Kirby has had a huge collage of Copy Abilities to choose from throughout his games. While many have stood the test of time and have players immediately dropping their current abilities to use, there are a few of those that leave a sour taste in player's mouths.
Series-wide
- Sleep is the series' primary Joke Weapon, being a copy ability specifically designed to be nothing more than a hindrance. Upon gaining the ability, Kirby... falls asleep for a few seconds, disabling any and all forms of movement. In fact, its most important uses are as stage obstacles, as collectibles are hidden behind mazes of Sleep copy essences. Some games give a use to it, however; Kirby: Squeak Squad has a secret scroll that allows Sleep to heal the user, Kirby Battle Royale gives Sleep a moveset that allows it to be used in combat, and Kirby and the Forgotten Land not only retains Squeak Squad's healing capabilities, but allows it to be upgraded into Deep Sleep, which turns Sleep into a genuine Game-Breaker by not only letting Kirby sleep on command, but also gives him a temporary boost in one of his stats.
- Copy abilities with one use, while almost always powerful, generally see little use, as... they only have one use. Most players prefer having a more permanent powerup than one that can destroy everything but leaves Kirby powerless after. In regular stages, they're pointless as few enemies can withstand two clean shots from another copy ability, and while they can be used in boss fights for massive damage, it's usually not enough to immediately defeat the boss, leaving Kirby to have to rely on drop stars for the remaining hits.
- In terms of regular abilities, Needle has always stood out as a mediocre at best ability in every game it's been in. Its main ability is to simply spike outwards to hit enemies. While this gives Kirby a bit of invulnerability, its offensive prowess leaves much to be desired, especially thanks to not being able to move while in Needle form — the ability is very dangerous to use against bosses for this reason. It started out as a decent ability in Kirby's Adventure, even though it was still essentially just a weaker version of the game-destroying Spark and Freeze abilities, but it got relatively weaker as the other abilities got more moves and techniques in later games. Several attempts have been made to buff Needle (Giving it an expanded moveset in Kirby's Return to Dream Land, turning it into a rolling spiky ball in Kirby and the Forgotten Land), but nothing has helped it stand out against the myriad of better abilities in each game it's in. It even proves to be underwhelming in the hands of the Animal Friends, as their Needle specials are underwhelming for many of the same reasons.
Kirby's Adventure
- Light could win the award for the most underutilized ability in the series. It's only available in a select few stages. So what's the incredible effect that makes this ability so secluded? It lights up dark rooms. That's all it does. It can't even damage enemies, either. The room layouts are also completely unchanged if you choose not to use the ability, meaning a player with any amount of stage knowledge will never have to use this ability. While not bringing back the ability itself, Kirby's Dream Land 2 included a similar ability in Kine's version of the Spark ability; this is generally seen as a much better ability, adding a projectile light bulb attack in addition to letting you light up dark rooms.
- Ball is a Difficult, but Awesome ability that most players feel is too difficult and not awesome enough. The bouncing of Ball is incredibly difficult to get right, and attempts to practice will often get Kirby launched directly into a hazard for his troubles, and to even deal any damage with it, he has to be bouncing at a particularly fast speed. However, if a player does master it, it borders on the opposite side, being able to shred through bosses in four hits at most.
Kirby Super Star
- Copy is a perfect example of Department of Redundancy Department. With it, Kirby can scan an opponent to gain their copy ability. The problem is that Kirby can do that by just inhaling the enemy and swallowing them for their ability. That being said, it's Not Completely Useless; If you want an ability for both yourself and your helper, you can scan an enemy to non-lethally take their copy ability, turn it into a helper, and then inhale the enemy to get the power yourself. It's also exceptionally useful in Milky Way Wishes, as Kirby can't gain copy abilities from inhaling enemies, but can still gain abilities from using Copy on them. You can get Copy very early into Milky Way Wishes by accessing a secret stage, making it a decent Disc-One Nuke.
- Mirror is an amazing ability in terms of pure spectacle, but in combat, it underperforms. Most of its attacks deal pitiful damage, with the exception of Mirror Cut, the close-range melee move. This leads to the question of "Why don't I just use Sword instead?", as Sword has a move of this sort and more. Mirror's reflection powers aren't even that meaningful, as most projectiles dissolve on contact with the mirrors or outright pass through it. Mirror wouldn't stay subpar forever, though, as its reappearance in Kirby: Planet Robobot gives it more moves and heavily enhances its reflection mechanics, making it actually a very useful ability.
Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards
Crystal Shards is built on the mechanic of Ability Mixing, which allows you to combine two abilities into one. Many are quite powerful and useful, but every now and then, there's a stinker that's only good for collecting a shard or two.- Burning+Ice gives Kirby the ability to... transform into a melting ice cube. It has abysmal range, only lasts about a second, and is not needed for any puzzles in the game, making it useless. It's typically assumed to be an intentional example meant to mess with players for thinking combining fire and ice would yield something useful.
- Spark+Bomb turns Kirby into a walking lightbulb that eventually explodes, which has poor range. It's only useful for lighting up a dark room for one puzzle.
- Stone+Bomb lets Kirby use a pack of dynamite to blow up nearby enemies. This is very unreliable, as the dynamite takes a long time to blow up if it doesn't make direct contact, and the resulting explosion will hurt Kirby unless the player presses down to put on a safety helmet. If thrown at an enemy at point-blank range, the player won't have enough time to avoid damage.
- Stone+Cutter is by no means a bad combo and even its reliance on RNG on which Animal Friend sculpture Kirby transforms into is a mild annoyance. However, Kine and ChuChu are by far the worst transformations, due to their lack of mobility. While Kirby can jump in the ChuChu form, the horizontal movement of said jump is extremely limited, hardly moving a few inches from your previous spot. The Kine form is even worse and is stuck in one spot, only being able to turn left and right in place. First time players would think that they could at least swim underwater (referencing how great of a swimmer the real Kine is, as seen in Dream Land 2 and 3), but no matter the environment, you're still not able to move. Even the Coo and Pitch forms can swim, oddly enough, due to their flight mechanics being applied underwater.
Kirby & the Amazing Mirror
- Mini only appears for the few puzzles it's required in, but while using it, Kirby cannot run, fly, or call for help, and has no means of defending himself from enemies, which makes it all the more easy for Kirby to lose the ability by getting hit and forcing the player to redo the puzzle.
Kirby: Squeak Squad
- Ghost is a very disappointing Bonus Feature Failure only obtained by collecting all the Ghost Medal parts to spawn Tedhauns into stages. In Ghost form, Kirby can possess enemies and use them to attack other enemies. Sounds awesome on paper, but this has so many drawbacks that it would be much easier to just inhale enemies and spit them out instead. Firstly, it can't possess mid-bosses, who would be incredibly powerful if they could be, meaning it can only possess their flunkies. Secondly, the enemies you can possess are incredibly weak, each of them being very slow, not being able to use semi-solid platforms or ladders, and their attacks are quite limited, often only being collision damage.
- On paper, Metal should be a grade-A Game-Breaker, basically making Stone's invincible hitbox permanently active. However, the ability has the downside of hampering Kirby's mobility, making him much slower, and decreasing the power of his jump and float, making for an incredibly miserable ability to use.
