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He's the super tuff pink puff!

"Welcome to Dream Land, a kingdom famous for peace and quiet.
It's the perfect little land... if you like that sort of thing."
Intro to Kirby's Epic Yarn

Kirby is a multimedia franchise co-owned by Nintendo and HAL Laboratory and originally created by Masahiro Sakurai. The games star the titular Kirby, who is a young, pink, blobby, alien ...thingy. He can suck enemies into his mouth then swallow them, spit them out with incredible force, or — starting with the second game, Kirby's Adventureabsorb their powers after devouring them. He takes the old maxim "you are what you eat" quite literally. Throughout most of his adventures, he journeys across Dream Land, a fictional country on the distant Planet Popstar, to protect it from alien invaders and other threats to his home.

The Kirby games are typically designed to be easy for young (or beginner) gamers to complete, but to also provide some extra challenges for experienced players, with one of the earlier challenges being the Extra Game in the first game, Kirby's Dream Land, which adds more enemies to the stages and replaces some of the ones from the normal one with tougher ones.note 

In development, Kirby's design was originally intended to be a mere placeholder for the Player Character. However, Sakurai grew attached to the Waddling Head, and decided to stray from the plan and keep him as the protagonist. He was initially known as Popopo, the star of Twinkle Popo, but this was wisely rechristened from a list of name candidates. It helped that the lawyer who defended Nintendo in an important lawsuit from Universal involving Donkey Kong was named John Kirby.

Besides games, Kirby starred in his own anime series, Hoshi no Kirby (the franchise's Japanese name, meaning "Kirby of the Stars"); Sakurai retained a lot of creative input on the show. It was licensed by 4Kids Entertainment, so naturally a lot of the darker elements from the Japanese version were Bowdlerised out. The dub, retitled Kirby: Right Back at Ya!, was still successful, managing to stay on the air for all 100 episodes.

There are also many, many manga adaptations of the games, most of which are yonkoma that have not been released outside of Japan. Kirby even has his own books, starring in a series of self-titled light novels (mostly Japan-only) and a series of picture books called It's Kirby Time (also Japan-only, but with web-exclusive official localizations).

Kirby has also been featured as a regular character in the Super Smash Bros. series (also created by Sakurai), and as of Brawl, he is joined by recurring side characters King Dedede (the hammer-wielding, self-proclaimed king of Dream Land who debuted in the very first game as a villainous character, but later became more of an anti-hero) and Meta Knight (an honorable masked swordsman who first appeared in the second game, and has acted as both friend and foe).

Most of the Kirby games are platformers, but the series has occasionally dipped into other genres as well, as highlighted below:


Games in the Kirby series

    open/close all folders 

    Main Series 
The main series is demarcated by the words Hoshi no Kirby appearing in these games' Japanese titles.
  • Kirby's Dream Land (1992, Game Boy; the original game, designed to appeal to both beginning and experienced players)
  • Kirby's Adventure (1993, NES; introduced series staples such as Power Copying and Meta Knight)
    • Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land (2002, Game Boy Advance, a remake with added features such as 4-player co-op)
    • 3D Classics: Kirby's Adventure (2011, Nintendo 3DS, a 3D re-release which is, in practice, a faithful remake)
  • Kirby's Dream Land 2 (1995, Game Boy; a sequel to Dream Land that introduced Kirby's animal friends)
  • Kirby Super Star (1996, Super NES; eight games, plus a Boss Rush, for the price of one)
    • Kirby Super Star Ultra (2008, Nintendo DS; a remake with more games and a souped-up Boss Rush)
  • Kirby's Dream Land 3 (1997, Super NES; the direct sequel to Dream Land 2, playing very similarly while adding more animal friends)
  • Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards (2000, Nintendo 64; a sequel to Dream Land 3, it allows for any two Copy Abilities to be mixed together)
  • Kirby & the Amazing Mirror (2004, Game Boy Advance, a Metroidvania Platformer with four Kirbys working together)
  • Kirby: Squeak Squad (2006, Nintendo DS; uses the touch screen to mix different Copy Abilities, though not as in-depth as Kirby 64)
  • Kirby's Return to Dream Land (2011, Wii; features powered-up Super Abilities and 4-player simultaneous co-op)
    • Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe (2023, Nintendo Switch, a remaster with graphical updates, new subgames, and two new Copy Abilites)
  • Kirby: Triple Deluxe (2014, Nintendo 3DS; features dual-layered stages and a powered-up inhaling move known as Hypernova)
  • Kirby: Planet Robobot (2016, Nintendo 3DS; a sequel to Kirby: Triple Deluxe with Mecha!)
  • Kirby Star Allies (2018, Nintendo Switch; brings back 4-player co-op and Squeak Squad-style Copy Ability mixing with a "friend" system based on helpers)
  • Kirby and the Forgotten Land (2022, Nintendo Switch; the first full 3D Kirby game which allows Kirby to half-swallow objects to take their shape for various functions)

    Spin-Offs 
Spin-offs are usually games without the words Hoshi no Kirby in their Japanese titles, and can be distinguished by usually not being platformers or otherwise lacking the traditional gameplay style of the main series. Starting in the 2010s, most Kirby spin-offs are expanded versions of sub-games from previous main series installments.
  • Kirby's Pinball Land (1993, Game Boy; a pinball game with video game elements such as boss fights)
  • Kirby's Dream Course, known as Kirby Bowl in Japanese (1995, Super NES; Golf-like game with some twists)
  • Kirby's Avalanche, known as Kirby's Ghost Trap in European languages (1995, Super NES; Falling Blocks Puzzle Game, and a license-based clone of Puyo Puyo)
  • Kirby's Block Ball (1995, Game Boy; a Breaking Out game)
  • Kirby's Toy Box (1996, Satellaview; a collection of eight sub-games, all of which have been preserved online and are playable via emulators)
  • Kirby's Star Stacker (1997, Game Boy; another Falling Blocks Puzzle Game)
    • Kirby's Star Stacker (1998, Super Famicom; a planned international release was given the tentative title "Kirby's Super Star Stacker", but was canceled outside Japan; finally made available outside Japan in 2023 via the Nintendo Switch online service)
  • Kirby Tilt 'n' Tumble (2000, Game Boy Color; a puzzle-platformer that uses a motion sensor built into the cartridge, similar to WarioWare Twisted!note )
  • Kirby Air Ride (2003, GameCube; a simple one-button racing game with various play modes)
  • Kirby: Canvas Curse (2005, Nintendo DS; Kirby is transformed into a ball, and the player draws lines to help guide Kirby through each stage)
  • Kirby's Epic Yarn (2010, Wii; Kirby is turned into yarn, and can't suck up enemies; instead, he can transform to use different abilities)
    • Kirby's Extra Epic Yarn (Nintendo 3DS, 2019, enhanced port)
  • Kirby Mass Attack (2011, Nintendo DS; here, you control multiple Kirbys at once a la Lemmings or Mario vs. Donkey Kong)
  • Kirby's Dream Collection: Special Edition (2012, Wii; a compilation of the first six main games in celebration of Kirby's 20th anniversary)
  • Kirby Fighters Deluxe (2014, Nintendo 3DS; stand-alone version of the sub game in Triple Deluxe)
  • Dedede's Drum Dash Deluxe (2014, Nintendo 3DS; stand-alone version of the sub game in Triple Deluxe)
  • Kirby and the Rainbow Curse (2015, Wii U; a spiritual successor to Canvas Curse, with a distinct claymation style)
  • Team Kirby Clash Deluxe (2017, Nintendo 3DS; stand-alone version of the sub game in Planet Robobot)
  • Kirby's Blowout Blast (2017, Nintendo 3DS; stand-alone version of the Kirby 3D Rumble sub game in Planet Robobot)
  • Kirby Battle Royale (2017, Nintendo 3DS; an action-multiplayer 3D fighting game where multi-colored Kirbys duke it out in several game modes)
  • Super Kirby Clash (2019, Nintendo Switch; sequel to Team Kirby Clash (Deluxe))
  • Kirby Fighters 2 (2020, Nintendo Switch; sequel to Kirby Fighters (Deluxe))
  • Kirby's Dream Buffet (2022, Nintendo Switch; a multiplayer racing game where four tiny multicolored Kirbys must traverse through various food-themed obstacle courses and collect the most strawberries to win)

    Other Works 

While Sakurai is often viewed as the head of the franchise, the reality is more complex. At least three Kirby games (Kirby's Dream Land 2, Kirby's Dream Land 3, and Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards) were directed by Shinichi Shimomura. Shimomura's titles are slower-paced than others in the series, and various characters introduced in them (Kirby's animal friends, Dark Matter, Adeleine, and Ribbon) don't appear with major roles in other games prior to Kirby Star Allies. Sakurai, meanwhile, has not directed a Kirby game since Air Ride, as he left HAL Laboratory to go freelance shortly after its release. Starting with Kirby Super Star Ultra, Shinya Kumazaki has taken the director role, and is well-known among Kirby fans for working to flesh out the series' background lore.


Tropes used in the Kirby series:

