In just two seconds, Kirby bolted off to the forest where the contest was being held. Finally, an exciting new contest where he could prove how strong he was against his old enemies and win a shiny gold trophy too. He couldn't wait to rub it in Meta Knight's face once he became champ!
Half an hour later...
Kirby was running like a madman across the surface of a rocky planetoid in outer space, trying to keep one step ahead of Galacta Knight, who was attempting to swoop down on Kirby like an evil angel of death.
"Goddamn you, Nintendo!" yelled Kirby, jumping over a wave of blue energy.
Moral: You should never underestimate the cruelty of game developers.
Half an hour later...
Kirby was running like a madman across the surface of a rocky planetoid in outer space, trying to keep one step ahead of Galacta Knight, who was attempting to swoop down on Kirby like an evil angel of death.
"Goddamn you, Nintendo!" yelled Kirby, jumping over a wave of blue energy.
Moral: You should never underestimate the cruelty of game developers.
— The True Arena
note
note Here's some proof that the Kirby series doesn't pride itself on Easy Levels, Hard Bosses for nothing.
NOTE: Final Bosses and Wake Up Call Bosses are not allowed unless they're overly difficult by their standards. Extra Mode bosses don't actually count as Superbosses, but will only be allowed to count if they stand out even in there.
This page contains unmarked spoilers.
Examples:
- Contrary to his status as one of Nintendo's iconic Warm-Up Bosses, Whispy Woods is a menace in Extra Mode. While his attack pattern is largely unchanged, the big difference is that most of his apples have been replaced by Gordos, which deal three damage out of a maximum of six health in this game.
- Kabula, who was a pushover in the regular game, but in Extra Mode became the most insane, random, frantic battle in the game. Beating Kabula on Hard was as much luck as anything else.
- Kracko Jr. in the Extra Mode. Lightning fast, with a completely different attack pattern that gave you next to no time to react.
Kirby's Adventure and Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land
- As far as mid-bosses go, the Rolling Turtle (Phan Phan in the GBA remake) is the most likely to give players hell. He tends to move unpredictably, it takes considerably long periods of time for him to generate projectiles to inhale, and his grabbing attack seems to have a larger range of effect than his sprite.
- Mr. Shine & Mr. Bright also qualify since it can often be difficult to deal with the one on the ground and the one in the air at the same time, especially since defeating one doesn't stop them from actively participating in the rest of the fight. Whether or not they were made harder in the remake is up for debate, as their size is dramatically increased despite the smaller game resolution yet their attack patterns are considerably slower to compensate.
- Heavy Mole is an autoscrolling boss that keeps destroying the earth in front of it, meaning that the player has to constantly adapt to the perpetually changing environment while avoiding getting crushed by the scrolling walls or falling into a pit. Heavy Mole's missiles offer two copy abilities: Hammer, which brings the double-edged sword of tearing the dirt that forms the arena (possibly dumping you into a pit), and Sleep, which temporarily immobilizes Kirby and has a high risk of screwing the player over. There are cosmetic differences between the two types of missiles, but they're somewhat subtle and hard to notice during the rush to defeat the boss.
- Meta Knight may very well be the hardest boss in the game, at least on the NES — for starters, the Sword ability is forced onto the player, preventing any alternatives from being used (and unlike Kirby Super Star, Kirby Star Allies, and Kirby and the Forgotten Land, picking up the Sword is required to even start the fight). Secondly, Meta Knight moves very erratically, making contact damage almost guaranteed. Finally, he is invincible unless attacked at specific times — namely, while in the air or from behind — and even if you do get behind him, he'll quickly turn around and more often than not hit you back. The difficulty was dramatically decreased in the GBA remake, where simple Button Mashing will nearly always win the fight due to Meta Knight's slower reflexes and the range of the sword.
- King Dedede becomes this in the GBA remake. While he's a bit quicker in the NES version, he's bigger here despite the screen's smaller resolution — so both he and his attacks (especially his inhale) become much harder to avoid — and his characteristic "flinching-when-hit" does not stop his attacks or momentum when he jumps. With that, you can very well end up hitting him, only for him to fall on you or stomp you with his Hammer to cause damage like nothing happened. Oh, and most of the Copy Abilities do minimal damage to him as well.
