
• Power Equals Rarity: How the rarity tiers work in this game. The rarer the equipment, the better the stats.
• Practical Currency: Gem Apples, aside from being used to purchase things in the Shoppe, are also used for:
  • Unlocking most of the fights.
  • Recharging your vigor meter to full.
  • Extending the time limit of your mission.
  • Reviving all of your team members should they die.
  • Consequent ringing of the Adventurer Bell (after the free limit of once a day).
• Quad Damage: You can buy damage-boosting potions from Magolor's Shoppe that you can consume before a battle; you can consume up to 5 at a time.
• Random Drop Booster: This game introduces the Rare Fragment Codex, a support item that increases the chance of the boss dropping a Rare Fragment. The more codexes you buy, the higher the chances.
• Rank Inflation: Like the previous game, this one brings back the Bronze-Silver-Gold-Platinum ranking system from Return to Dream Land's Ability Challenges. Scoring for these ranks is determined by how long it took to beat the boss and if the boss was beaten. Defeating all bosses in a stage with Platinum rank will net you a good amount of Gem Apples.
• Recurring Boss: Parallel Nightmare is fought no less than three times. While his initial early-game encounter in the Ruins is a straight recreation of the original's Kirby's Adventure fight with minor enhancements, later fights drastically mix up his moveset with several new attacks.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over:
  • Taranza's garb is colored red and black (along with purple) in this game. When you beat him, he goes back to his usual colors.
  • Parallel Susie also has this color scheme instead of the regular Susie's pink and white, and she's definitely more vicious than Susie.
• Ruins for Ruins' Sake: The Ruins.
• Scenery Porn: Thanks to the move to the Star Allies engine, this game remasters the previous game's graphics, resulting in some gorgeous battle environments.
• Shifting Sand Land: The Dunes.
• Shows Damage:
  • Unlike many Kirby games, bosses here lack a Life Meter; instead you'll only get indicators such as them turning and then flashing red, increasingly rapidly, along with the message "You've almost defeated it!"
  • In a variant, Parallel Nightmare ends up taking visible damage after getting smacked by King D-Mind at the Decisive Battlefield, chipping a horn off, cracking his pauldrons and exposing one of his eyes through his visor.
• Smart People Wear Glasses: Doctor Healmore's garb always come with a pair of glasses (or a monocle). He's also pitched as a scholarly doctor.
• Socialization Bonus: Playing online costs less Party Quest Vigor and awards 30% more EXP by default.
• Starting Equipment: You'll start the game wearing dull-looking basic equipments for each class.
• Stealth Pun:
  • The Gem Apple Tree is a subtle reference to the saying "money doesn't grow on trees". The irony being that the Gem Apples are the game's currency.
  • The "DX" in DX upgrades stands for "Deluxe". The third level upgrade added in this game tacks on an "S" to it, meaning "Super", thus making it "Super Deluxe"^note Super Deluxe is the Japanese name for Super Star. This is not present in the Japanese version, as DX and SDX upgrades are referred to as "Z" and "SZ" upgrades in that language.
• Suddenly Voiced: Parallel Nightmare now has Evil Laugh voice clips similar to 3DS Kirby villains like Sectonia and Haltmann. Amazingly, this is a reprise - Nightmare's Japanese voice actor from Kirby: Right Back at Ya! provided these new voice clips.
• Summon Bigger Fish: Parallel Nightmare does this twice. Both times he gets his ass kicked by the thing he summoned as a result.
• Swordfish Sabre: Sword Hero's rarity 8 weapon is a literal swordfish.
• That Makes Me Feel Angry: When an enemy takes Turns Red, they'll roar with the message "[Boss name] is furious!"
• Time-Limit Boss: All of the fights are set on time limits. Clearing one with enough time left grants a special bonus that's pretty much required for the highest rank. If you exceed the time limit without defeating the boss, you may choose to extend the timer with Gem Apples. Time Beam can also stop the timer once enough blasts hit the enemy.
• Time Stands Still: When used enough, Beam Mage's "Time Beam" will briefly stop the boss (and timer) in its tracks.
• Trick Boss: Unlike the King D-Mind example above, Team Kirby does get to fight Parallel Nightmare in The Final Battle Story Quest at the Dreamscape. However, when it initially appears that Parallel Nightmare is defeated, he gets back up and opens up another portal, this time summoning the Aeon Hero (ergo, Galacta Knight). Aeon Hero fatally slashes Parallel Nightmare while the latter's back is turned, and he then replaces him for the rest of the battle.
• True Final Boss: For the Party Quests, it's Aeon Hero (Dark), a drastically souped up Nintendo Hard version of Galacta Knight. Aeon Hero (Light) meets this quota for the Story Quests.
• Turns Red: "[Boss Name] is furious!" After which the bosses will whip up stronger attacks and tactics. This happens to every single boss in the entire game^note In the event of a group fight with two to four bosses in sequence, the last one is the only one to do this. The only exceptions are Aeon Hero and his variants: "Aeon Hero's power has been unleashed!"
• Underground Monkey: Many bosses are variants of other bosses, typically in elemental flavors, like Spark Bonkers (Bonkers but with electric attacks and a mohawk) and Mr. Floaty (Mr. Frosty but with water-based attacks and a beach-themed design).
• Unexplained Recovery: Parallel Nightmare gets himself sliced in half and disintegrated when he summons the Aeon Hero. He's back for more in the Super+ quests.
• The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: Super Kirby Clash demotes Decisive Battlefield to the Disc-One Final Dungeon and instead has the Dreamscape, the 8th area. If you thought that the Decisive Battlefield was ominous and colorful...
• Wake-Up Call Boss: Whispy Woods, of all bosses, becomes this, like in the previous game. Whispy Woods starts like what you'd expect, a stationary boss that shoots weak apples and air shots. But after he Turns Red, he'll imitate Flowery Woods and jump towards the background for long-ranged attacks, and then come back down to the foreground for heavy stomping attacks, something that prior bosses cannot do. He will push you to get better gear and/or use a lot of damage-boosting potions and playing better.
• Walking Spoiler:
  • King D-Mind, just like in the original Team Kirby Clash Deluxe. This time, it's even worse since he's been demoted to the Disc-One Final Boss for Team Kirby to take on before they continue their search for Parallel Nightmare.
  • Galacta Knight (or as he's called in this game, Aeon Hero), as expected. Not only that, but he came along with two new light and dark forms, and even the heart spears from Star Allies to his battles. The fact that he's even implied to be one of those "four heroes of yore" to seal away Void Termina makes it even worse.
• Warmup Boss: The Colossal Waddle Dee from the previous game is replaced with a Colossal Spear Waddle Dee, who is one of many bosses that can be fought immediately after clearing the first quest. The first boss is also changed to Hornhead from Triple Deluxe, who is at least aggressive in nature, but still essentially as easy.
• Wham Shot:
  • Parallel Nightmare, after being beaten for the third time in Story Mode, summons another portal. Out of the portal comes Galacta Knight, or in this game...
  "Aeon Hero has appeared!"
  • During the fight against Aeon Hero (Dark), one attack he uses is to fire out a flurry of spears... the same heart-tipped spears that were used to seal away Void Termina in Kirby Star Allies.

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