    A-F 
  • 100% Completion:
    • Required in Kirby's Dream Land 2 (Rainbow Drops), Kirby's Dream Land 3 (Heart Stars), and Kirby 64 (Crystal Shards) to unlock the true last boss and the best ending.
    • Used in Return to Dream Land, Triple Deluxe, and Planet Robobot to unlock bonus stages in each level, which each have an extra collectable. Collecting all of THOSE in turn opens up new stuff.
  • 11th-Hour Superpower: If the game features a nightmarish true final boss, Kirby usually manages to acquire a special weapon just in time to face it. An exception happens in Canvas Curse, where it doesn't show up until after Kirby couldn't stop the mysterious evil of the month from cursing Dream Land. And then you get to use it for the entire game.
  • Ability Mixing: Generally rare in the series, but it was a hallmark of the "Dark Matter Trilogy" (Dream Land 2, Dream Land 3, and Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards). It has shown up only sporadically since then.
    • In Dream Land 2 and 3, Kirby could combine any of the abilities with his animal friends for new movesets. 2 had seven abilities times three friends, while 3 had eight abilities times six friends.
    • In Kirby 64, any of the seven abilities available could be mixed with each other for a unique ability, or with itself to provide an enhanced version of the single-ability move.
    • Downplayed example in Squeak Squad, as the Sword and Bomb abilities could be enhanced with Fire (Sword only; Bomb is already fiery in that game), Ice, or Spark; but that's it.
    • A number of Abilities can be combined in Star Allies, with the most common effect being imbuing a physical weapon (like Sword, Cutter, Bomb, Staff, etc.) with an element (Sizzle, Blizzard, Zap, Splash, or Bluster). To streamline the system multiple abilities can have the same effects — for example, Plasma, Beam, and ESP all act as "Zap" when combining. And elemental weapons aren't the only combinations available; for one, using Blizzard or Splash on Stone Kirby turns him into a curling stone.
  • Action Bomb: The Bomber and Searches enemies. When inhaled, they allow Kirby to use Crash, a one-use move that completely wipes the screen.
  • Added Alliterative Appeal:
  • Adipose Rex: King Dedede has just as big of an appetite as Kirby himself.
  • Airborne Aircraft Carrier: Meta Knight's aerial battleship, the Halberd.
  • Alien Sky: It's been confirmed that Popstar actually has more than one moon: there's the one that blew up in Kirby's Adventure (which is literally shaped like a crescent), the moon that fought the sun in the Milky Way Wishes game of Super Star (who may be Mr. Shine), the moon that appears in Cookie Country in Kirby's Return to Dream Land, and the massive moon that appears on the Royal Road and Eternal Dreamland stages within Kirby: Triple Deluxe. Additionally, it's implied that Popstar doesn't orbit a sun; rather, a sun (possibly Mr. Bright) orbits the planet itself.
  • All There in the Manual: Many details about certain characters (such as Dark Nebula from Squeak Squad likely being the same kind of creature as Dark Matter) were revealed in "20th Anniversary Hoshi no Kirby Pupupu Taizen", a Japanese art book. This isn't to be confused with that one that came with Kirby's Dream Collection Special Edition.
  • All Webbed Up: Spider Kirby lets him shoot webs that will trap enemies in a cocoon of web, that Kirby can then kick around to hit other enemies.
  • American Kirby Is Hardcore: Trope Namer. From around 2002 to 2012, Nintendo of America tended to brush angry eyebrows on his face for the game covers. Notable aversions included Super Star Ultra, Epic Yarn, and the Super Smash Bros. series. Since 2012, the same box art has been used worldwide, averting the trope (Kirby is notably also angry on the Japanese box arts of Triple Deluxe and Planet Robobot). Incidentally, early Western advertisements showed a rougher, more hardened Kirby than one present on the original game boxes, and the Western-developed Kirby's Avalanche features a very sarcastic Kirby.
  • And Your Reward Is Clothes: The Spray Paint cans in Amazing Mirror and Squeak Squad, the amiibo costumes in Rainbow Curse (which does have a gameplay function) and the unlockable alternate costumes in Kirby Fighters Deluxe and Kirby Battle Royale.
  • Another Dimension: The franchise has a growing collection of these.
    • The Mirror World, which debuted in Amazing Mirror, which includes a number of "Dark" and "Shadow" versions of main cast members. It recently came back into prominence due to the Dimensional Mirror appearing in Triple Deluxe and having a variation of the classic Dimensional Mirror appear in Team Kirby Clash Deluxe.
    • "Another Dimension", visited in Return to Dream Land, where the Doomers dwell. This is also where Galacta Knight is implied to reside.
    • The Dream Kingdom ("a faraway land from long, long ago") of the Kirby Clash duology is a high-fantasy riff on the classic Dream Land setting. Magolor ends up here after he acquires a Gem Apple from Another Dimension and permanently destroys the Master Crown. It does feature certain enemies hopping dimensions into the kingdom's, however.
    • The New World from Forgotten Land is one of these as well. The entire game takes place in it, and it was originally home to a highly advanced civilization before they left the place (and its wildlife) behind.
  • Anti-Frustration Features: It has its own page.
  • Anti-Hero: Meta Knight, whenever he's being heroic. Darker-looking than most other things in Popstar, and is powerful and ruthless in battle, but will definitely defend Popstar from any kind of threat.
  • Anti-Villain:
  • Arc Symbol:
    • The 5-pointed star is pretty much emblematic to the Kirby franchise. From the Planet Popstar (shaped like a star), to Kirby's Warp Star, to the stars that Kirby spits out, to the stars that decorate buildings and landscapes, even Kirby's "heroic heart" is shaped like a star. Then again, what else could you expect from the title, "Kirby of the Stars"?
    • Singular, cycloptic eyes have also become a hallmark of the Kirby series. They're usually a sign of Dark Matter's influence, though they also appear on recurring enemies such as Waddle Doo, Scarfy, and Kracko.
  • Arc Words: "Soul", "Dark", "Dream", and "Heart" each appear multiple times throughout the series, as a certain boss description in Kirby Star Allies alludes to.
  • Arrange Mode:
    • The various Meta Knightmare modes (in Nightmare in Dream Land, Super Star Ultra and Planet Robobot) are alternate modes where you have to play the entire game as Meta Knight instead of Kirby. Triple Deluxe also has "Dededetour", which is the same concept, but with King Dedede.
    • Kirby Super Star has The Arena, which is a Boss Rush mode which has become a staple mode for every main-series game since its inception, and, since Super Star Ultra, has a harder version called The True Arena, which gives you less copy ability statues and food for the rest spots, and includes a True Final Boss at the end. Super Star Ultra also includes "Helper to Hero", a similar Boss Rush mode where you must fight 13 bosses as a helper.
    • Super Star Ultra also has "Revenge of the King", a harder version of "Spring Breeze" that replaces enemies with stronger variants and modifies boss patterns. In addition, an Unexpected Shmup Level is added, and a Boss Rush occurs before the fight against Masked Dedede.
    • Kirby Star Allies has the "Guest Star" mode, a "Helper to Hero"-style mode where, as a Friend or Dream Friend, you traverse the five levels. 1-Ups, food, and picture pieces are now point items, and Maxim Tomatoes are now regular food. In addition, all Friend Star segments are omitted, and you fight Morpho Knight after Hyness.
  • Art Attacker: Many bosses; the most well-known is Drawcia from Canvas Curse. Kirby can also become this using the one-use Paint ability in Super Star and the full-fledged Artist ability in Star Allies.
  • Art Evolution: Kirby's face has gotten bigger, while Meta Knight's arms have gotten a bit longer and thinner (leading to the derogatory nickname of "Señor Noodle Arms" in some parts of the fan community).
  • The Artifact:
    • The hats that Kirby gained from copying abilities originally had a bigger role in the game that they debuted in, Kirby Super Star (and, by extension, its remake). In that game, not only does Kirby have the ability to throw off his hat at will, he can also either give it to his current helper at the time in order to turn him into a different helper, or he could simply turn his helper back into a hat just so that he could either regain the Copy Ability the helper represented or so that he could discard the helper. True enough, the hats had disappeared for the next two games Kirby's Dream Land 3 and Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards, only for them to return in Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land, albeit without the ability for Kirby to toss the hat off his head, where they became a mainstay since. Owing to its Super Star influence, Star Allies does bring back the ability to turn friends into hats.
    • King Dedede's theme has one due to being a Bootstrapped Leitmotif form of Mt. Dedede's theme from Kirby's Dream Land, namely the fact that it still opens with the notes originally meant to contrast with the game's normal boss theme (which opens up in a similar manner). On the other hand, Mt. Dedede's theme only was played in two places: when first entering the stage and when fighting Dedede himself.
  • Artifact Title: The original "Meta Knightmare" mode was so named as a play on the game it featured in, Nightmare in Dream Land. The meaning was lost when it returned as Meta Knightmare Ultra in Super Star Ultra, and later Meta Knightmare Returns in Planet Robobot. In Japanese, the modes were simply called "Meta Knight de Go! (Go, Meta Knight!)" with added DX or Returns.
  • Art Initiates Life: There's Ado and Adeleine from Kirby's Dream Land 3 and Kirby 64 respectively, Paint Roller from Kirby's Adventure, Drawcia from Kirby's Canvas Curse, Yin-Yarn from Kirby's Epic Yarn, Paintra from Kirby Triple Deluxe, Claycia from Kirby and the Rainbow Curse, and Vividria from Star Allies, all of them can bring paintings to life. Kirby can pull this off himself by copying the Artist ability from Vividria.
  • Art Shift:
    • Kirby's Epic Yarn features a quirky string/patchwork/fabric-like style, which Kirby utilizes in-game (pulling on zippers to reveal new areas, using his arm as a whip, etc).
    • Likewise, Kirby and the Rainbow Curse uses a claymation style that also plays into the plot. The Big Bad of the game is a sculptor named Claycia, who created the enemies and bosses you fight.
    • Dream Land 3 uses a pastel crayon or colored pencil style, as does Kirby Mass Attack (which originally looked more plain).
    • Every stage in Canvas Curse uses a different art style, from watercolors to graffiti to geometric shadow play. The characters, however, are Digitized Sprites.
  • Ascended Extra: Bandana Waddle Dee first appeared in Super Star as the first opponent in the "Megaton Punch" mini-game. In Ultra, he has dialog and appears as a boss (albeit not much of one) in "Revenge of the King" (plus he's the only spectator in the stands during the Masked Dedede fight), and the Waddle Dee opponent in "The Arena" was changed to be him. He then first became a playable character in Kirby's Return to Dream Land. He also helps Kirby in Triple Deluxe by giving him healing items. He returns again as a playable character in Kirby and the Rainbow Curse as a multiplayer-exclusive character, ironically playing the same way as he did in ''Kirby's Return to Dream Land'' while Kirby's back to being controlled via a stylus like in Kirby: Canvas Curse. It's the first game to introduce his alternate-colored counterparts so that up to four players (including Kirby himself) can play the game together. He returns for another playable appearance in Kirby Star Allies as a Dream Friend alongside King Dedede, Meta Knight, and other memorable characters throughout Kirby's history, where he's made available immediately at the beginning.
  • Authority in Name Only: Both in the games and the anime, Dedede is noted to have a castle, lots of guards, great wealth, and a fabulous outfit, but no actual claim to the throne.
  • Autobots, Rock Out!: Final bosses tend to have rock motifs.
  • Autosave: The games always save like this, though there are a few exceptions:
    • The first game was short and didn't have a battery back-up, so it didn't save.
    • "The Great Cave Offensive" game in Kirby Super Star has a Metroidvania-like design, including Save Points.
    • The recurring Arena doesn't save, being a straight-up Boss Rush.
    • The various extra modes throughout the series have different ways of handling this.
      • Adventure and Squeak Squad both don't save in their Extra Modes, so quitting takes you all the way back to level one.
      • Nightmare in Dream Land and Return to Dream Land's Extra Modes both autosave, but to compensate, Meta Knightmare from Nightmare in Dream Land doesn't save at all.
      • Meta Knightmare Ultra from Super Star Ultra saves at the end of each "round". Dededetour! in Triple Deluxe, Meta Knightmare Returns from Planet Robobot, and Guest Star from Star Allies follow this example, but also save at mid-round checkpoints.
  • Awesome, but Impractical:
    • The Hammer's up+B move, the Hammer Flip, subverts this. It's the Hammer's second most powerful attack (behind the Hammer Throw), but you're unable to move during its (rather lengthy) startup time, making it risky to use on most normal enemies. However, it's perfect for tearing though bosses in seconds — at least once you learn their patterns — turning this into Difficult, but Awesome instead. Team Kirby Clash Deluxe, Battle Royale and Star Allies buffs it so that not only you can move (slowly) while charging it, there's also 3 levels of charging to make the smash even stronger.
    • A straight example would be Fire's back+B attack, the Fireball Inferno. It can deal same damage as the Hammer Flip, and it deals damage at a much faster speed, but your character's immobility, combined with its lackluster range and how hilariously easy it is to be hit out of the attack, means that the only mileage you're getting out of this is on stationary bosses such as Computer Virus and Whispy Woods (and Whispy Woods is a joke anyways).
    • Ghost Kirby in Squeak Squad. You can actually possess enemies; however, it isn't very good for attacking and is completely ineffective against bosses. You can't even climb ladders or go through pass-through floors.
  • Back from the Dead: The "Soul" bosses, although Marx and Magolor in particular have seemingly returned to their normal forms.
  • Backstory Horror: The main antagonists of Triple Deluxe and Planet Robobot have this. Though this is shown more in their pause screen text, and not mentioned much in the main story itself. Star Allies also has this, but it's directly in the main text.
  • Badass Adorable:
    • Kirby. A little, bouncy pink ball who charms pretty much any non-enemy he meets and (almost) literally eats cosmic horrors for breakfast.
    • Meta Knight - in spite of his brooding and stoic nature, he is a member of Kirby's species and will panic and flee if you see him without his mask.
    • Many of Kirby's allies and helpers can become this too. A great example is Pitch from Dream Land 3, a little bird who's the most powerful partner in the game.
    • Bandana Dee has gone from being a random Waddle Dee with headgear to basically becoming Kirby's best friend and Number 2 who excels in the spear and has enough fighting skills to keep up with Kirby as demonstrated in Kirby Battle Royale. Also, unlike Dedede and Meta Knight, he has never been brainwashed, kidnapped or otherwise controlled in any way.
  • Badass in Distress:
    • Meta Knight in Kirby & The Amazing Mirror goes off to quell the threat, but is sucked into the mirror world and copied.
    • Dedede gets kidnapped in Triple Deluxe, setting Kirby off to go rescue him.
  • Bad Powers, Good People: Kirby's main power is to swallow creatures whole and absorb their powers. While this seems like an evil power, it's not treated as such in game. Considering there is at least one instance of a character surviving being eaten by Kirby (Bandana Waddle Dee in Super Star Ultra) this may be a Downplayed example.
  • Banging Pots and Pans: Cook Kirby does this, in the "time to eat" variation. Chef Kawasaki does this as well.
  • Bare-Fisted Monk: Fighter Kirby is him fighting with martial arts, which later gained Ki Manipulation attacks like a Hadouken. Knuckle Joe is the enemy commonly associated with this ability.
  • Batman Gambit: Marx and Magolor pull off some rather nice ones in Kirby Super Star and Kirby's Return to Dream Land, respectively. Marx manipulates Kirby to get the wish that grants himself ultimate power. Magolor tricks Kirby into beating Landia so he can obtain the Master Crown.
  • Battle Against the Sunset: In the recurring sub-game "Samurai Kirby" (first introduced in Kirby Super Star), the duels between Kirby and his opponents take place in a wheat field at sunset, tying in with the sub-game's nature as a homage to Jidaigeki films.
  • Battle Boomerang: Cutter Kirby is mainly armed with a bladed boomerang on his hat that Kirby can throw, and then it flies backwards for Kirby to catch. Pitch's Burning power also behaves much like a boomerang, only with a bird turning into a fireball. The Kibble Blade miniboss also uses it.
  • Battleship Raid: The "Revenge of Meta Knight" game (with the Halberd), as well as the penultimate stage from Milky Way Wishes, both from Super Star and its remake. Epic Yarn also features the Halberd as a Bonus Dungeon. In Rainbow Curse Kirby gets to raid the Bastron, an airship of Claycia's creation.
  • Battle Tops: Top Kirby, exclusive to the anime. The enemy Twister also looks like a top.
  • Beat the Curse Out of Him: Some of the bosses are simply the victims of possession. Of course, beating them up is the key to curing them of said possession.
    • King Dedede in Kirby's Dream Land 2, 3, Mass Attack, and Kirby: Triple Deluxe.
    • All of the bosses except Dark Matter and Zero in Kirby's Dream Land 3. Although to actually free them you need all of that level's Heart Stars.
    • Waddle Dee, Adeleine, and King Dedede again in Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards.
    • King Dedede and Meta Knight in Epic Yarn.
    • Claycia in Rainbow Curse (though it's not revealed until after the beating).
    • Meta Knight in Planet Robobot is a mechanical variant where his cyborg attachments are what causing him to be controlled by Susie and Kirby has to break those to free him.
    • Every early boss in Star Allies, from Whispy Woods to Pon & Con. Which is due to the Jamba Heart shards.
    • Forgotten Land plays this straight with Dedede, but does multiple subversions with Leongar. Around halfway through his fight, he reveals that he’s possessed by Fecto Forgo, and once you beat him you expect him to wake up and get better. Instead, Fecto Forgo assimilates him into itself. Later it's revealed he survived the experience, but his soul has been scattered throughout Fecto Forgo's dream dimension, leaving him empty. Collecting the soul pieces and returning them to him cause him to wake up, only for him to immediately get possessed by Fecto Forgo again. After the resulting boss fight, Leongar (now called Leon) collapses and seemingly dies. Once the Bait-and-Switch Boss Morpho Knight is done, Kirby and Elfilin check on Leon... but he doesn’t wake up. However, the rest of the Beast Pack arrives with more pieces of Leon’s soul and uses them to revive him for good.
  • Berserk Button: Do not try to take Kirby's food. He will beat up anyone in his way to get it back.
  • Be the Ball: Ball Kirby turns him into a Hyper-Destructive Bouncing Ball. In Canvas Curse and Rainbow Curse Kirby also becomes a ball (cursed in the former, voluntarily in the latter) that constantly rolls and can be guided by drawing lines in the air.
  • Big Creepy-Crawlies: Many enemies are huge bugs, such as Buggzy and Hornhead; Kirby can inhale the latter to become Beetle Kirby. Taranza is also a spider the size of a person (slightly bigger than Kirby at least), while Queen Sectonia is a really huge bee.
  • Big Eater:
    • Both Kirby and King Dedede; they even race to see who can eat more in the Gourmet Race game in Kirby Super Star.
    • Prince Fluff in Epic Yarn. Together with Kirby, he eats a huge cake. Kirby eats the last cherry, but seems to go over his limit for once.