- Captain Stitch is an interesting example in that he's more That One Miniboss. Much of this is owed largely to his unusual gimmick of being functionally invincible until his spikes are removed, either through firing them at Kirby or knocking them off after a failed bum-rush attack, both of which take a considerable amount of time for Captain Stitch to set up and execute. The only prior boss in a Kirby game to feature a similar gimmick was Nightmare in Kirby's Adventure, and that boss tended to drop his guard on a much more regular basis. Because of this, fights against him are typically much more time-consuming due to the extra level of strategy required, in a series where the typical convention for defeating bosses and minibosses amounts to "hit it until it dies."
- Jumper Shoot is another irritating miniboss to fight without a copy ability, as he only has one attack that gives out the projectile Kirby needs to turn against him. He'll often spam his other attack, where he'll fly around menacingly like a helicopter rotor. You'll be waiting around a lot.
- Sweet Stuff is pretty bothersome without Kine, due to Kirby having some rather spotty swimming controls and his only attack being a short stream of air bubbles. This attack is extremely weak and hardly scratches Sweet Stuff; the way the player is intended to defeat him is by using Kirby's air bubbles to propel the Tincell Sweet Stuff generates back at him, which is not an easy task when the guy's constantly moving around. Sweet Stuff also has a ramming attack whose direction is absurdly difficult to tell and an electric attack that becomes very hard to dodge after enough of his health is depleted (Kirby can dodge it by staying on the top and bottom of the arena, but in hilly portions, this is rendered impossible). It's not as big of a problem with Kine, who has far better underwater control and the ability to inhale underwater, but the whole fight's an unnecessarily tough challenge without him (this is particularly noticeable in Boss Rush, where animal friends are inaccessible).
- Mr. Shine & Mr. Bright are really annoying in this game, even more so than Kirby's Adventure. It's mostly the same fight, but you get a significantly smaller space to maneuver in and they now have a Combination Attack that can only be dodged if you're in the small spot that Mr. Shine is eclipsing.
- Dark Matter, the true final boss of the game, is absurdly hard, even by Kirby standards. It's a very fast opponent with very fast attacks in both phases of the fight, and the Rainbow Sword does very little damage on its own and can't fire projectiles, meaning that the only way to do anything noticeable to Dark Matter is to deflect its orb attacks back at it. Meanwhile, its second form can shoot lightning from its eye, a very fast attack that can only be dodged by standing directly in front of it (which in itself is kind of a Guide Dang It!, as there's no initial indication that the lightning only fires diagonally), and while fighting its second phase, Kirby is slowly descending back to the surface, giving the player a small window of time to kill Dark Matter before the little puffball burns to death in the planet's atmosphere. Both of Dark Matter's forms also have an astronomically high amount of health, making the second phase even harder to complete.
- Captain Stitch returns here, and his shielding gimmick as a miniboss is carried over as well. Once again, he takes a considerably long time to set up attacks that allow him to lower his defenses, which can drag out fights against him for longer than one feels is necessary. Jumper Shoot returns too. Have fun!
- Ado, the boss of Cloudy Park. Not only is she a Sequential Boss, but each phase gets harder and harder as the battle progresses. The hardest phase of them all is when Ado summons replicas of Mr. Shine & Mr. Bright, who were already difficult enough in Kirby's Adventure and Kirby's Dream Land 2. Any veteran of those games would know exactly why the phase is such a challenge. As a result, it's quite satisfying to see Ado jump down from her pedestal, blindly charge forward, and get knocked out from a single attack, even Kirby's sliding kick (which doesn't even do Scratch Damage to other bosses).
- Mega Titan is a huge suit of armour that is fought in a small room with electrified walls, greatly limiting the player's maneuverability. It attacks by launching its four fists like rockets, which come from multiple directions simultaneously and cannot be stopped with attacks. Mega Titan itself is only vulnerable to electricity, meaning a player who does not have either Beam or Spark can only damage it by repeatedly striking its main body until it finally collides with the arena walls. To add to the grief, this is the only boss in the game aside from the Final Boss that has a second phase: Its Titan Head form can be damaged normally and has little health, but is smaller and moves in an erratic zigzag pattern.
- The second fight with Dark Meta Knight is arguably harder than the final boss (who can be difficult himself) if you don't bring the other Kirbys with you into the mirror. The inhalabale stars left from his attacks disappear after about a second, meaning you have to be very close to him when he attacks, making it nearly impossible to inhale the stars without taking damage. His tornadoes are impossible to avoid if you don't get behind him before he fires them. And sometimes he walks around, meaning that if you stand next to him waiting for him to attack, he can just walk into you. Hover above him for more than a second and he will jump up and stab you from below.
- Kracko doesn't appear in this game. Instead, you fight Mecha Kracko. While it's annoying enough on its own, once it Turns Red, it starts using an attack where it moves towards the bottom of the screen, destroys the stage, and reforms it later. If you don't take to the air in time, you will lose from falling off the screen. Oh, and if you bring an ability that burns clouds, like Fire or Triple Star, you will most likely destroy the ground you're standing on and fall to your doom. Regular Kracko may be annoying, but at least he doesn't use an attack that can cause a One-Hit KO at regular intervals. This is the only boss in the game that has two health bars to drain, even including the Final Boss.
- Bohboh is incredibly annoying to fight without either Hi-Jump or Tornado. The fight has a lava floor which is easy take damage from. Bohboh himself is very difficult to dodge. His grab attack also will cause you to lose your ability most of the time. note
- Dark Daroach teleports around the room and has long-lasting projectile attacks, a hard-to-dodge ice beam and a bomb that sends a column of fire upward and covers the floor. Sometimes he can throw two or three bombs in a row, and they can take a while to suck in, which is impossible to do if he follows up with his projectile attack, which shoots three stars that bounce around the room. They are easier to suck in but harder to dodge. And, given that he and the final boss (who is a lot easier) are faced back to back in this stage, you'd think they would give you every single Copy Ability before the fight like other games do, but instead you only get Cutter, Parasol, and Random, so hope that Random eventually turns into Tornado, Laser, or UFO.
- Fatty Puffer is no pushover. He will inflate himself like a balloon (which makes him take up half the vertical area of the arena) and roll all over the place, shoot giant water beams, start jumping across the floor and ceiling, and spawn smaller enemies. And when he Turns Red, he gets even bigger, to the point where there's a small area at the top of the screen that he won't reach when rolling. Fatty Puffer EX is worse, as he will inflate himself to be even bigger, start rolling up the walls to reach you, can angle his water beam, and can shoot water balls when on the ceiling.
- His otherwordly counterpart Fiery Puffer is definitely a huge step up in difficulty as Magolor (at the point you encounter him). Since you probably won't have a fully upgraded kit, you probably won't have the luxury of levitating for long periods of time unlike Kirby (said battle is significantly easier when Kirby fights him due to this). This means that you have to be extremely precise when dodging his attacks and rely on your dash attacks to dodge his rolling moves. His fire breath attack in his second phase is worse, as you're given an unorthodox method for dodging his attack - ducking - something that wouldn't work against Fatty Puffer.
- Goriath. He wall clings just above the range of a lot of vertical attacks, forcing you to jump to get to him, and sometimes he'll decide he's going to drop down on top of you, so if you're jumping under him and/or the floor is icy, he will hit you. If you're in the air when he jumps from one side to the other, he will jump right into you. When the floor breaks and gets icy in his second phase, it becomes easier to avoid his Ki Manipulation and giant punches, but harder to get away from his body slam, that flying tackle, and the exploding spiky ice balls. He's so fast and jumps around so much that he's hard to hit. For Galacta Knight, and most other hard bosses in the game, dash attacks with invincibility frames are very effective, but Goriath's floor changing and wall clinging make them useless at best, so you'd better get used to fighting a different way. Goriath EX, once he Turns Red, even gets a Spirit Bomb attack.