    • Gooey also seems to be one, as he's seen stripping a fish to the bone in the intro to Dream Land 3.
    • Storo of Kirby: Squeak Squad; his minigame is racing Kirby in eating cupcakes, and his gang did steal Kirby's strawberry cake.
    • It's implied that Bandana Waddle Dee is also one, at least in Battle Royale, as his motivation for winning Dedede's tournament is to get the giant cake as the prize.
    • Parodied in Dueling Analogs here, where Galactus and Unicron (yes, those guys) come together for an intervention to get Kirby to admit he has an eating disorder.
  • Black-and-White Morality: For most games, the world runs on this, with Kirby, a nice and helpful hero, trying to solve the problems by beating the (usually obvious) bad guys behind them. A few times, however, Kirby becomes a victim of circumstances for his deeds (either because he's manipulated to do the bad guy's whims or Poor Communication Kills), and aside from clear-cut villains, there are those who have good intentions behind their actions, those that pose as good guys that need the hero's help, and those otherwise innocent bosses that get possessed/brainwashed into fighting the heroes.
  • Black Bead Eyes: Anything and everything, most visibly on the pink puff himself. They actually get bigger over the course of the series.
  • Black-Hole Belly: Kirby can swallow many things much larger than him. In Squeak Squad and the anime, his stomach is shown to be a literal black hole, and in Triple Deluxe he can transform into Hypernova Kirby to make this ability even stronger.
  • Blackout Basement: Some stages in the main platformers have candles to be lit or carried, or light bulb (or just light) powers to utilize. In Kirby's Return to Dream Land, any power with electric or fire properties will extend the range you see in a dark room.
  • Bloody Murder: Zero's main attack as the Final Boss of 3. The Final Boss of Star Allies also weaponizes "Red Tears" in the second phase.
  • Blow You Away: Tornado Kirby lets him do powerful Tornado Moves as he floats forward. He can also blow puffs of air at enemies without a power.
  • Blue Means Cold: The Ice ability had Kirby turn blue and gets an icey blue hat, though in later games such as Kirby's Return to Dream Land, Kirby keeps his pink color and only gains the hat.
  • Blush Sticker: Kirby himself, as well as the Waddle Dees and several other enemies.
  • Boom in the Hand: Whenever the bomb ability is present, Kirby is able to pull out and hold onto bombs which can damage him if he holds on to them for too long. However, Star Allies take the damage portion away and instead turns doing this into a technique of its own.
  • Bootstrapped Theme: The Gourment Race music was remixed in the original Super Smash Bros. game and had continued to receive a new remix in some form in the Smash series up until Brawl.note  As such, people started associating said song with the series. However, the series' true theme song is Green Greens from Kirby's Dream Land, as remixes of its theme are very common.
  • Bootstrapped Leitmotif:
    • What is now considered King Dedede's theme was originally just the theme to Mt. Dedede and his boss fight. In fact, barring Kirby's Dream Land 2, a different boss theme plays when you fight him within the early games. It was not until Kirby Super Star that firmly established the song as King Dedede's theme. Even then, there are games afterwards where his theme isn't used (Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards, Kirby & the Amazing Mirror) or isn't always associated with him (Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land, Kirby's Return to Dream Land).
    • The power-up theme from the original game (which played whenever Kirby picked up the Superspicy Curry or Mint Leaf) is commonly associated with Kaboola/Kabula. This was mostly due to Kabula's battle in Dream Land requiring a permanent Mint Leaf to fight it, causing the power-up theme to override the boss theme. Since power-ups were done away with in every subsequent title in favor of copy powers, the song was mostly associated with Kabula afterwards.
    • Thanks to the anime, the "Castle Lololo" theme from the original game became synonymous with Dyna Blade (particularly in Kirby Air Ride and Kirby Super Star Ultra). However, this has been pushed back in later games, with Dream Collection, Blowout Blast, Team Kirby Clash Deluxe, and Star Allies featuring the theme separate from Dyna Blade.
  • Border-Occupying Decorations: Dream Collection features emulated versions of Kirby's Dream Land, Kirby's Adventure, Kirby's Dream Land 2, Kirby Super Star, Kirby's Dream Land 3, and Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards. Because Dream Land and Dream Land 2 were Game Boy titles, they're too small to fill up even a 4:3 monitor; consequently, playing these games brings up a specially-designed border depicting sprites from them against a pink backdrop. A baby blue version of this border is also used when playing Adventure, Super Star, Dream Land 3, and 64 on a 16:9 display (as they were designed for a 4:3 one).
  • Boring, but Practical: Kirby's default inhale and spit attack, when used against bosses. While having no attack of his own means you can only counter by sucking and spitting projectiles, it also means the whole time there aren't any on screen you can focus entirely on dodging. Plus, the damage isn't that bad at all, and later games make Kirby spit even more powerful projectiles if he manages to inhale more stuff at the same time. For beating bosses quickly, though, Copy Abilities are usually better, sometimes without even worrying about having to dodge.
  • Boss Remix: Most games starting with Return to Dream Land have one of either its respective main theme or "Green Greens" (and usually both) in their final boss themes.
  • Boss Rush: In almost every game since Adventure, though usually as an unlockable.
  • Bottomless Pits: In every platformer, though they're the least of Kirby's worries since he can usually just float over them.
  • Breakable Power-Up: Downplayed. While getting hit may result in losing your power-up (depending on the game), the power-up bounces around the stage as a star and can be recovered if you eat it before it disappears (or lands in water, lava, spikes or falls into a bottomless pit).
  • Breath Weapon: Spitting out air puffs and spitting out enemies and objects into stars since Kirby's Dream Land. Since Kirby's Adventure, fire and ice powers are that. The newer Poison ability from Planet Robobot also lets Kirby breathes poison gas.
  • Broad Strokes: According to Kumazaki, the franchise does not have a strict timeline of events, but story elements from previous installments are carried into later games if they are easy to follow up on (i.e. Kirby and Dedede already have met each other or Magolor has redeemed himself). The only elements that aren't followed upon are elements that would constrain the developers on creating new challenges and optimal gameplay experience.
  • Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: Kirby fights Dark Matter three times. The first two times, it just came back even more powerful later.
  • Brown Note: Kirby's Mike Ability. Justified because apparently, Kirby's tone deaf.
  • Butt-Monkey: Whispy Woods; no matter what game he appears in, and how powerful HAL makes him, gamers always turn him into a Harmless Villain.
  • By the Lights of Their Eyes: Meta Knight while wearing his mask, as well as Magolor and Hyness.
  • Call-Back: In the second game of the series, a minigame let you control a crane machine's claw to snatch multiple Kirbys and gain extra lives. In Kirby Mass Attack, one of the bosses your multiple Kirbys have to fight is... a crane machine's claw!
  • Cape Wings: Meta Knight, who features as the page image. Oddly, sometimes his wings are depicted as separate from his cape, such as in Kirby's Return to Dream Land, where he throws off his cape to reveal his wings in the opening cutscene.
  • Cartoon Bomb: You have a bomb power in several games, and many enemies like to throw these too. Blocks with bombs in them are common too.
  • Cartoon Creature: The main character. He's a pink ball of fluff. There's really no other way to adequately describe him. Many other entities (usually the minor enemies) are also depicted like this.
  • Character Name and the Noun Phrase: Kirby & the Amazing Mirror, Kirby and the Rainbow Curse and Kirby and the Forgotten Land.
  • Chef of Iron: A few enemies are fighting cooks, and Kirby can naturally assimilate the skill. Also Kirby's Final Smash in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Ice + Spark in Crystal Shards turns Kirby into a refrigerator that shoots food at enemies, which he can then pick up and eat for health.
  • Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Almost all of the characters introduced during the "Dark Matter trilogy" — Kirby's sidekick Gooey; his animal friends Rick, Coo, Kine, Nago, ChuChu, and Pitch; and lady friends Adeleine and Ribbon — have not had any significant appearances since the trilogy's conclusion and are now relegated to minor cameos. The current series instead focuses on regulars Kirby, King Dedede, and Meta Knight, who were introduced under Masahiro Sakurai's directorship; the "Dark Matter trilogy" was actually directed by Shinichi Shimomura. However, these characters all make major appearances in Kirby Star Allies.
  • Collision Damage:
    • Unusual in that minor enemies are also damaged when the player runs into them.
    • Some Copy Abilities in Super Star even let Kirby shield himself and damage enemies, even bosses, if they touch him. Even simply guarding with the shoulder buttons has the same effect, albeit less powerful.
    • In Kirby's Epic Yarn, there is no collision damage to enemies and other things unless it's sharp, made out of fire, or their projectiles.
  • Color-Coded Multiplayer: Nightmare in Dream Land, Air Ride, Amazing Mirror, Return to Dream Land, and Battle Royale all have color-coded Kirbys available in multiplayer. Some sub-games also have color-coded characters, particularly in Kirby 64 and Kirby Fighters, Team Kirby Clash and Guest Star where you can choose your color.
  • Combination Attack: One of the distinguishing features of the Dark Matter trilogy was its focus on combining Kirby's abilities (as opposed to Super Star, which gave each ability multiple techniques), either with the various Animal Buddies in Dream Land 2 and Dream Land 3 or with the other powers themselves in The Crystal Shards. The concept wouldn't be seen again until Squeak Squad (which had a limited palette of unlockable combinations) and Star Allies (which brings it back to the same depth as Crystal Shards).
  • Company Cameo: Kirby's creators, HAL Laboratory, receive references several times throughout the series:
    • A recurring Easter Egg throughout the series is the HAL Room, so named because it contains those three letters built into the room itself. Other games that don't have such rooms will often find a way to hide the letters elsewhere, such as Kirby's Blowout Blast having coins appear in three separate locations of the final level that are arranged to spell "H", "A", and "L".
    • HAL's Goroawase Number, 86, also commonly appears throughout the series. The most notable example is the codename ID-F86 from Kirby and the Forgotten Land, with other examples including HAL Rooms that require waiting for 86 seconds to enter and high scores that incorporate 86 in some way.
    • Starting with Kirby Super Star Ultra, one of the possible transformations of the Stone ability is a golden box with HAL's logo, the Dream Hatcher, on the front of it.
    • In Kirby's Return to Dream Land and every later main Kirby title, another possible Stone transformation is HAL Laboratory's Yamanashi R&D Center (with Mt. Fuji in the background). After Kirby repairs the Lor Starcutter, Magolor takes them to his home planet Halcandra, which features a prominent landmark called Haldera Volcano.
    • Kirby: Triple Deluxe has a collectible Keychain depicting a "Golden Egg Statue", which is the HAL Laboratory logo as it appears in its Stone transformation in Super Star Ultra.
    • Kirby: Planet Robobot has HAL's Dream Hatcher as a collectible sticker that can be placed on Kirby's Robobot Armor, and the villainous Haltmann Works Company is named for them.
    • In the Japanese version of Kirby Star Allies, the Jambastion is called "Jamahalda", and the larger Jambandra Base is called "Majuhalgalor".
    • The three corporations in the background of Kirby and the Forgotten Land are called Holine, Alivel, and Lightron, which spell out "HAL".
  • Company Cross References: The series has a bunch of these for other HAL Laboratory and Nintendo works:
    • While Kirby's Sword ability was pretty standard in Kirby's Adventure, it was Kirby Super Star that gave him Link's familiar green cap and the ability to fire sword beams at full health. Word of God has said this was done to return the favor for Kirby's cameo in The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening. In later games, the sword that comes with the ability even looks similar to the Master Sword. In Kirby's Return to Dream Land, both Kirby and Meta Knight can perform the Spin Slash Link uses from A Link to the Past onwards, and Kirby: Triple Deluxe adds the "Sky Energy Sword" to the repertoire, which is similar to the Skyward Strike. invoked
    • Starting with Kirby Super Star, the Stone ability turns Kirby into various assorted heavy objects. These include statues of Mario, Samus, and Tom Nook.
    • From Amazing Mirror is the "Smash Bros." ability, gained from swallowing the mini-boss forms of Master Hand, which gives Kirby all of his special attacks from Super Smash Bros..
    • Yo-yo Kirby seems to be based off of Ness. The background for this ability even has the same background as EarthBound's first menu screen. The ESP ability introduced later is more directly based on EarthBound, directly referencing it in its description and moveset; its enemy is even named NESP. In return, the Debug menu of EarthBound has an icon of Kirby as the cursor, since HAL Laboratory helped develop it.
    • In one of the ghost stages in Level 4 of Kirby Mass Attack, one of the pieces of background music played is very reminiscent of the Threed section in EarthBound; the game's composer, Shogo Sakai, worked on Mother 3.
    • In Revenge of the King, Kabula fires missiles that just-so-happen to resemble Bullet Bills from the Super Mario Bros. series at you during your boss fight with it. Kabula's redesign with its ferocious smile also heavily resembles the Banzai Bills from the same franchise.
    • In The Great Cave Offensive game from Kirby Super Star, some of the treasures Kirby collects are items from other Nintendo series. This is including (but not limited to): Donkey Kong, Metroid, and Fire Emblem.
    • Qbby, the protagonist of HAL's other game series BoxBoy!, shows up in Planet Robobot as a cameo sticker, and appears in Star Allies as a possible Stone transformation.
    • Also from Super Star (and Ultra), you can see Mario characters in the audience of King Dedede's arena in Spring Breeze as well as in Megaton Punch.
    • Plus, occasionally when using the stone power, Kirby will turn into a gold statue of another Nintendo character, such as Mario, Samus Aran, and Tom Nook.
    • A mission in Kirby's Dream Land 3 has some Metroids show up. At the end of the stage, Samus Aran is there waiting for you, and will even remove her helmet for 100% Completion. Other stages involve collecting the pieces of R.O.B. for Professor Hector, reuniting Donbe and Hikari from Shin Onigashima, and helping Goku and Chao from Yūyūki, the latter two being adventure games for the Family Computer Disk System. Chao also appeared in the Japanese version of Dream Land 2.
    • "Kirby Quest" is a sub-game in Kirby Mass Attack featuring a logo and menu design similar to that of a certain RPG produced by HAL, featuring music from the Kirby series' two senior sound composers.
  • Continuity Nod:
    • In Revenge of Meta Knight, Kirby caused the Halberd to crash into the ocean. In Squeak Squad, "Secret Sea" is one of the levels, and you eventually enter the flooded wreck of the Halberd, still at the bottom of the sea. And then Meta Knight reveals that he's repaired it and flies it into space.
    • The RPG sub-game Kirby Quest from Kirby Mass Attack features enemies and attacks from the anime and Kirby's Epic Yarn, including the Tankbot from Epic Yarn and Kabuki Kirby from the special 3D episode of the anime.
    • In Kirby's Adventure, Nightmare's defeat blew off a huge piece of the moon and caused it to become crescent-shaped. This is retained in nearly every subsequent game.
    • The various "Soul" bosses all tend to refer to their predecessors with borrowed attack pattern and styles (which is why an undead plant-insect occasionally spontaneously deforms into a glob of paint).
  • Cool Bike: Wheelie Rider, the helper variant of the Wheelie mook, is ridden like a bike (specifically a One-Wheeled Wonder).
  • Cool Sword: Sword Kirby weaponizes a sword, while Meta Knight has a cooler sword called Galaxia.
    • BFS: Ultra Sword, a Super Ability that's also his Final Smash in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U/3DS. Ultra Sword can occasionally take form of other kinds of swords/blades (including Galaxia), or a large fish, or a large paper fan.
    • Flaming Sword: Burning + Cutter from 64, Fire Sword from Squeak Squad and Sizzle Sword from Star Allies.
    • Sword Beam: Only at full health in the games, but as a finisher in the anime.
    • In Team Kirby Clash Deluxe and Battle Royale Kirby can acquire cooler swords for the ability, though in the latter case they're mostly cosmetic.
  • Crapsaccharine World: Planet Popstar is a bright and colorful place, but gets invaded by nightmarish entities on a regular basis.
  • Creator Thumbprint: Post-Super Star Ultra series director Shinya Kumazaki has an affinity for Floating Limbs, specifically hands. It's rare to see a major character introduced in a Kumazaki-directed game that doesn't have disembodied hands, and Nightmare, a character with skeletal arms in his debut, got changed to having just hands when he returned as Parallel Nightmare in Super Kirby Clash.
  • Cute and Psycho:
    • Scarfy starts out cute, but if Kirby tries to eat it, it shows off an ugly cyclopean face. Brrr... Certain kinds transform with no provocation at all in Super Star and Triple Deluxe.
    • Kirby himself, in the commercial for Kirby 64. Being part of a pet adoption telethon, he blows up the puppy and kitten he's sharing air-time with.
  • Cut Scene: The three Dream Land games, Adventure, and Super Star all have one introducing each level. After defeating King Dedede in the Adventure, a much longer one depicts King Dedede desperately trying to prevent Kirby from putting the Star Rod back because doing so would unleash Nightmare. Starting from Return to Dream Land, there are at least opening and ending cutscenes, if not more.
  • Damn You, Muscle Memory!:
    • Evident when playing the Super Nintendo Entertainment System games in Kirby's Dream Collection: Special Edition. While the series almost always uses A to jump and B to use Kirby's powers, in Super Star and Dream Land 3 the buttons are reversed to match the traditional SNES control scheme.
    • In earlier games, you must use the up button after jumping to float, compared to later games where the buttons are interchangeable. It can be confusing to play a game like 3D Classics: Kirby's Adventure after Triple Deluxe because of this.
    • Planet Robobot and Star Allies don't let you float with up at all; you have to tap jump in mid-air to fly. In Star Allies, the up button is assigned for Friend Abilities.
  • Dark Is Evil: Dark Matter. Amazing Mirror later brings us Dark Meta Knight and Dark Mind, Squeak Squad gives us Dark Nebula and Dark Daroach (the latter being possessed by the former), Triple Deluxe brings along Shadow Dedede, and Rainbow Curse has Dark Crafter.
  • Dark Is Not Evil:
    • Gooey. Despite being made of Dark Matter, he's just a good-natured goofball.
    • Also, Meta Knight, who has a foreboding appearance but is often helpful to Kirby and fighting for justice.
    • Shadow Kirby from Kirby & the Amazing Mirror, who is really the hero of the Mirror World.
  • Deadly Doctor: Doctor Kirby uses doctor-y stuff to attack, such as throwing pills, various chemicals, and a clipboard.
  • Death from Above: A few of Kirby's abilities, but his Stone ability stands out because this is its only attack in most games. In fact, falling from a great enough height can do this to any enemy.
  • Death is Cheap: Due to a combination of many boss and mini-boss descriptions maintaining continuity between repeat appearances, several named characters who died anywhere from a few games ago to one room before showing up perfectly fine later, and quite a few enemies that actually speak referencing past scenarios involving their deaths, it appears that the afterlife for the Kirby series has something of a revolving door, since the only times a villain absolutely never makes a reappearance is when they've gone through Deader than Dead soul-killing, and it specifically needs to happen in the official story like with Nightmare, since those that went through super-death in the What If? extra modes like Marx Soul continue to make new appearances in proper canon despite still going through normal death in their official fights.
  • Defeat by Modesty: Non-sexual variation: Meta Knight just can't keep fighting once his mask is broken, as he's apparently embarrassed that he looks similar to Kirby.
  • Defeat Equals Explosion: Enemies tend to explode with puffs of smoke, stars, and sparkles.
  • Defeat Means Friendship:
    • In Kirby Super Star, you can relinquish Kirby's powers and reform them into an enemy that uses those powers, who can then be controlled by a second player. This is extremely helpful in getting 100% Completion, but the A.I. is marginally intelligent enough to do the job.
    • Your entire party (sans Ribbon) in Kirby 64 is also gained this way through mini-boss battles while on Planet Popstar.
    • Even a few villains become Kirby's friends in this way, such as King Dedede in Dream Land and Magolor in Return to Dream Land.
    • In Star Allies, you can throw a Friend Heart onto defeated minibosses to turn them into your friends. The same occurs when you do it to King Dedede or Meta Knight. Also, using Friend Heart on a defeated Whispy Woods will make him drop Point Stars and food items, while doing the same on Pon & Con will make them open the enemy's fortress gate for you.
  • Defend Command: Kirby Super Star introduces blocking into the series. Blocking an attack will result in Kirby taking no damage or at least Scratch Damage. A few abilities also modifies/enhances the guard, i.e Mirror creates a barrier that reflects projectiles or Leaf makes Kirby intangible. Be careful: some attacks are unblockable.
  • Demonic Possession: Dark Matter (and related beings)'s modus operandi, with a side of Body Horror. Yin-Yarn pulls it off twice in Kirby's Epic Yarn, for Meta Knight and Dedede.
  • Detonation Moon: At the end of Kirby's Adventure, courtesy of Nightmare's defeat.
  • Difficult, but Awesome: Using Kirby's grabbing/throwing attacks (Parasol's Circus Throw, Yo-yo's Hammer Drop, the Ice Suction, etc.) is overkill against enemies that are defeated in one hit anyway, and hard to pull off against most bosses, since the objects you can shoot back at them are often too fast, small, or erratic to grab. Manage to pull them off, though, and it can shave huge chunks off of any boss's health in one hit.
    • Yo-Yo in general. The attacks lack damage and have some odd hit boxes, not to mention requiring knowledge of invincibility frames for some of its attacks so as to avoid landing on an enemy or hazard when they expire. Master it, however, and you can tear through bosses all day while nothing can touch you.
  • Digital Destruction:
    • The Virtual Console release of Kirby's Dream Land 3 changes the background colors in the Boss Butch Hyper Zone level from yellow, red, and blue to a less-pleasant yellow, orange, and green. This was likely due to increased seizure awareness, as the old colors contrast heavily and scroll on-screen rather quickly.
    • The initial Virtual Console release of Kirby 64 also changes the colors of Miracle Matter's arena due to an emulation glitch, from a subtle purple-and-black void to a clashing white-and-black void. This was fixed for Dream Collection.
  • Directionally Solid Platforms: They're present and throughout the whole series, more so in some stages than others. Some you can drop back through again, others you can't.
  • Dishing Out Dirt: Wham Bam Rock in Kirby Super Star and Wham Bam Jewel in Kirby Super Star Ultra. Also the recurring Stone Kirby and the enemies Rocky, Moundo and Blocky.
  • Disproportionate Retribution: Squeak Squad starts with Kirby's slice of cake being stolen. Cue him going on a rampage through the entire country, killing (or at least maiming) everything on his path to retrieve it. Starting with Dedede's castle, just because Kirby thinks Dedede might have taken it.
  • Door to Before: After beating the final boss of the Great Cave Offensive segment in Kirby Super Star, one ends up running from the cave up to the original entrance.
  • The Dragon:
    • Dark Matter to Zero, though it's implied the Dark Matter may not have much sentience of its own. This also makes Zero a Greater-Scope Villain for Dream Land 2, since it doesn't appear in that game.
    • Also, Meta Knight played this role to Dedede in Kirby's Adventure; he reprised this role in the anime, although he's actually a Dragon with an Agenda.
    • Taranza plays this part for Queen Sectonia in Triple Deluxe, but switches sides after being betrayed by her.
  • Dramatic Unmask: Meta Knight often loses his mask upon defeat. He's so cute! And he looks exactly like Kirby, only with white (sometimes gold) eyes, purple feet, and blue skin.
  • Dreadful Musician: Kirby is such an awful singer that he kills when using a microphone.
  • Dream Land: In the English versionnote , the setting is named Dream Land, which happens to be the home of the Fountain of Dreams. Nightmare tries to come through the fountain in Kirby's Adventure, but King Dedede removes the fountain's power source, the Star Rod, to stop it. As a consequence, no one can dream until Kirby puts the Star Rod back, releasing Nightmare.
  • Dual Boss: A few throughout the series.
  • Dub Name Change: Several over the years, including but not limited to the characters Dark Nebula (from Dark Zero), Galacta Knight (from Galactic Knight), and Magolor (from Mahoroa).
  • Duel Boss: Meta Knight, of course. With few exceptions, he even gives you a sword if you don't already have one. He refuses to start the fight until you pick it up, in every game except "Revenge of Meta Knight" and Star Allies. And even then, he'll wait for half a minute, which is very chivalrous of him considering (in ROMK, at least) you're both on an airship currently plummeting towards the ocean. As a matter of fact, in Kirby & The Amazing Mirror, the way you can tell you're not fighting the real Meta Knight is because the impostor doesn't throw you a sword.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness:
    • From the release of Dream Land to some time during the SNES era, Kirby was treated as a Mascot with Attitude. Commercials often featured him acting tough and mean, and occasionally even ruthless, and Kirby's Avalanche features a mean-spirited and sarcastic Kirby. The last holdover of this seems to have been the commercial for Kirby 64, where he is portrayed as both cute and violent, firing a missile at the animals he was competing against.
    • There are a variety of discrepancies between storytelling and playstyle in Kirby games, chiefly due to two different directors: Masahiro Sakurai, who directed Kirby's Dream Land, Kirby's Adventure, and Kirby Super Star, and Shinichi Shimomura, who directed Kirby's Dream Land 2, Kirby's Dream Land 3, and Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards. They were only known to have collaborated in Kirby's Adventure (where Shimomura was a Map Designer), Kirby 64 (where Sakurai provided Dedede's grunts), and Nightmare in Dream Land (where they finally co-directed).
    • The original Kirby's Dream Land was very different from the later games — Kirby can't dash or slide, and while he can suck up, then swallow or spit out enemies, he wasn't able to copy abilities. Even Kirby's spitting attack is different — if you inhale multiple things, you'll still shoot a normal Star Bullet as opposed to a piercing Blaster Bullet. It also included some bizarre enemies that have not been seen since. That, and the North American cover art for the game shows him being whitenote . He would take on his trademark pink colouring (in-game) by the second game, Kirby's Adventure.
    • The way Kirby's animated within the games as well as the way his signature "Copy Abilities" work weren't consistent between games. In fact, it was not until Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land that his animationsnote  and the way his copy abilities worknote  started to remain consistent between games. Even after this game, his specific abilities started to get tweaked upon, with Kirby & The Amazing Mirror reintroducing the ability to do multiple attacks with a single ability. His animations and Copy Abilities were then tweaked further for Kirby's Return to Dream Land where they are now slightly different (even redesigning some of the hats) and have stayed consistent since then.
    • The final boss of Kirby's Dream Land was King Dedede, an unintimidating, fat penguin… bird… animal… thing, Kirby's Adventure was the first game to introduce the signature Surprisingly Creepy Moment final bosses the series is known for.
  • Easter Egg:
    • Throughout the franchise, HAL has snuck in hidden locations referred to as "HAL rooms", so named because they contain a series of Star Blocks or other objects arranged to spell out the company's name. Finding them usually involves one of three things; backtracking after reaching the end of an area, finding a well-hidden door, or waiting in a particular location for 86 seconds.
    • In most of the "tiered clouds" Goal Games (Kirby's Adventure / Nightmare in Dream Land, Return to Dream Land, Triple Deluxe, Planet Robobot, and Star Allies), if you land on each cloud from 7 up to 1 in seven consecutive Goal Games, you'll receive 30 extra lives upon landing on the 1 cloud in the last one.
  • Easy Levels, Hard Bosses: The bosses are much harder than the stages. In fact, the Kirby series was once the Trope Namer for this variety of Boss Dissonance.
  • Eating the Enemy:
    • Kirby's trademark power is his ability to inhale his opponents, gaining their powers.
    • Kirby: Triple Deluxe introduces the Miracle Fruit which turns Kirby's stomach into a black hole, allowing to eat enemies too big for him to swallow in his normal state.
    • King Dedede can inhale enemies too, although he doesn't copy their powers like Kirby.
    • In Return to Dream Land, Whispy Woods gains an inhale attack when he Turns Red. Yggy Woods from Star Allies has a similar attack.
    • In Kirby Mass Attack, the Big Bad Necrodeus will send his Skullions after your Kirby gang in the final boss fight to abduct them. If you don't free your Kirbys in time, Necrodeus will have the the Skullions bring the Kirbys to him and EAT THEM.
  • Eat the Bomb: What Kirby can do to disarm just about any bomb outside of minigames. Afterwards, he can even copy the ability to return bombs back at his foes.
  • Eldritch Abomination: Many final bosses, especially Dark Matter. In a Sugar Bowl setting, it's as odd and jarring as it sounds.
    • Zero is essentially an already Eldritch Abomination's "leader" of sorts. That's in Kirby's Dream Land 3, whereas in Kirby 64, you skip fighting Dark Matter and go straight to Zero Two, stylized as 02. In other words, you're fighting "Zero Squared", or the embodiment of nothingness given an extra dimension. It's white, has blood-red wings, and gives you a fantastic little moment of Mood Whiplash when you first see the smiley face it aims at you and then watch the mouth open into a blood red eye. Have fun!
    • Kirby himself can be considered one, albeit a small-scale and rare heroic one.
    • The variety of "Soul" bosses have designs that will give you the creeps.
  • Elemental Powers: Some of Kirby's copied abilities let him use the power of the elements, such as Fire, Ice, Spark, etc..
  • Energy Weapon: Laser, U.F.O., Plasma, Spark, and the ChuChu + Spark combination in Kirby's Dream Land 3. Certain bosses and enemies can also shoot lasers, such as the Reactor from Super Star or Star Dream from Planet Robobot.
  • Eternal Engine: The Halberd, Nova, Mecheye, the final stages of Shiver Star, Egg Engines, and every stage in Planet Robobot is at least partially this.
  • Everything Trying to Kill You: Even a knocked-out miniboss can hurt you if you touch it.
  • Everything's Better with Rainbows: Rainbows occur often in the background scenery, starting with Rainbow Resort in Adventure. In terms of gameplay, there's Rainbow Sword, and one of Water Kirby's attacks produces a rainbow.
  • Evil Laugh:
    • In Super Star's Revenge of Meta Knight:
      Axe Knight: Kirby is getting close to the twin cannon.
      Captain Vul: Kirby will be torched! Wahahahahahaha!
      Sailor Waddle Dee: Hahahahahaha!
      Captain Vul: Wahahahahahaha! Gahahahahahahaha! Hum.
    • Alternatively...
      Axe Knight: Kirby is now approaching Main Cannon #2.
      Captain Vul: He'll be burnt to a crisp. Hahahaha!
      Sailor Waddle Dee: Ahahaha!
      Captain Vul: Bwahahaha! Gahaha! ...Hm.
    • Kirby's Return to Dream Land
      Magolor: Anyway...MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
  • Excuse Plot: Squeak Squad. Your reason for playing the whole game? To get your cake back. Even after Daroach lets Dark Nebula out of its prison, this is still Kirby's primary motivation.
  • Expressive Accessory: Downplayed; Cutter Kirby's hat is usually expressionless, but it's seen emoting in Cutter's artwork for Kirby Battle Royale, and the unused Super Cutter hat from Kirby's Return to Dream Land sports an angry expression.
  • Expressive Health Bar:
    • In Kirby's Return to Dream Land, every character has a picture of their face next to their health bar. By default, it has a neutral expression. Upon taking damage, it shifts to an expression of pain before returning to normal. At low health, their face looks weary and sweats a lot. Upon death, their picture turns gray and has tightly-closed eyes.
    • In games starting from Return to Dream Land, whenever a character picks up the Invincibility Candy, their health bar will flash rainbow while the effect's active.
  • Expy: Lololo & Lalala are versions of the Battle Couple Lolo and Lala from the Eggerland series, an earlier, popular series created by HAL Laboratory. Gooey from Kirby's Dream Land 2 and 3 is somewhat an expy of Hurly and Chuckie from Kirby's Dream Land and Kirby's Pinball Land respectively.
  • Extended Gameplay: Given the series' objective to be accessible for newcomers while challenging for veterans, this is a given.
    • Kirby's Dream Land has an Extra Game mode after beating the regular game once, that turns the game Nintendo Hard by making enemies deadlier, adding a whole lot of new ones, and cutting your health to three hits.
    • Kirby's Adventure also had an Extra Game mode where you couldn't save and your health was cut in half. The rest of the game was unchanged. The remake, Nightmare in Dream Land, also has an Extra Game, but this time it allows saving. The new game "Meta Knightmare" offers the original no-save mode, but features Meta Knight as the player character.
    • Super Star Ultra offers two different ones. The first, "Revenge of the King", is a Hard Mode rendition of "Spring Breeze" that doubles as a Mythology Gag that refers to the first item on this list. The second, "Meta Knightmare Ultra", is an accelerated version of the original games (minus Gourmet Race) again featuring Meta Knight, with no autosaving, instead saving at designated points.
    • Kirby's Return to Dream Land has an EX mode that is unlocked after beating the main mode of the game. While the stages remain largely unchanged, the bosses have been made considerably more difficult. Kirby (and his allies)'s health is also reduced by one-third.
    • Kirby: Triple Deluxe has the Dededetour! mode, which again has you playing through the whole game, where you can only save at designated points. This time, the key difference is that you're playing as King Dedede, complete with hammer abilities.
    • Planet Robobot has "Meta Knightmare Returns". No points for guessing who the player character is.
    • Star Allies has "Guest Star ???? Star Allies Go!", which has you playing through the game again as a selected friend. Like Dededetour and Meta Knight Returns before it, the playthrough is divided into 5 parts, and you can only save in the middle and the end of each.
  • Extra-ore-dinary: Metal Kirby and Iron Kirby, the latter being exclusive to the anime.
  • Extreme Omnivore: Kirby, Gooey, Rick the hamster, and King Dedede (the latter without Power Copying).
  • Eye Scream: Zero in Kirby's Dream Land 3 which bleeds to attack Kirby, but the worst is when it rips out its iris to attack you in its final phase. Zero Two from Kirby 64 also qualifies, because not only do you repeatedly attack the eye with shards of crystal, but the eye itself hides a giant green spike which points outward at the bottom when Zero Two's defense is weakened.
  • Faceless Eye:
    • Kracko is a cloud with a single eye. It often summons Waddle Doos, which have this trait as well.
    • Big Bads Dark Matter, Dark Mind, Dark Nebula and (sensing a pattern here?) all also apply.
    • Miracle Matter in Kirby 64 cranks this up, being a twenty-sided dice with eyes on every side.
    • Zero, the eldritch eyeball that serves as a Load-Bearing Boss for the whole black cloud of Dark Matter in Dream Land 3. Its Ambiguously Related successor Zero Two likewise.
    • Rainbow Curse has the Grab Hands and their leader, Dark Crafter.
    • In Star Allies, Void Termina's core can turn into a faceless eye - that looks like Dark Matter, no less.
  • Faceship: The Halberd, which has Meta Knight's mask at the bow.
  • A Father to His Men: Meta Knight, to his Meta-Knights.
  • Feather Flechettes: Kirby's Wing ability, which debuted in Kirby Super Star. Many of Coo the Owl's moves also involve these.
  • Fighting Clown: Circus Kirby fights with circus implements. Also the enemy that provides it, Clown Acrobot.
  • Final Boss: Most Kirby games have a unique final boss. King Dedede, however, appears a lot more than others, especially in the spinoffs.
  • Fingerless Hands: Kirby has them. Unlike most examples, he's actually shown wrapping his hand around items, rather than just having them stick to his palm. Many other characters (such as the various Waddle Dees) also have hands like this.
  • Fire-Breathing Diner: Kirby's Dream Land has the Superspicy Curry, which also appears in an episode of the anime.
  • Flaming Sword: Kirby 64's Burning + Cutter ability, which is a BFS that's about thrice Kirby's size. Squeak Squad also has Fire + Sword, though be careful using it on destroyable surfaces. Star Allies has the Sizzle Sword, which lets Kirby cover the ground on fire with its attacks.
  • Floating Continent: Blockworld and Floralia are both floating archipelagos in Dream Land's sky. Also the Bubbly Clouds and other areas like it.
  • Flunky Boss: Whispy Woods in Kirby 64, and Kracko in most others. A lot of other bosses (including some final bosses) also can summon various mooks as well.
  • Flying Saucer: The U.F.O. enemies, which Kirby can inhale to turn into UFO Kirby. In Epic Yarn one of his transformations is similar to the aforementioned U.F.O.. In Squeak Squad, Doc rides one, which Kirby can also inhale after defeating him for the same ability.
  • Foul Flower: One common enemy is a smiling flower called Lovely. It waits for Kirby to get close, then grabs and holds him inside its petals, biting him and causing him to take damage. In Super Star Ultra's Revenge of the King, there's a stronger variant of them called Rosely.
  • Friendly Enemy: King Dedede. When he isn't trying to clobbah that there Kirby, he is actually helping Kirby to protect Dream Land from a bigger threat (Kirby 64, Kirby's Adventure, and Return to Dream Land are excellent examples of this). And sometimes he's just a bystander, too.
  • From Nobody to Nightmare:
    • Instead of the usual Dark Matter-esque Eldritch Abomination, Marx, the final boss of Kirby Super Star, is just one of the tiny, marshmallow-like denizens of Dream Land, who manages to gain ultimate power with an Evil Plan involving Kirby and the wish-granting comet Nova.
    • There's also Magolor from Kirby's Return to Dream Land, a seemingly hapless but friendly alien whose ship crash lands on Planet Popstar — which turns out to have been part of his plan to control the universe.
    • The Three Mage Sisters from Kirby Star Allies were once three young girls brought to within an inch of their lives within their harsh elemental environments before Hyness found them. Now they are three of the most powerful sorceresses in the universe.
  • Fun with Acronyms: Kirby's Adventure has levels whose initials spell V-I-B-G-Y-O-R, which is ROY G. BIV (The colors of the rainbow) backwards. Canvas Curse spells R-A-I-N-B-O-W, Return to Dream Land spells C-R-O-W-N-E-D, Triple Deluxe spells F-L-O-W-E-R, Planet Robobot spells P-R-O-G-R-A-M, the second area of Star Allies spells F-R-I-E-N-D-S, Forgotten Land spells N-E-W-W-O-R-L-D, and Return to Dream Land Deluxe adds Magolor Epilogue with A-P-P-L-E.
    G-L 
  • Gameplay Roulette:
    • Super Star and its remake has a number of different gameplays in one.
    • Also, the games in the franchise can be neatly put into two categories: Standard platformers where you freely control Kirby, nonstandard platformers that controls differently than normal, and non-platformers that play variously differently.
  • Gemstone Assault: Ribbon's Shard Gun in Kirby 64.
  • Generic Doomsday Villain: Many of the games have the Big Bad as some sort of powerful force capable of destroying Planet Popstar, but their exact motivations are rather vague and border on an Excuse Plot. This has become less common as time goes on.
  • Giggling Villain: Marx, Drawcia, Necrodeus, Queen Sectonia, President Haltmann, and Francisca.
  • Go-Karting with Bowser: Kirby and Dedede can be enemies one minute and taking part in friendly eating competitions the next. Magolor also reforms in Dream Collection to take part in friendly races with Kirby.
  • Good Wings, Evil Wings:
    • Played with and subverted. Meta Knight's cape doubles as your typical evil bat wings, but Meta Knight isn't evil, just the Worthy Opponent. On the other hand, Galacta Knight has feathery angel wings, despite being presumably villainous. The True Final Boss of Kirby 64, 02, has angel wings as well.
    • Dark Meta Knight has the same bat wings as Meta Knight, and he's villainous.
    • Marx has weird, colorful bat wings similar to those of Flandre Scarlet. Not only is he evil and the game's closest equivalent to the Big Bad, he's also the True Final Boss.
    • Morpho Knight, the bonus boss from Star Allies, has a butterfly motif that includes butterfly wings, but is just as presumably villainous as Galacta Knight.
  • Goo-Goo-Godlike: Kirby's just a child, yet he has the potential for infinite power and is more than capable of annihilating cosmic Eldritch Abominations every other week.
  • The Goomba: Waddle Dees serve as this in most of the games. In Kirby 64 only Waddle Dee that appears is friendly, so the Goomba is a small blackish creature called an N-Z. Kirby Mass Attack and Kirby and Rainbow Curse use Beanbons and Cottas respectively. Forgotten Land has the Awoofies.
  • Goomba Stomp:
    • Kirby can defeat enemies by landing on them, but unlike in Mario games, its use isn't prominent and Kirby has to fall from a great height to do it.
    • In the games they appear in; Rick, Nago, and Kine can defeat enemies by jumping on them. In Rick's case this is the key to getting one of the Heart Stars in Kirby's Dream Land 3, sinse he can't fly but can bounce off of enemies to cross gaps.
  • Gotta Catch Them All: Kirby's almost always collecting things. Guide Dang It! and the hunt for that Last Lousy Point are not unheard of.
    • Early Kirby games would feature him collecting a Plot Coupon from every boss battle before fighting the Final Boss (Sparkling Stars, Star Rod pieces, and later Mirror Shards), but it was the Dark Matter Trilogy that pioneered having the Collection Sidequest be integral to 100% Completion and the True Final Boss with the Rainbow Drops, Heart Stars, and most famously the the Crystal Shards.
    • Other games have optional collections that reward you with or can be exchanged for extras (like color changes), such as the chests in Super Star, Amazing Mirror, and Squeak Squad, the Medals in Canvas Curse and Mass Attack, or the Energy Spheres in Return to Dream Land. The 3DS games Triple Deluxe and Planet Robobot use a combination of optional collections (keychains and stickers, respectively) and True Final Boss collections (Sun Stones and Code Cubes), Star Allies has the Picture Pieces and Special Picture Pieces, as well as Big Switches, which unlock Dream Palaces and Extra Stages.
  • Gratuitous Ninja: Ninja Kirby, complete with Stock Ninja Weaponry and a cherry blossom attack from 'Return to Dream Land' onwards. And Bomb + Cutter is an exploding shuriken. Spinni from Squeak Squad is also a ninja who throws shurikens around, which Kirby can inhale to get the Ninja ability.
  • Greatest Hits Album: In 2004, the Japanese-exclusive compilation The Very Best of Kirby: 52 Hit Tracks was released as a companion piece to the soundtrack album for Kirby & the Amazing Mirror, collecting songs from throughout the franchise's history up to that point.
  • Green Thumb: Leaf Kirby lets him manipulate razor-sharp leaves.
  • Grenade Tag: Bomb Kirby possesses a move in Super Star (and retained in the future games) where he puts a live bomb on a minor enemy's head, which explodes seconds later. Pretty much just a fun technique without much practicality due to having to get close to the enemy and the move dealing exactly the same damage as a normal thrown bomb.
  • Guide Dang It!:
    • Collecting some of the Crystal Shards in Kirby 64 can be a bit unintuitive the first time around, even though the game itself does try to give you some hints. One particularly unintuitive shard to retrieve involves using a skill combination that transforms you into stone versions of the animal friends from Dream Land 3, keep using it until it transforms you into Rick the hamster, and then climb a wall up towards the shard that is too high to reach it via regular flight. Not something easy to figure, since nothing tells you that said form can climb walls that are rare to begin with (though one could figure it out if they had played Dream Land 3 beforehand, as he had the same ability in that game).
    • In Super Star, the location of the secret planet "?" in Milky Way Wishes could pretty much be found only if you look it up, or just fly around aimlessly for no particular reason. Its location is made more clear in Ultra, where the star brightly blinks and stands out against the background.
  • Gusty Glade: The series has quite a few places with this, especially in Kirby's Dream Land 3. If Kirby floats or uses his Parasol ability, he'll rise upwards.
  • Hailfire Peaks:
    • Halfmoon in Super Star's Milky Way Wishes is half Jungle Japes with intense wind storms, and half Space Zone. Also, Hotbeat is Underground Level mixed with Lethal Lava Land.
    • A stage in Dream Land 3 takes you through an apparently arctic volcano.
    • The fourth level of Kirby Mass Attack starts as a Lethal Lava Land, followed by a few graveyard-themed stages, then two stages that ultimately take the Kirbys to outer space, then back to the graveyards, and finally to the volcano for the boss.
    • Most of Orange Ocean in Kirby's Adventure is a mix of tropical islands and underwater stages. The last few stages, however, are cold and have lots of mystical-looking crystals, probably as a prelude to the next area, Rainbow Resort.
    • In Triple Deluxe, Wild World mixes Jungle Japes, Big Boo's Haunt and Temple of Doom. Endless Explosions is in essence a giant volcano. However, two stages have giant pools of water inside of them.
  • Happy Dance: Where Kirby often gains an ability to clone himself. Not only that, but it's also catchy as hell.
  • Harder Than Hard:
    • "Insane!/Ouch!" difficulty in Star Stacker.
    • The True Arena from Super Star Ultra onwards.
    • Soul Melter difficulty in Star Allies' Boss Rush, The Ultimate Choice.
  • Hazy-Feel Turn:
    • Whether the brooding Meta Knight and troublemaking King Dedede are Kirby's allies or adversaries often changes at the drop of a hat. And just as confusing as their alignment in regards to Kirby is how their position changes within each game. Over time this has mellowed out though. Since Return to Dream Land, they're usually depicted as Kirby's close friends when they're not possessed. Well, usually anyway.
    • Despite being a royal pain with a bad attitude, King Dedede is generally willing to do good when there's more than just his appetite at stake, even if it means he has to work with Kirby. Of course, once the fate of the universe is no longer at stake, Dedede happily goes back to butting heads with Kirby whenever an opportunity arises and you can rarely predict when. Play Nintendo even calls His Majesty Kirby's "frenemy".
    • Meta Knight was introduced as Dedede's Noble Top Enforcer and Dragon with an Agenda in Kirby's Adventure, but has since gone off in his own direction. With his perennially ambiguous motivations and lonely disposition, Meta Knight nonetheless observes a distinct code of chivalry (he will always offer Kirby a sword before doing battle with him) and is an apparent devotee of self-improvement. Since his one stint as a Well-Intentioned Extremist in Kirby Super Star, when he tried to use a battleship to take over Dream Land and put it under better management, the cast can usually count on him to be either an Aloof Ally or Hero Antagonist. He often flips between the two ends of the good-guy spectrum over the course of a game though and when all is taken care of, it's rarely made clear where specifically he'll stand by the start of the next game.
  • Heel–Face Turn:
    • Kirby's allies in Kirby 64 are an ex-enemy, an ex-boss, and King Dedede himself. They were all just possessed by Dark Matter, though, and returned to normal after they were defeated.
    • King Dedede appears to do this after his defeat in the first game. Mostnote  times he fights Kirby after that, he is either possessed, mistaken for the enemy, a doppelganger, or, in one case, trying to prevent Nightmare from awakening. This is especially apparent in Kirby's Return to Dream Land and Kirby: Triple Deluxe.
    • Daroach and the Squeaks become good in Kirby Mass Attack, even helping the 10 Kirbys in his (their) adventure.
    • Magolor makes peace with Kirby in Dream Collection, although he is implied to be possessed by the Master Crown. Return to Dream Land Deluxe's Magolor Epilogue post-game shows how this sudden turn to the good side came to be.
    • Taranza from Triple Deluxe does this after his queen declared that You Have Failed Me and blasted him out of the castle, and then assists Kirby by throwing a Miracle Fruit at him.
    • Seemingly averted with Susie from Planet Robobot, who only helps Kirby defeat Star Dream because it gained sapience and makes her leave in her mech suit for other plans.
  • Helpful Mook: Zebon in Dream Land 3 and Kirby 64 is classified as an enemy, but acts like a cannon, blasting you up to reach places you normally wouldn't be able to.
  • Hero Antagonist:
    • King Dedede turns out to have been this in Kirby's Adventure, as he splits apart the Star Rod and gives the pieces to his henchmen in order to keep Nightmare sealed. Unfortunately Kirby just thinks he's up to no good and doesn't find the truth out until it's too late.
    • Meta Knight in the same game, by virtue of being one of Dedede's henchmen. Also in Squeak Squad, there's a good reason he stole the chest supposedly containing Kirby's cake: it's where Dark Nebula is sealed. Unfortunately it's later stolen (again) by Daroach, and the rest is history.
  • Hive Mind: A certain episode of the anime heavily implies that Waddle Dees are this. The games, not so much.
  • Human Cannonball: In most games, Kirby can enter cannons to be shot away. Rainbow Curse even lampshades this, saying that Kirby will be fine, but everyone else should stay away from cannons. This also applies to the occasional other playable characters such as Meta Knight and Dedede. In Planet Robobot it can even fit in and launch Robobot Armor.
  • Human Snowball: Kirby 64's Ice + Ice ability, and Return to Dream Land's Snow Bowl Super Ability.
  • Humongous-Headed Hammer:
    • Hammer is a recurring Copy Ability that lets Kirby attack with a wooden hammer whose head is roughly the same size as the protagonist's body. In Kirby's Return to Dream Land, it gets a Super variant called Grand Hammer, which can grow ridiculously large and send massive shockwaves across the screen.
    • King Dedede's signature weapon is a wooden hammer. Though its size varies in each game, it's nearly the size of the king's own head in most depictions. In Revenge of the King, he replaces it with an even larger mechanized hammer.
  • Hyperactive Metabolism: Kirby games generally have Kirby recover health by eating food. Alongside regular food items, there's energy drinks that recover 1/3 of his health and Maxim Tomatoes that heal all of his damage.
  • An Ice Person: Ice and Freeze abilities, though later games merge the two into one. Mr. Frosty, Ice Sphere Doomer, Ice Dragon and Francisca also mainly uses ice powers.
  • Idiot Hero: Kirby isn't dumb, but he is simple-minded and he can be naive at times due to his age... and the fact that nobody ever tells him what's going on until it's too late.
    • In Kirby's Adventure (and its remake Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land), Kirby thinks that King Dedede is responsible for Dream Land's lack of dreams; technically, he's right, but he doesn't know that Nightmare was behind all the problems in the land, nor that Dedede's actually trying to stop him.
    • In Kirby: Squeak Squad, Kirby thinks the treasure chest the Squeaks stole contained his strawberry shortcake, but he didn't know that the chest was actually the prison of Dark Nebula.
  • Improbable Use of a Weapon:
    • Bandana Waddle Dee and Spear Kirby can spin their spears above their heads and hover in the air like a helicopter (with the spear acting as the helicopter blades), hurting any enemies that hit the part of the blade overhead (like a helicopter, going sideways changes the position of the blade as well).
    • Less improbable, but in Super Star and other newer games (except Amazing Mirror) the Cutter ability, which is typically used as a ranged attack since it uses what are essentially bladed boomerangs, can also be used melee-style to slice up enemies multiple times while tapping the attack button repeatedly while next to it, with the last blow involving jumping into the air and slamming the blade on the enemy. (The jumping slash ability still appears in Amazing Mirror even though Cutter only has its basic attack in that game; it is the Sword and Smash abilities' up+A move.)
    • The modes where you play as Meta Knight in Nightmare in Dream Land and Super Star Ultra let you trigger switches that Kirby can only press with Hammer or Stone. You can also light fuses with it, which seems improbable, until you remember the fire and lightning based attacks he sometimes uses as a boss.
    • In Kirby: Triple Deluxe, King Dedede gains a new attack just so that he can cut things using his hammer. It's also possible for him to whirl his hammer in such a way he can cool down fire blocks with them, which he needs to do if he wants to solve puzzles. He can also use it to melt ice blocks and light fuses, but this is a downplayed example as the moves King Dedede needs to do so explicitly involves lighting the hammer on fire — moves Kirby can also do if he has the Hammer ability on him.
  • Improbable Weapon User: Clean Kirby uses a broom, or other cleaning implements with animal friends. Also for Magic (at least in Squeak Squad) and Circus, which uses stage magician implements and circus toys respectively.
  • In a Single Bound: The Hi-Jump ability lets Kirby jump very high and attack enemies above him.
  • Inconsistent Dub:
    • The pronunciation of King Dedede's name was unclear for a while — in Japanese it's "Day-day-day," while in English it alternated between "Dee-duh-dee" and "Dee-dee-dee" (sometimes in the same work, as seen in the anime). The announcer in Super Smash Bros. Brawl finally made it consistent as "Dee-dee-dee," but lampshades the confusion by having the crowd cheer "Dee-dee-dee! Day-day-day?" when he's doing well.
    • The name of Kirby's copy abilities are sometimes inconsistent, such as Burn/Fireball/Burning (the Japanese name is Burning, and that has been the consistent English name since Nightmare in Dream Land), Cupid/Angel (Angel is the Japanese name, but is sometimes used in English), Cook/Chef (Cook is the canon name, but Chef is sometimes mistakenly used), and Archer/Sniper (like Cupid, Sniper is the Japanese name that is sometimes used in English).
    • Kirby's home planet was alternately known in English as Pop Star or PopStar before Kirby Mass Attack and Kirby's Return to Dream Land settled on Planet Popstar.
  • Incredible Shrinking Man: The Mini ability, only in Amazing Mirror. It turns Kirby small so that he can move into small spaces, but he cannot fly in that state.
  • Indy Escape: In a few parts of Kirby's Dream Land 3, you have to outrun several rocks going downhill, although it's one of the slowest examples of this trope.
  • Inflating Body Gag: Kirby can inflate like a balloon by inhaling deeply. Dedede can do the same.
  • Insistent Terminology:
    • What other games call "worlds" is what Kirby calls "levels" or "areas", and what other games call "levels" is what Kirby calls "stages". This applies to every single game, starting with Kirby's Adventure.
    • Similarly, the smaller games included in each installment are almost always called "sub-games," not "minigames". Instruction manuals sometimes call them minigames or bonus games, but Kirby's Dream Buffet is, so far, the only Kirby game to unambiguously use the term "minigame" in-game. Also, the tougher-than-usual enemies faced in the middle of certain levels and stages are "mid bosses", not "mini bosses".
  • Invincibility Power-Up: The Invincible Candy item, complete with its own theme tune.
  • Invincible Minor Minion: Gordo and Shotzo. The Shotzo cannons could be destroyed in the first game by colliding with them after eating Candy, but in every game afterwards, they simply do not hurt Kirby but remain intact. Gordos are an odd example, as they could be destroyed in the first game, but the method for doing so has been left out of every sequel since. Gordos will explode if they are onscreen when the boss that tossed them out was defeated though.
  • Invulnerable Attack: Some of Kirby's abilities' attacks make him invincible during execution, such as Wheel's Dash, Stone's Stone Change and Hammer's Hammer Swing. They really help in boss fights, and some puzzles expect you to be invincible using one of the abilities' attacks to pass through otherwise impassable paths.
  • It's All Upstairs From Here:
    • The third stage of Kirby's Adventure, Butter Building, is all about this, down to the map screen.
    • Single-stage example: the last stage of Ripple Star from Kirby 64.
    • Another single-stage example: the miniboss towers in Adventure/Nightmare in Dream Land in Rainbow Resort and a Continuity Nod and Call-Back to it in Return to Dream Land in Nutty Noon and Triple Deluxe's Endless Explosions.
  • Jet Pack: Jet Kirby has one that he can use to boost himself forward at high speed and hover in the air. The booster can be charged to boost Kirby further.
  • Jerkass: Dedede is this, rather than outright evil. He steals the Sparkling Stars and all the food from Dream Land, every star from the sky, and even outright refuses to help Kirby and Ribbon recover the Crystal Shards at first.
  • Joke Weapon: Sleep Kirby. The "ability" freezes you in place for four seconds with no way to defend yourself, and you lose the ability afterwards. The only reason to even consider getting it is to see Kirby's sleeping face, which is pretty darn adorable. Copy Essences containing Sleep are usually used as obstacles, rather than powerups. In Battle Royale, however, the ability is improved so that it's actually battle-capable (while still allowing Kirby to sleep). Forgotten Land subverts this further after forging the "Deep Sleep" variant, allowing Kirby to heal while asleep.
  • Kappa: There's an enemy based on them. They give you the Cutter ability upon copying them.
  • Karakasa: Kirby's Dream Land 2 features enemies based on Karakasa called Drifters, although they look more like regular umbrellas who happen to have an eye. There's also a Mini-Boss in both Kirby's Dream Land 2 and 3 called Jumpershoot who looks more the part.
  • Kid Hero: Kirby in the anime is pretty much a baby. His age in the games is rather unclear, but is referred to as a "little boy" in some manuals.
  • Killer Rabbit: Scarfies; they get angry and turn into cycloptic, fanged monstrosities if you try to inhale them. Even Kirby himself, to some extent, considering he defeats Eldritch Abominations daily.
  • Killer Yoyo: Gim the robot fights using these. It's also one of the many things Kirby can use for himself.
  • Knight of Cerebus:
  • Kudzu Plot: Downplayed; the stories of the games themselves are very self-contained, but the background lore is interconnected in increasingly complicated ways, which can become a headache to keep up with. The games themselves are approachable without knowing this lore, however.
    • Dream Land 2 introduces Dark Matter, who would slowly become a Greater-Scope Villain for the whole series, as many villains (such as Dark Nebula in Squeak Squad and the Master Crown in Return to Dream Land) are implied to be connected to it.
    • Amazing Mirror introduces the idea of parallel worlds with the Mirror World, which would be further explored with Another Dimension in Return to Dream Land and the Dream Kingdom in Team Kirby Clash Deluxe.
    • Super Star Ultra introduces the recurring boss Galacta Knight, the most powerful warrior in the universe, who is seemingly trapped between dimensions and timelines.
    • Return to Dream Land introduces the idea of the "ancients", a race that inhabited planet Halcandra, who are said to have created many of the legendary items in the series (i.e. the Star Rod from Kirby's Adventure and the "clockwork stars" like Nova from Kirby Super Star).
    • Planet Robobot indicates that the Haltmann Works Company have scoured the entire universe for technology, including some from Halcandra; this includes the powerful computer Star Dream, who is potentially another clockwork star. Star Dream is also implied to be connected to Another Dimension, having sent Susie there as a child and summoned Galacta Knight from there as well.
    • Star Allies suggests that Hyness's race came into conflict with the ancients. It also introduces Void Termina, a god connected to the ancients who is potentially the end-all source of Dark Matter and all of the villains connected to it, previously sealed away by the "four heroes of yore".
    • Star Allies also introduces Morpho Knight, a psychopomp that delivers souls to the afterlife, who has apparently been following Kirby in its butterfly form since at least Return to Dream Land.
    • Super Kirby Clash suggests that Galacta Knight was formerly a champion who was "tainted with darkness", and potentially one of the "four heroes of yore".
    • Forgotten Land implies that the ancients may have come from the New World, which is startlingly similar to Earth.
    • Return to Dream Land Deluxe directly confirms that the parallel universes of the Kirby universe are connected, via Magolor crossing over from the "main" universe to the Team Kirby Clash Deluxe universe.
  • Last Chance Hit Point: In Squeak Squad and every mainline Kirby game starting with Return to Dream Land, there's a hidden mechanic where if your health is low enough, taking a hit that would normally kill you will instead allow you to survive with just 1 HP left. In Squeak Squad, this triggers as long as you have more than 1 HP when you're hit. In Return to Dream Land, Triple Deluxe, and Planet Robobot, you'll survive if you have an eighth or less of your health. In Forgotten Land the effect triggers at 20 health or lower (your overall health being 250 in Wild Mode and 400 in Spring Breeze Mode).
  • Laughably Evil: Dedede. After being defeated in Dream Land, he first throws a tantrum, then sulks away, leaving Kirby to console him.
  • Law of 100: The Point Stars. While their predecessors from the "Dark Matter trilogy" (known as "star pieces") only required a small amount of them to get an extra life, it's Canvas Curse that reintroduced the concept (as "Point Stars") and changed it to a solid 100, which the traditional platformers incorporated from Return to Dream Land onward. Rainbow Curse will also grant Kirby the Star Dash ability upon gaining 100.
  • Leave Him to Me!: In Super Star, Meta Knight makes everyone abandon ship so he can take on Kirby alone, in one of the hardest boss battles in the series. Then, after he escapes, he comes back after you in a last-ditch attempt to stop Kirby from taking down his ship.
  • Level 1 Music Represents: Green Greens, which has since become a Leitmotif for Kirby.
  • Level in the Clouds: A frequent setting in the series, which includes Bubbly Clouds in many games, and the levels Nutty Noon in Return to Dream Land and Fine Fields in Triple Deluxe.
  • Levels Take Flight: It's almost series tradition to have a stage or boss fight that's entirely flying, such as Kaboola from Dream Land or the Halberd stages from Super Star.
  • Life of the Party: Festival Kirby is a single-use ability where Kirby and friends break into a dance (accompanied by party fanfare) that turns the enemies on screen into Point Stars.
  • Light 'em Up: Laser, Beam (and Flare Beam) and Light, although the latter doesn't actually damage enemies and is instead used to light up dark rooms. Interesting variations are Bomb + Spark from 64 and Kine's Spark power. The former turns Kirby into an exploding light bulb and the latter has Kine hold out a light bulb that damages enemies that touch it, with the option to shoot it at them. Both of these can also be used to see in the dark.
  • Light Is Not Good:
    • Dark Matter is all black with a bulging red eye, but its "core" Zero, is pure white (but retains red markings, which make it look like a giant bloodshot eyeball). As 02, it exaggerates this effect by taking on the artistic traits of a Fallen Angel.
    • Galacta Knight is pink and has white angelic wings, but was so completely powerful he was made into a Sealed Badass in a Can. Upon release, the first thing he'll do is pick a fierce fight with the guy in front of him. (Outside of that, he has no known goals or motivations.)
  • Lightning Lash: Kirby can copy the Waddle Doo's Beam ability, which attacks with an electric whip.
  • Living Ghost: Introduced in Kirby: Squeak Squad, the Ghost copy-ability gives Kirby ghost-like abilities whilst being alive, including possession and free movement.
    M-R 
  • Macro Zone:
    • Mass Attack has Kirby split into ten half-size Kirbys, so obstacles like giant flowers and crane machine claws abound.
    • This is the premise behind Dream Buffet, where Kirby is shrunken to the size of a marble and a normal-sized cake becomes an obstacle course.
  • Magical Clown:
    • Marx from Kirby Super Star, a jester who gains magical powers when he tricks Kirby into activating the wishing star Nova for him, allowing him to wish for power, turning him into a giant Bat Out of Hell with many Elemental Powers, including An Ice Person and Green Thumb. It gets worse in Kirby Super Star Ultra, in which he becomes Marx Soul, which is similar to his first One-Winged Angel form, but even more powerful and Ax-Crazy!
    • In Kirby: Triple Deluxe Kirby himself gains the Circus ability, which allows him to summon burning hoops and juggling pins out of nowhere among other attacks. However, whether or not Clown Acrobot - the enemy that gives Kirby this ability - is magical is debatable. Whenever Kirby encounters one, it already has its juggling pins or its hula hoop out, so we don't know whether or not it pulls these items out of nowhere. However, one could argue that Clown Acrobot still counts as one of these simply by virtue of being an inhabitant of Dream Land.
    • When Magolor from Kirby's Return to Dream Land gains magical powers, he transforms into a jester-like monster.
  • Magical Mystery Doors: Maze-like sections of doors appear in Milky Way Wishes' Skyhigh planet.
  • Magicians Are Wizards: The Magic ability, complete with the usual "stuff out of my hat" trick. It also has a move where creates an effect at random, such as giving Kirby a 1-Up, dealing high damage to everything on screen, or giving a random ability; this will make Kirby lose the power.
  • Magic Mirror: Mirror Kirby, which enables Attack Reflector and Self-Duplication techniques. Also the Dimension Mirror, the portal to the Mirror World. Said mirror became an Artifact of Doom as Dark Meta Knight's malice and rage influenced it, turning Queen Sectonia (who uses the mirror) evil and narcissistic.
  • Making a Splash: The abilities Water, Bubble, Parasol, Kirby's default water gun that he normally uses when underwater, and Clean with Pitch.
  • Manipulative Bastard: Given that Kirby has the mind of a child, it's not very surprising that several villains would try to take advantage of him, most notably Marx and Magolor from Super Star and Return to Dream Land respectively.
  • Mascot Mook: Waddle Dees are one of the most iconic as well as basic enemies in the series. Since Kirby Super Star specific Waddle Dees have started appearing as characters and even on occasion allies. They even have their own Amiibo.
  • Mask Power: Meta Knight, to the point that he refuses to fight without it. Also, Masked Dedede, complete with a rocket-powered hammer.
  • Meaningless Lives: Continually played straight since Kirby's Adventure, where in most cases extra lives are handed out by the dozens and a game over only sends you back to the hub (or the start of the stage, if the game doesn't have one). This is especially exemplified in Kirby Star Allies, as the developers freely admitted that they consider lives more equivalent to score; going over 1,000 lives places a crown on the life counter. Still, they're not totally meaningless through the series. In the original game and later games' extra modes, a game over will send you all the way back to the start, so stocking up on lives is important.
  • Mega Neko: Nago, a calico cat that's several times larger than Kirby himself.
  • Metroidvania: Kirby & The Amazing Mirror, and the "Great Cave Offensive" game in Kirby Super Star.
  • Mind Control: Ghost and Baton abilities, the latter being exclusive to the anime. Ghost Kirby in particular makes him possess a mook to make it kill other mooks.
  • Mini-Boss: Try naming a Kirby platformer that doesn't have at least one.
  • Mini-Game Credits: In Kirby & The Amazing Mirror. When you give Dark Mind the final hit in his third and final phase, do you expect him to blow up and the ending to play? No. Instead, the credits roll while you continue to shoot at the boss, and the game keeps track of how many hits you give him. After the credits finish, Dark Mind finally explodes and the epilogue kicks in.
  • Monster Is a Mommy: Dyna Blade, who was only destroying Dream Land's crops to feed her newborn chicks.
  • Monster of the Week: Most of the games introduce one major antagonist that at the most may have mere cameos afterwards. This also extended into the anime, where most antagonists were monsters purchased by King Dedede.
  • Mood Whiplash: Kirby is cute. The world is cute. Even the enemies are cute. And yet...
    • In the Dark Matter trilogy, the villain is a nebulous, shadowy, planet-sized Energy Being that seeks to bring all creation into its Hive Mind and can inflict both Demonic Possession and Body Horror on anything under its power.
    • Meta Knight's brooding, solitary existence in Dream Land seems to be a perfect example. Then there's his airship that has more weapons than the Death Star.
    • Kirby Canvas Curse's final level looks like a mixture of something Salvador Dali would puke up and something Picasso would have a nightmare about, rather than the cute, interesting levels expected of a Kirby game. Oh, and the final boss turns into a five eyed screaming ball of paint that can tear pieces off of itself to attack you.
    • Almost all True Final Boss or One-Winged Angel battles are against Eldritch Abominations. Special note goes to the various "Soul" bosses, which all have shocking, twisted natures in one way or the other.
    • Kirby 64 has a notable example; Ripple Star is shown to be quite similar to Planet Popstar, down to the bright and cheerful intro stage at the beginning of each. Thing is, Ripple Star has been under Dark Matter's influence for the whole game, and so as soon as you begin the second stage, you'll be greeted by the darkness-shrouded palace and that creepy music...
    • There's also the other type of mood whiplash when you complete Revenge of the King. Alas, Poor Villain indeed.
    • Star Allies has this big time, with the gameplay of making friends to help you along the way, while trying to stop a villainous cult hinged on summoning an ancient evil.
  • Morality Pet: King Dedede may be greedy and selfish, but in spite of it all, he seems to genuinely care about his Waddle Dee servants.
  • Mummy: The Mumbies are recurring enemies which look like round things wrapped in mummy bandages, which only let a single red eye peek from the bandages. They only move when Kirby is looking away from them.
  • Musical Assassin: There's regular enemy Walky (a living microphone), and an alarm clock miniboss named Mr. Tick-Tock. When Kirby inhales either, he'll be given the limited-use Mike ability. There's also the Bell ability, where Kirby wields 2 hand-bells and attacks with soundwaves from the bells. And Mike Kirby weaponizes his own shouts, given that he's a Dreadful Musician.
  • Music Is Eighth Notes:
    • The jukebox feature of Kirby: Triple Deluxe onward has eight notes coming from the visible jukebox on the top screen while a piece of in-game music plays (as well as, oddly enough, treble clefs). They're also color-coded per the song's composer: red for Jun Ishikawa, blue for Hirokazu Ando, and for Star Allies, yellow for Yuuta Ogasawara.
    • One of the miniboss Mr. Tick-Tock's attacks involve sending eighth notes towards Kirby. Kirby needs to use these notes to attack him if he fights Mr. Tick-Tock without a Copy Ability.
    • The recurring Mike enemy Walky attacks by singing a "tasteless tune" (represented by eighth notes and, more recently, treble clefs) to his opponents.
  • Natural Weapon: Animal ability gives Kirby claws that allows him to dig the ground, while Beetle gives, well, beetle horns that he can use to cut ropes, smash pegs and grab and throw enemies, and Wing gives Kirby wings that can cut ropes and shoot Feather Flechettes.
  • New Work, Recycled Graphics: The GBA and DS games are particularly infamous for this, as assets from Nightmare in Dreamland were reused for virtually every single game on both systems.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Kirby in Kirby's Adventure goes to collect the Star Rod pieces to reassemble them and putting them back to the Fountain of Dreams, something that Dedede is against. Turns out, doing so releases Nightmare out of the fountain (who was stuck there because Dedede purposefully took the Star Rod off). Dedede decides to throw Kirby and the Star Rod at Nightmare to resolve this, and fortunately, Nightmare is defeated in the end.
  • Night and Day Duo: Dual Boss Mr. Shine and Mr. Bright, who first appeared in Kirby's Adventure and have since become a mainstay Recurring Boss. They take turns battling Kirby on the ground while the other floats in the sky — changing movesets and switching their boss stage between day and night whenever they swap. Mr. Shine is a Waddling Head in the shape of a crescent moon who pelts the ground with shooting stars, throws crescent-shaped boomerangs, and has a Rolling Attack; Mr. Bright is a floating ball Wreathed in Flames with disembodied hands who projects a heat beam at the ground, throws fireballs, and has a flaming charge attack.
  • Nintendo Hard:
    • Think the original Kirby's Dream Land is too easy? Then try playing the Extra Game on it — even the most seasoned gamers will be given a run for their money. That's still too easy for you? Try changing the options to giving you no lives and a max of one point of vitality. If you get hit even once, you'll have to redo the entire stage over again. Kirby's Adventure followed suit by having an Extra Game mode which cut Kirby's health down to three hit points and took out the save feature — although its remake Nightmare in Dream Land gave you a save feature in its Extra Game, it compensates with Meta Knightmare mode, which does not have a save feature. That said, neither of them can touch the original game's hard mode in terms of just how insanely frustrating it is. Also, The Arena from Kirby Super Star and The True Arena from Super Star Ultra — the latter is almost as hard as the original Kirby's Dream Land's Extra Game, even with the trusty hammer at your side! Helper to Hero in that game can also get downright nightmarish to play with the weaker characters.
    • Believe it or not, minigames can be like this. Take "Super NES MG5", for instance. You have to go through all five of the memory-based minigames consecutively. If you get one wrong, then you have to do all five completely over again if you want to get 100% Completion.
    • The majority of Canvas Curse can be classified as this as the environmental hazards become harsher by Level 4, and God help your soul if you are going for 100% Completion... getting all of those medals is just as bad (if not worse) than the True Arena.
    • HAL seems to have listened to the complaints about Star Allies being too easy, which definitely shows in the rather sudden increase in difficulty with Heroes in Another Dimension, introduced to the game with version 4.0.0. Most notably, the bosses got some pretty serious upgrades, to the point where even Whispy Woods can lay a beatdown if the player isn't prepared.
  • Noble Bird of Prey: Dyna Blade.
  • Nominal Villain:
    • This will quite often be the end result for a lot of residents in the, most notably with King Dedede who tends to be brainwashed or possessed by whoever is the real villain of the story.
    • Kirby's Adventure: Kirby is tasked with retrieving the Star Rod that Dedede took away from the Fountain of Dreams and divided among his subjects. However, he only did that to keep the true threat sealed away.
  • Nonstandard Character Design: Wham Bam Rock in Kirby Super Star is claymation-style, unlike other characters. His design is more conventional in Kirby Super Star Ultra.
  • No-Sell:
    • Kirby can't eat Scarfies. If you so much as try, the Scarfy will get angry and try to eat you.
    • He can't eat Mumbies either, though they aren't nearly as aggressive as Scarfies can get.
    • He's also unable to inhale bosses, and minibosses have to be defeated first before they can be inhaled.
    • Mid-Bosses and regular bosses are also immune to Kirby's breath and slide attacks, unless it's an ability or a powerup.
  • Nostalgia Level:
    • Kirby's Adventure's penultimate stage reminisces about Kirby's Dream Land. So does Star Allies' final bonus stage.
    • Also, Kirby 64 intentionally has a lot of things in common with Kirby's Dream Land 3.
    • The entire "Spring Breeze" game of Super Star is a cut-down version of Dream Land. Revenge of the King from Super Star Ultra is a slightly less-stripped down version of Dream Land's Extra Game.
    • The final level of Kirby's Epic Yarn is Dream Land transformed by Yin-Yarn, featuring arts-and-crafts versions of classic Kirby game elements such as star blocks and Shotzos.
    • The final non-boss stage of Nutty Noon in Return to Dream Land is a tower filled with minibosses much like the one in Rainbow Resort in Adventure and its remake Nightmare in Dream Land. Both towers have a hidden entrance above the main one and the expanded soundtrack in Nightmare in Dream Land made King Dedede's theme from Dream Land the stage music instead of simply the miniboss theme as in the original version, and this carried over in Return to Dream Land.
    • In Star Allies' Guest Star mode, when playing as a Dream Friend, certain bits of level design will be replaced with corresponding stages from the characters' original games.
  • Noticing the Fourth Wall: Since Return to Dream Land, the first time Kirby boards a Warp Star he will turn to face the camera, then smile and wave at the player. It's often echoed in the final level, where Kirby will give a determined nod instead.
    • Meta Knight and King Dedede do this in their playable modes as well, but instead of waving they give a fist pump towards the player.
  • Not Me This Time: In Squeak Squad, the first he does after his cake gets stolen is to go to Dedede's castle, because Kirby things he might've stolen it (being a known food stealer). Then after Kirby beats Dedede, the titular Squeak Squad appears, and an angry Dedede tosses Kirby at them. Kirby then sets his sight at Daroach and co. as he realized that they may've been the ones stealing his cake.
  • Not the Fall That Kills You…: In Adventure and Dream Land 2, Kirby flies through the atmosphere to chase after the True Final Boss (Nightmare or Dark Matter, respectively). Kirby won't stay up there forever, and if you're not fast enough, you will actually see the ground rise into view...
  • Oculothorax: A lot of the bosses in the series follow this pattern. There's Kracko, Dark Matter, Dark Nebula, Zero, 02, Drawcia Soul, Dark Mind's second form, Magolor Soul, Star Dream's initial form, and Void Termina's core's Dark Matter form. However even some ordinary enemies have this, Waddle Doos being the most common example.
  • One-Hit-Point Wonder: In the original Kirby's Dream Land, it's possible to turn Kirby into this via the hidden Configuration Menu. For added "fun", you can also give him one life as well, so that a single hit sends you back to the beginning of the game, and activate Extra Game.
  • One-Winged Angel:
    • "Soul" has been used as the title for Final Boss power-ups as far back as Kirby: Canvas Curse, and generally indicates that the final boss has lost their grip on themselves exchange for power. There have been six such "Soul" bosses so far, and they generally tend to subtly refer to each other or previous Final Bosses like Dark Matter. The "Souls" have been doubling as True Final Bosses at the end of The True Arena since Super Star Ultra.
    • Wham Bam Jewel premiered at the end of the "Helper to Hero" game in Kirby Super Star Ultra as an advanced version of Wham Bam Rock. The game also features a handful of "upgraded" boss fights in its "Revenge of the King" and "The True Arena" segments.
    • 02 is Zero's new form in Kirby 64; unlike normal examples, this transition happened between appearances.
    • Aside from those, many other bosses such as Nightmare, Dark Matter (at least in Dream Land 2), Dark Mind, and Yin-Yarn have a second form after they're defeated.
  • Only One Name: Nearly every character in the series.
  • Only Sane Man: Meta Knight is usually one of the only people who isn't either an idiot or incompetent (or both).
  • Optional Boss:
    • In Super Star, The Arena has a unique enemy not fought anywhere else: Waddle Dee. Though it has higher health than average, it doesn't move and can be defeated by simply inhaling it. This particular Waddle Dee returns in Amazing Mirror's Boss Endurance mode, but in Super Star Ultra, it's replaced with Bandana Waddle Dee, who has a plot-relevant role.
    • Epic Yarn has the Combo Cannon and Reactor, the bosses of the Bonus Dungeon Halberd.
    • Return to Dream Land has two. The first is HR-D3, who is fought after Metal General EX in Extra Mode, and by itself in The True Arena. The second is the surprise return of Galacta Knight, who appears exclusively in The True Arena.
    • In Dededetour! in Triple Deluxe, there's Shadow Dedede as the penultimate boss, and then Dark Meta Knight appears as the final boss, similar to the above example. However, rather than being inexplicable, this boss actually contributes to the series' overall storyline by tying the events of Triple Deluxe back to Amazing Mirror.
    • Meta Knightmare Returns in Planet Robobot has three of them, fought as a collective final boss. The first two are clones of Dark Matter Blade and Queen Sectonia, created by Star Dream; the last one is Galacta Knight, summoned once again.
    • Star Allies' Guest Star mode misleads the player into thinking the final boss will be a third reappearance of Galacta Knight, complete with his theme song and Boss Subtitles. However, he's swiftly replaced with a new character: the enigmatic Morpho Knight, created through the apparent fusion of Galacta Knight and a butterfly.
  • Oxygen Meter: In Mass Attack, the Kirbys do not have their normal scuba masks and the game makes use of this.
  • "Pachelbel's Canon" Progression: Gourmet Race uses a slight variation in its final section.
  • Palette Swap:
    • The Spray Paint cans apply this to Kirby, as well as Color-Coded Multiplayer.
    • The Mirror World forms of each character are usually monochrome palette swaps of their Dream Land counterparts.
    • Many common enemies are palette swapped for their helper counterparts and late-game stages.
  • Paper-Thin Disguise: Whispy Woods in Dream Land 2, where he wears glasses and, ironically enough, a mouth mask used to prevent hay fever.
  • Parasol of Pain: Parasol Kirby (natch). The parasol can be used to guard against attacks from above, float slowly down in midair, and starting in Return to Dream Land it can also be used to splash water onto enemies. Some Waddle Dees also come armed with parasols.
  • Permafusion: This is how Kirby's Copy Ability works: by literally inhaling an enemy, Kirby gains a copy of their powers, as demonstrated by him gaining a nice little hat as a bonus. While some games give him the ability to recreate the enemy as an ally, more often than not the poor sap ceases to be while Kirby absorbs their power into himself.
  • Permanently Missable Content: In Kirby 64, you're only allowed to fight the Waddle Doo, the possessed Adeleine, and the possessed King Dedede once and only once. After you beat them, these battles do not reappear when revisiting their stages. The only way to fight them again is to start a new file. Thankfully, it's subverted in another case. You can miss collecting the bad ending cutscene in the theater by collecting all the Crystal Shards before fighting the first final boss, but the cutscene will be added to the theater anyway after beating the True Final Boss.
  • Physical, Mystical, Technological: Three consecutive main series games feature enemy factions with this theme:
    • Kirby: Planet Robobot: The Haltmann Works Company is the Technological, using high-tech devices to industrialize Pop Star for profit.
    • Kirby Star Allies: The Jambandran Religion is the Mystical, whose members include three mage-generals and a cultist who seek to revive a dark god.
    • Kirby and the Forgotten Land: The Beast Pack is the Physical, whose members are beasts that use their beast instincts and natural capabilities, and their goal is to capture Waddle Dees for a sinister purpose. The true mastermind, however, is an Ultimate Lifeform who utilizes both Mystical and Technological means by psionically brainwashing the Beast Pack and enslaving the captured Waddle Dees as Hamster-Wheel Power to provide power to its containment capsule in Lab Discovera.
  • Pictorial Letter Substitution: The "b" in "Kirby" has a star inside the space.
  • Pinball Spin-Off: Kirby's Pinball Land and Kirby Brawl Ball, a sub-game in Mass Attack.
  • Platform Game: Most games, though they break from traditional platforming in that Kirby can usually fly for as long as he likes.
  • Player-Guided Missile: Missile Kirby turns him into a flying missile that you can move around to hit enemies. In Return to Dream Land, Flare Beam creates an Energy Ball that Kirby can move around to hit obstacles and enemies.
  • Player Mooks: In Super Star and Star Allies there's a mode where you play as one of the mooks (i.e helpers/friends) instead of Kirby.
  • Playing Tennis with the Boss: Dark Matter's first form in Dream Land 2, and Drawcia in Canvas Curse. Minor case in Planet Robobot where you can smack Clanky Woods' canopy bombs back at him. That's discounting the cases where Kirby inhales something that the boss shoots to be sent back at them.
  • Playing with Fire: Fire, Burning and the Monster Flame Super Ability. Fire Lions, Fire Sphere Doomer, Pyribbit and Flamberge also use mainly fire attacks.
  • Point of No Return: In Amazing Mirror, when you first started a file, there was a series of rooms that contained a few treasure chests and a giant chest that contained the world map. The door that brings you to the main area is a one-way door, and once you enter it, you can't go back again.
    • In Kirby 64, while on Dark Star or fighting 02, the pause-menu option to leave the current level is replaced with "Tough it out!", which is functionally identical to the "Continue" option. Your only options here are to defeat Dark Matter or reset the game.
  • Poisonous Person:
    • The Poison ability, a modified Water ability that lets Kirby cover the ground with poisonous puddles and breathe toxic gas.
    • Poison Croakooms in Forgotten Land are large frog-like creatures covered in poison that can spit toxic poison at Kirby and cover parts of the stage with it.
  • Polar Penguins:
  • Power Copying: Kirby didn't start with this power like the former Trope Namer did, and some games drop it from his arsenal, but he certainly gets a lot of mileage out of it when he does have it. He even has it in Super Smash Bros.. A few games also feature special gimmicks that revolve around this power:
    • Dream Land 2/3 gave the animal friends special powers when you use them while having certain Abilities.
    • Kirby 64 and Star Allies allow you to combine two Copy Abilities to create a new Ability (the latter requires you to have a friend helping you). Squeak Squad featured a very limited form of combo Abilities as well.
    • Return to Dream Land has Super Copy Abilities, which give you extremely powerful versions of existing Abilities that can kill almost any enemy in one hit and typically have puzzle-solving functions.
    • In Planet Robobot, the Robobot Armor is also capable of scanning enemies, which grants it a Mode that has unique effects and powers depending on which Ability was scanned.
    • Forgotten Land gives us the Ability Evolutions, more powerful versions of the abilities you can unlock blueprints for and upgrade the normal abilities to.
  • The Power of Love: Angel/Cupid and the Love-Love Stick from Dream Land 3. Also the Friend Heart in Star Allies, which is used to turn enemies into friends.
  • Power-Up Food:
    • Lollipops make Kirby invincible.
    • The original Kirby's Dream Land had Superspicy Curry which lets him spit fireballs, and the Mint Leaf (or Sweet Potato in Japanese) that puffed him up and let him spit air puffs while flying.
    • The Miracle Fruit in Triple Deluxe gives him the Hypernova ability.
  • Power-Up Mount: The most famous example are Kirby's animal buddies: Rick the hamster, Kine the fish, and Coo the owl in Dream Land 2; joined by Nago the cat, ChuChu the octopus, and Pitch the bird in Dream Land 3. There's also the Wheelie helper in Super Star, and Dedede in 64, and all of your co-op partners in Return to Dream Land and Star Allies. Ribbon, also from 64, turns the True Final Boss into an Unexpected Shmup Level.
  • Precision-Guided Boomerang: Kirby 64's Cutter ability, which uses Kirby's face as ammo. Averted in every other game, where boomerangs return at the same trajectory as they left.
  • Precursors: According to Magolor in Return to Dream Land, the Ancients crafted many items of legendary power, including not only the Lor Starcutter and the Master Crown but also "mysterious items that bring dreams to life"note  and "clockwork stars that soar the cosmos"note . It's also implied that these same Ancients banished Hyness and his cult to the edge of the galaxy. Kirby and the Forgotten Land creates further connections to the Ancients, implying that they originated from the mysterious planet and left it behind using the star shaped portals created by the captured Fecto Elfilis.
  • Prepare to Die: Meta Knight says this to Kirby in the English version of the original Kirby Super Star before their duel, which was replaced with "Come meet your doom!" in Kirby Super Star Ultra.
  • Psychotic Smirk: Happens to possessed characters in Kirby 64, most notably Adeleine and the Ripple Queen in the game's fake ending.
  • Psychic Powers: The ESP ability lets Kirby create spheres of psychic energy and teleport around the place. In Star Allies he can also lift around stone statues with his mind.
  • Punny Name: Planets Popstar and Rock Star. Kirby's Epic Yarn plot mover Yin-Yarn. Rick, Coo, and Kine's names are plays on the Japanese characters for their respective terrains: 陸 (riku; land), 空 (kuu; sky), and 海 (kai; sea). In Planet Robobot, Haltmann's name contains HAL in it, and in Star Allies many things relating to Hyness' cult also contains the HAL. Among many others.
  • Puzzle Boss:
    • The Halberd's Reactor in the Revenge of Meta Knight segment in Kirby Super Star, but it's not too much of a puzzle — the dialogue boxes tell you "as long as he doesn't do this...".
    • The fake Final Boss of Kirby 64. You must hit it with the same element it's using. Kudos if you figured it out right away instead of thinking to hit it with the opposite element. And God help you if you got yourself stuck by trying to rely on one of the game's Game-Breaker combos, like Ice + Spark's refrigerator.
    • Mega Titan in Amazing Mirror can only be damaged by electric abilities (Beam or Spark) or by knocking him towards the electrified walls.
    • Grand Mam in Kirby Star Allies; usually immune to your normal means of attack, you need to cut her bomb-like arms with a cutting ability and then blow them up with a burning ability to make her vulnerable.
  • Quirky Miniboss Squad: Meta Knight's crew, the Meta-Knights, and Daroach's crew, the Squeaks.
  • Real Men Wear Pink: Kirby is pink! And so is Galacta Knight.
  • Recurring Boss: Many.
    • King Dedede and Meta Knight are the most well known, being major characters, and appearing in nearly every game since their debut, including spinoffs. They are in Super Smash Bros. for a reason.
    • Whispy Woods and Kracko, who were two of the five bosses in the original game, are right behind those two in number of appearances. Even when the characters themselves don't appear, an Expy probably will, such as Flowery Woods and Mecha-Kracko.
  • Recurring Boss Template: Half of the bosses in Amazing Mirror are blatantly Alternate Universe counterparts to previous bosses. King Golem is Whispy Woods, Dark Meta Knight is obvious, and the final boss starts off as an expy of Nightmare before ending up as an expy of Zero.
  • Recurring Riff: Many themes are used throughout the series. Green Greens, Dedede's Theme, and Gourmet Race are just a few notable examples.
  • Redemption Demotion: Despite the wide variety of moves they display in boss battles, Dedede's and Meta Knight's playable movesets are usually a variant on the Hammer Copy Ability and a combination of the Sword and Wing copy abilities, respectively. The Meta Knightmare series of modes returns a few but not all of Meta Knight's special moves to him.
  • Reflecting Laser:
    • "-Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation- And it ricochets off hills, too!" Using Spark with ChuChu in Dream Land 3 and acquiring the Laser Scroll in Squeak Squad nets a chargable version of the attack.
    • Also, the Halberd's Reactor Core in Super Star is equipped with one of these. In fact, the only way to damage it is to reflect the laser at itself.
  • Remilitarized Zone: The Halberd and Mecheye share a similar battleship theme.
  • Replay Mode: Kirby's Dream Land 3, Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards, Kirby Air Ride, and most entries in the main series from Kirby Super Star Ultra onward allow the player to view cutscenes through a Theater mode. Dream Land 3 requires the player to achieve 100% Completion first, while later entries have the Theater unlocked from the get-go, with cutscenes only being added once they've already been seen in the main game.
  • Respawning Enemies: Usually the scrolled-offscreen varation. It's useful for grabbing an ability that you want if you accidentally kill an enemy who has that ability.
  • Ret-Canon: Happens several times with material that showed up in the anime. For example, Plasma Kirby from Super Star was originally pink, a la Spark Kirby; the anime portrayed Plasma Kirby as having green skin, so when the time came for Super Star Ultra, Plasma Kirby was given green skin. Also for Meta Knight's sword Galaxia and Halberd's design.
  • Ridiculously Cute Critter: Kirby and just about everything else that isn't a final boss. Subverted by minor enemy Scarfy, which turns Cute and Psycho when provoked. Defied by Meta Knight, who hides his cute face with a mask and badass attitude.
  • Riding into the Sunset: Kirby after sinking the Halberd. In Revenge of the King, Dedede does a walk-of-shame into the sunset accompanied by his still-loyal Waddle Dee subjects.
  • Roger Rabbit Effect: Featured in these ads for Kirby's Adventure and Kirby's Dream Land 2.
  • Rolling Attack: Wheel Kirby and Rick's Stone power mainly attacks by rolling around.
  • Royal Brat: King Dedede. He may be an adult (physically, anyway) but is very self-centered and usually cares more about his own self-gratification (especially eating) than being King.
  • RPG Elements:
    • Parodied in Kirby Super Star with the Computer Virus boss.
      "You gained 152 EXP! (Not that it matters.)"
    • Used in Team Kirby Clash for real. Doubles as a Callback to the above, where in addition to the actual stats that get upgraded, fake ones (including ones from the Computer Virus fight) are mentioned.
      "Leadership raised by 3! (Not that it matters.)"
  • Rubber Orifice: Kirby's iconic Vacuum Mouth lets him swallow objects and enemies twice as large as himself. This becomes ironic with the Mouthful Mode ability in Kirby and the Forgotten Land, which doesn't let him swallow large objects, making him wrap around vehicles and control them.
  • Running Gag:
    • A minor one, but still notable nonetheless. Kirby has a knack for chasing and/or getting distracted by butterflies before interrupted by something.
      • In Kirby's Dream Land, the Green Greens intro shows Kirby chasing butterflies but then being carried of by the wind. Same with Kirby Super Star.
      • In Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards, Kirby and Ribbon are chasing a butterfly before noticing the possessed Waddle Dee.
      • In Kirby: Squeak Squad, Kirby is eating his cake (with butterflies in the background) before it gets stolen.
      • In the epilogue of Kirby's Return to Dream Land, a butterfly lands on Kirby before he notices King Dedede is stuck in a hole in the ground.
      • In Kirby: Triple Deluxe, playing with a butterfly is one of the things Kirby does the morning before the Dreamstalk grows.
      • In Kirby: Planet Robobot, a butterfly flies onto Kirby after he finishes off Star Dream and was sent back into Popstar by his Robobot Armor.
      • In Kirby Star Allies, a butterfly is the secret final boss, Morpho Knight.
      • Heck, this even made its way into the anime. In episode 95, Kirby is chasing a butterfly before he's attacked by the Demon/Devil Frog.
    • In the original Kirby's Dream Land, there was an easter egg at the end of Bubbly Clouds where you could enter the moon, where the following room would be a long fall filled with goodies. Games would often have a moon (or occasionally a star) with these same properties near the end of the game. A lot of the time, its surrounding environment would even be Bubbly Clouds.
    S-Z 
  • Sacred Bow and Arrows: Amazing Mirror has the Angel/Cupid ability, that comes with a pair of wings, a Holy Halo, and a bow and arrow.
  • Savage Setpiece: If Kirby tries to inhale a Scarfy, they get angry and turn into cycloptic forms to chase him. Though in some games they will chase you like any other enemy if you get too close to them.
  • Scenery Porn: Kirby games, which are often produced late into a system's lifespan, will try to use the system's capabilities at their greatest. Even Kirby's Adventure has very impressive graphics for an NES game, included animated backgrounds and a pseudo-3D rotating tower.
  • Sdrawkcab Name:
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: Dark Nebula from Kirby: Squeak Squad, Nightmare from Adventure and Nightmare in Dream Land, Void Termina in Star Allies, and Galacta Knight in every appearance he's had from Kirby Super Star Ultra on.
  • Self-Imposed Challenge: Doing a single ability run of any game's Boss Rush is popular among fans. Although doing one on Squeak Squad's Boss Rush is almost impossible because the game actually forces the Eleventh Hour Super Power on you, destroying your current ability!note 
  • Sequential Boss: The worst offender is the final boss in Kirby & The Amazing Mirror, which has you fight against the penultimate area's boss again but with more attacks, then the same Warlock-ish form of Dark Mind four times, with the only reason being to have a different area to fight him in and some power-ups, then a giant eye form of Dark Mind, and then a smaller version of that eye flying away, with you trying to finish it off during the credits. Although, once the credits start, you've already won, and are just playing a scored game of There Is No Kill Like Overkill.
  • Shock and Awe: Kirby's spark ability gives him electric attacks.
  • Shotoclone: The Fighter ability turns Kirby into one, complete with a Shoryuken and a Hadoken.
  • Shout-Out:
  • Showdown at High Noon: The Quick Draw minigame from Adventure.
  • Single-Stroke Battle: Parodied in the "Samurai Kirby" minigame in Kirby Super Star and the revamped Quick Draw minigame in Nightmare in Dream Land. There, Kirby and various enemies duel in which could attack the other faster after the cue comes out, with ridiculous weapons such as a paper fan or a pie.
  • Sky Surfing: Kirby's Warp Star lets him do this. He sometimes even rides it surfboard style.
  • Sleepy Enemy: Noddy is programmed to doze off into sleep, awaken and take a few steps in one direction, after which the cycle restarts. If Kirby eats one, he also falls asleep.
  • Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Nearly every single game has one.
  • Smart Bomb: A few of Kirby's abilities can defeat minor enemies in the entire screen, such as Crash, Mike, Cook, Paint, Festival, Magic (at random, with its charged move) and Artist (only with the Painbrush move). Most of them have a single use, except for Mike, which has three. Starting from Return to Dream Land, most of them can be charged to deal even more damage.
  • Snowlems: Chilly the living snowman.
  • Spell My Name With An S: Many throughout the series.
    • Burning/Fireball/Burn, Cook/Chef Kawasaki, T.A.C./Tac, Warp Star/WarpStar/Warpstar, Kaboola/Kabula, U.F.O./UFO, Broom/Clean/Cleaning, sub game/subgame/sub-game, Pop Star/PopStar/Planet Popstar, etc..
    • Officially, it's ambiguous whether Ado and Adeleine are the same person or not, but the 20th Anniversary guidebook Pupupu Taizen suggests that if they were the same, "Ado" would likely be a nickname of "Adeleine". In which case the former should be romanized as "Ad" or "Ade".
    • Doubling with Non-Indicative Name, 02 looks like it should be pronounced "Zero Squared" but is officially "Zero Two".
    • Is it Meta Knight or Meta-Knight? The oft-used spelling in the games is Meta Knight, but his trophy in Super Smash Bros. Melee is listed as Meta-Knight (the "Meta-Knights" are his forces). And of course, the Japanese Romanization (Metanaito) is unhelpful since the language doesn't naturally use spaces. Some fans simplify it "MK".
    • Amazing Mirror is in a league of its own for its "Blind Idiot" Translation. Although, while some translations were reverted (e.g. Cupie became Angie in its keychain in Planet Robobot), others were kept such as Foley for the falling bomb enemies and Crackity Hack in Return to Dreamland Deluxe instead of Gigaton Punch.
  • Spike Balls of Doom: The Gordo enemies, Invincible Minor Minions that act as obstacles.
  • Spikes of Doom: Needle Kirby lets him shoot out spikes around him to impale enemies. Cutter + Cutter is a spiky boomerang. Some obstacles in the stages are spikes, although they only do damage instead of being One-Hit Kill.
  • Spinoff Babies: The canceled Kid Kirby for the SNES. Yeah, try to wrap your head around an even younger Kirby.
  • Spiritual Successor: Super Smash Bros. is, in some ways, a multiplayer-focused successor to the series - Kirby Super Star in particular.
    • Kirby & The Amazing Mirror to Kirby Super Star's Great Cave Offensive segment.
    • And Kirby: Squeak Squad to that game.
    • The story mode of Super Smash Bros. Brawl plays a lot like Super Star and 64 - which makes sense, as they were all designed by the same team.
    • Kirby and the Rainbow Curse is one to Kirby: Canvas Curse.
  • Stalactite Spite: Some icy areas (Kirby's Dream Land 2 & 3, Kirby's Return to Dream Land) have falling stalactites. Tropical areas usually feature falling explosive coconuts instead.
  • Stationary Enemy: Mixed with Invincible Minor Minion: Many Gordos stay in one place since they're more living obstacles than active enemies, though some may move back and forth along a track.
  • Stealth Pun: Bubbly Clouds, located just above the (ice cream) Float Islands.
  • Storming the Castle:
    • Kirby gets to storm Dedede's castle in Dream Land, Super Star (Ultra), Squeak Squad, Blowout Blast and Star Allies.
    • The final level in Dream Land 2 is the Dark Castle, where the possessed King Dedede resides. In Triple Deluxe, the final level Royal Road is set in a giant castle, while Planet Robobot's Access Ark (the final area) is the main villain's mothership.
  • Story Arc: Kirby Dream Land 2, 3, and Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards make up the "Dark Matter Trilogy" which spans two consoles and a handheld.
  • The Straight and Arrow Path: Archer and Cupid abilities have Kirby using bow and arrows.
  • Stuff Blowing Up: Bomb, Crash, and Missile abilities create explosions. Many enemies also explode into puffs of smoke when they're defeated.
  • Suddenly Speaking: Though Kirby is usually a Heroic Mime, he can speak sometimes. Usually exclusive to manuals, it crops up in Avalanche, Star Stacker, and Epic Yarn as well. The Copy Ability pause menu descriptions in Nightmare in Dream Land, Amazing Mirror, and Squeak Squad are also told in first-person, and at least one boss description in Star Allies is similar.
  • Sugar Bowl: Dream Land is surprisingly peaceful in spite of King Dedede's barely there leadership... at least most of the time.
    Kirby's Epic Yarn Narrator: It's the perfect little land... if you like that sort of thing.
  • Super Drowning Skills: A large part of the enemies cannot stand water, since it makes them die almost instantly.
  • Super Not-Drowning Skills: Kirby. Starting from Super Star and Nightmare in Dream Land, he gains a scuba mask when he is under water.
  • Surprisingly Creepy Moment: In a series where almost everything is cutesy, the final bosses will catch you off guard; the games typically start off in a relaxing Green Hill Zone with adorable enemies, only slightly lower that cheeriness over time thanks to Sorting Algorithm of Threatening Geography, and then the final bosses come entirely out of left field as a bunch of Eldritch Abominations, with the likes of Zero and Fecto Forgo providing ample amounts of horror.
  • Suspicious Videogame Generosity: In most games, you'll know you're about to hit a boss room when you reach a single room with nothing but Copy Abilities and a Maxim Tomato. It's lampshaded in Revenge of Meta Knight with the crew's "secret food stash".
  • Taken for Granite: Stone Kirby lets him turn into a stone statue and drop from above to smash enemies. Smash Bros. also has this as part of its moveset. Whether he can move or not depends on the game, as well as the specific power you have.
  • Tears of Blood: Zero and 02 both shed these to attack.
  • Teleport Spam: Some final bosses tend to do this.
  • Telescoping Staff: Staff and Baton abilities, the latter being exclusive to the anime.
  • Thief Bag: T.A.C. enemies have these.
  • This Cannot Be!:
    • Captain Vul says this in Kirby Super Star when he reacts to his fellow crew members reporting that Kirby destroyed Combo Cannon. In the original Super Star, his reaction?
      Mace Knight: The main cannon has been destroyed!
      Captain Vul: Holy cow! What happened?
    • Then, in the remake...
      Axe Knight: Ahh! Main Cannon #2 was destroyed!
      Mace Knight: The cannon's a wreck! We can't use it!
      Captain Vul: What?! How could this be?
  • This Is a Drill: Animal Kirby has a move where he drills with his claws, allowing him to dig dirt quicker. Stone + Needle in Crystal Shards makes Kirby attack with a drill on his hand forward. In Planet Robobot, in the end of the fight against Star Dream, the Robobot Armor uses a giant drill (in an homage to Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann) to finish the boss off. Forgotten Land directly adds a "drill" Copy Ability.
  • This Means War!: King Dedede says this at the beginning of the Normal mode in Kirby's Star Stacker.
  • Throw the Mook at Them: For obvious reasons, the games frequently feature bosses that spawn mooks for the player to hurl back at them using Kirby's default powers, most notably Kracko. Kirby's bread and butter abilities include inhaling an enemy and spitting it to another (when he doesn't copy that enemy). Some of the games use a variant in which some bosses that spawn enemies with especially suitable powers. However, there are plenty of subversions featuring bosses who spawn mooks that give the player useless powers like Sleep or powers that are utterly ineffective in that particular battle.
  • Took a Level in Badass: King Dedede as Masked Dedede, which shows in the difficulty of the fight as well.
  • Tornado Move: A recurring Copy Ability in the series is one called "Tornado", which allows Kirby to turn into a tornado for a short while. Meta Knight also has a attack called "Mach Tornado", which allows him to create a huge tornado from his sword. He can also spin like a tornado as a normal move.
  • Trademark Favorite Food:
    • Kirby loves tomatoes, especially life-restoring Maxim Tomatoes. In the anime, he prefers watermelons.
    • Various Japanese supplementary materials, including the real-life Kirby Café, reveal that Meta Knight's favorite food is a particular kind of parfait, as well as afogatto.
  • Transformation Sequence: Every time Kirby absorbs a monster with a special power, with the fanciness depending on the game. Averted in Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards, but more elaborate with the Super Abilities in Return to Dream Land. In the anime, especially elaborate transformation sequences happen Once an Episode.
  • Trash Talk: In Kirby's Avalanche, where he is shown to speak full sentences, Kirby loves insulting whatever opponent he is facing, sometimes throwing incredibly lame puns in the mix.
    Kirby: You couldn't even hit a barn-sized lightning rod, Kracko!
  • True Final Boss: Almost every main platformer (and one spin-off) since Kirby's Dream Land 2 has had one:
    • Dream Land 2: Dark Matter Blade, who reveals its true form once it's taken enough damage; it can only be fought by collecting all of the Rainbow Drops.
    • Dream Land 3: Dark Matter and its master Zero, both of whom can only be fought after collecting all of the Heart Stars.
    • Crystal Shards: 02, who can only be fought after collecting all of the Crystal Shards.
    • Super Star Ultra: Marx Soul, who is fought at the end of The True Arena.
    • Mass Attack: Necrodeus, despite being the Big Bad, takes this status, with his Dragon Skullord being the regular Final Boss.
    • Return to Dream Land: Magolor Soul, who appears in Extra Mode and the True Arena.
    • Triple Deluxe: Soul of Sectonia, who has an altered final phase from the original, and only appears at the end of The True Arena.
    • Planet Robobot: Star Dream Soul OS, which has an extra phase and only appears at the end of The True Arena.
    • Star Allies: Void Soul, who serves as the true final boss in The Ultimate Choice and has an altered final phase. The Wave 3 update adds Void as the True True Final Boss in the new Soul Melter EX difficulty in the Ultimate Choice mode.
    • Forgotten Land: Morpho Knight caps off the post-game scenario and its defeat heralds the true ending. Chaos Elfilis fulfills the requisite "ultimate challenge" boss, fought at the end of The Ultimate Cup Z.
  • Turns Red: Starting from Return to Dream Land, bosses will get enraged and change up their attack pattern at about half health. In a subtle aversion of Transformation Is a Free Action, unless the game takes control away from you, you can usually still whack the boss and inflict damage while it's doing the animation. The damage is a lot less than normal, but it can add up.
  • Underground Level: The Great Cave Offensive gives the underground empire of Zork a run for its money.
  • Unexpected Shmup Level: A series tradition, starting with Kaboola in Dream Land.
    • The last normal stage of Milky Way Wishes (from Super Star and Ultra) is a side-scrolling shooter, as are the boss fights against Kaboola in Kirby's Dream Land (and Kabula in the Revenge of the King segment of Super Star Ultra), the first form of Nightmare in Adventure, Dark Matter and Zero in Dream Land 3, and 02 in Crystal Shards.
    • The final boss of Amazing Mirror is fought in a vertical shmup style during the credits.
    • Kirby's Epic Yarn features both vertical shmup stages and horizontal shmup stages.
    • Kirby Mass Attack features a shooting sub-game called Strato Patrol EOS.
    • Kirby's Return to Dream Land gives us the Landia segments.
    • Planet Robobot has the Robobot Armor Jet Mode segments in three stages, as well as Halberd Mode for the Final Boss fight. The former is a horizontal shooter, the latter is a Rail Shooter.
    • Star Allies has the Friend Star segments; notable in that Kirby can move to the left and right freely while other games forces him to go right (or up). The Final Boss also is battled this way, with the Star Allies Sparkler, as a Third-Person Shooter to be specific.
  • Updated Re-release: 3D Classics: Kirby's Adventure on the Nintendo 3DS, which adds 3D visuals and cleans up the slowdown issues and glitches of the original game.
  • Use Your Head: Many of his abilities have Kirby headbutting his foes, such as Jet Dash where he jets forward headfirst. Also, if he falls from high enough altitude (mostly in the more "regular" games) he'll flip his body down and fall head-first, damaging the enemy if he lands onto them without hurting Kirby himself.
  • Vacuum Mouth: Kirby and King Dedede both have these as some of their trademark skills. Later on, in Return to Dream Land, Whispy Woods gets this as well, and it is far more powerful than theirs.
  • Victory Cake: Kirby can be seen snacking on foods in celebration at the end of some games (and at the end of every stage in others). Kirby spends the entirety of Squeak Squad chasing after his cake until the Squeaks finally return it to him at the end.
  • Video Game 3D Leap: Kirby 64 was a presentation upgrade, but the game still played on a 2D plane. Kirby Air Ride is Kirby's first "true" 3D title, even allowing some free-roaming during the City Trial mode. The second is Planet Robobot's Kirby 3D Rumble, which was expanded into Kirby's Blowout Blast and Kirby Battle Royale. The series finally made its proper, mainline foray into 3D with Kirby and the Forgotten Land.
  • Video Game Flight: Kirby is one of the few characters who can generally fly anywhere, any time. Don't think you can just fly over everything, though — there are enemies in the skies, and some stages are pretty tight. A few games also have a time limit on how long you can fly, namely Kirby 64, the Smash Bros. games, the Kirby Fighters games, Battle Royale, and Forgotten Land.
  • Video Game Remake:
    • The Japanese-only Super Famicom version of Kirby's Star Stacker.
    • Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land, which is a remake of Kirby's Adventure.
    • Kirby Super Star Ultra. Also, the Spring Breeze mode of Super Star is essentially a condensed remake of the original Kirby's Dream Land, while Revenge of the King in Super Star Ultra is a somewhat more faithful remake of the original game's Extra Game.
    • Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe upgrades the presentation of the original game and adds a new copy ability, Mecha, along with a selection of new sub-games.
  • Vignette Episode: Kirby Super Star and Ultra which, in contrast to most of the other games in the series that are composed of one straightforward storyline, are a collection of smaller games that each tell their own little story.
  • Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: This series uses this trope all the time, starting all the way back with Nightmare in Kirby's Adventure.
  • Villainous Glutton: King Dedede is definitely a glutton — he's stolen all the food in Dream Land at least twice — but outside of his vices and occasionally his grudge against Kirby, he's not actually malicious.
  • Visible Sigh: Whenever Kirby's flight ability is canceled, either manually or automatically by touching the ground. You can hurt enemies with the puff it makes.
  • Visual Pun:
    • T.A.C.s are cats with the ability to steal your current power-up. They're cat burglars.
    • In Kirby's Dream Collection: Special Edition, there's nothing but a bright light after the latest entry at the end of the timeline's hallway. Kirby's future is looking bright!
  • Walking Head: Kirby, Meta Knight, and many enemies are nothing more than heads with feet and arms attached. Some of them even lack arms.
  • Warm-Up Boss: Whispy Woods in every game, with the exception of Amazing Mirror and Triple Deluxe which have expies in King Golem and Flowery Woods, respectively, and Forgotten Land, where his expy Tropic Woods is the second boss instead. However, he can be quite tough in a few games, such as in Epic Yarn and Planet Robobot (where he becomes the mechanized "Clanky Woods").
  • Weird Moon: For one, one of the moons is actually shaped like a crescent; a small portion was blown off in the events of Adventure.
  • Weirdness Magnet: Dream Land, in its entirety.
  • Weird Sun: Combined with Weird Moon. In one case, the sun and the moon got into a fight and threw day and night into chaos.
  • When Trees Attack: Whispy Woods and its brethren. However, they're mostly harmless and usually serve as a Warmup Boss.
  • Wily Walrus: One recurring miniboss is an anthropomorphic walrus named Mr. Frosty. He is An Ice Person who attacks Kirby with moves such as throwing ice blocks. In all of his battles, he is constantly jumping and dancing around to taunt Kirby.
  • With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: A common trope for later Final bosses in the series, as they grow more powerful they lose more of their mind.
    • In Kirby: Canvas Curse It's heavily implied Drawcia in her soul form has gone completely insane.
    • In the What If? scenario of Kirby Super Star Ultra Marx is reanimated by pieces of Nova and has gone even more insane if you could believe that.
    • In Kirby's Return to Dream Land Magolor in the second phase becomes a mindless tool to the Crown's power.
    • In Kirby: Triple Deluxe Queen Sectonia starts losing herself as soon as she finds the Amazing Mirror, growing in power but becoming more evil and obsessed with her own vanity. This only becomes worse when she fuses with the Dreamstalk, becoming a being that only cares about her vanity.
    • In Kirby: Planet Robobot President Haltmann is slowly fused to Star Dream as it deletes all his memories and soul until nothing is left. This also messes with Star Dream's own mind, turning it from a all-knowing computer to a mindless machine.
    • In Kirby Star Allies Void Termina ZigZags this trope: on one hand it's stated to have grown a mind in its battle with Kirby, but it still wants to destroy everything; it just now takes pleasure in it, making it arguable that it's driven to its destructive mindset by the negative emotions around it, particularly Hyness's hate.
  • Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: The Dark Matter can't feel positive emotions and is jealous of Dream Land's happiness, reasoning that if it can't be happy, nothing will be.
  • Worthy Opponent: Meta Knight. He's very honorable and will (usually) refuse to fight an opponent if they're not equally armed. Meta Knightmare Ultra has him wishing for a powerful opponent in the end, and he gets it: Galacta Knight.
  • Wrestler in All of Us: Backdrop, Throw, and Suplex abilities; Fighter also has a few grab moves.
  • Your Size May Vary:
    • King Dedede, who can vary between being about twice as tall as Kirby in Dream Land or Triple Deluxe, to being much larger than him like in Squeak Squad or Mass Attack, or even being able to hold Kirby in his palm in the anime. This can even occur in the same game; in Kirby Air Ride, he's huge when you first encounter him as a boss in the Event Mode, but when you unlock him as a playable character he's barely taller than Kirby.
    • Meta Knight, as well. In the games, he's about the same height as Kirby, and his sword is taller than him. Yet in the anime, he's about 2-3 times as a big as Kirby and his sword is smaller than him.
    • Even Kirby himself, who is said to be 8 inches tall. Obviously, the characters from his series are scaled up for Smash Bros., but even in Kirby 64 he's still only a few inches shorter than Adeleine, an average human girl. In Dream Land 3, he stands higher than the knees of the 6-foot-tall Samus Aran, which would put him closer to 2 or 3 feet tall.

 
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Welcome to the New World!

The intro to Kirby and the Forgotten Land features a song composed in the game's own Conlang featured throughout the New World's atmosphere.

How well does it match the trope?

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