- His water counterpart fought in Magolor Epilogue in Deluxe, Hydriath, is just as bad, if not worse. He loses the Spirit Bomb attack, but employs Teleport Spam to catch Magolor (or Kirby if you're playing the True Arena) off-guard, and he'll generally use it to prepare an attack and then whack you out of nowhere. Additionally, he fires out a huge bubble during his second phase that takes up a big portion of the arena and can't be destroyed.
- Take Kracko, replace his electric powers with fire, make him gigantic, give him the capability to hide in the ground to grab you, rocket across the screen, and shoot large flaming blobs, and then give him a second phase where he's invincible, and you've got the Grand Doomer. On Extra Mode, he's even faster, will swoop so low you have to duck to dodge it, shoots screen-filling blobs that will explode if not destroyed first, has an even larger floor-hiding radius and faster speed, and overall more ridiculousness.
- In Deluxe, the Rampaging Doomers are a reasonably tough but manageable challenge... as Magolor. Fighting them in the True Arena as Kirby? That's another story. A lot of their attacks leave behind energy that explodes after a delay, leaving you with very little breathing room. Along with that, in their second phase, the four of them start attacking in tandem, taking up even more precious screen space. It's even worse if you're fighting them with no abilities, as they only have a few attacks that give you projectiles to spit back out at them.
- Blocky, a Mini-Boss from the game, can be hard as a rock even in his normal form. It doesn't help that you will probably end up fighting his DX form first (Blocky DX is fought in Fine Field's extra stage, while his regular form doesn't appear until Wild World Stage 4). Blocky DX will normally turn invincible many moments and turn into a giant rock and crush you. He even returns in Planet Robobot and the Kirby Clash games, where he's as hard as ever.
- Kracko is an extremely difficult and annoying boss, especially during the second phase of his fight when you have to deal with Kracko raining lightning, launching a giant electric ball, launching dozens of electric balls, and charging at you with electrified spikes. At certain points in the battle, he can use an attack that forces you to launch into the background to dodge it, and the background has a few bottomless pits where you can easily lose your ability or die outright if you aren't careful.
- Pyribbit refuses to stand in one spot for a very long period of time, and he will hop into the background when he feels like it, because that's where he's safe from your attacks. This means you have to give him everything you've got while you have the chance, while at the same time avoiding some of the devastating and oftentimes hard-to-dodge attacks he throws at you (notably his tongue and his exploding fireballs). He returns in the "Team Kirby Clash" games too, though at least his boss description in the first one sheds some light on his annoyance."A giant Flaming Frog?! Quick! Spank it silly before it hops back into the volcano!"
- Masked Dedede's Revenge is one of the hardest bosses in the game, with a fast-moving, aggressive, and very varied pattern. Some of his attacks even seem to home in on you. Fortunately, when revisiting the stage after encountering Queen Sectonia for the first time, it gives you the option of fighting him or going straight to the Final Boss. Shadow Dedede from Dededetour! is the same, but faster, more damaging, more random and inconsistent, and half his attacks cause unnecessarily large explosions.
- Soul of Sectonia. Ordinarily, the Final Boss wouldn't count for this page, if not for a few factors that make her far more frustrating than the usual fare. For starters, the fight is a Platform Battle just like Kracko's, only worse because the platforms keep changing as the battle progresses and Sectonia's attacks get more elaborate. This makes it extremely difficult, if not outright impossible, to get through the first phase without losing your ability for the rest of the fight — and yes, that's just the first phase, because she gets a second health bar right when you think you've beaten her for good. The second phase ditches the bottomless pits, but is just as bad because she's constantly teleporting throughout the entire fight. If you lost your ability in the first half, good luck trying to hit her before her lightning-fast attacks end a promising True Arena run!
- Remember Dubior from Return to Dream Land? Well, in this game, it's back and tougher than ever. Similarly to Blocky from the previous game, you're also more likely to encounter Dubior 2.0 first before encountering its normal counterpart (Dubior 2.0 is in the EX stage of the second area, while Dubior itself starts to appear in Area 4). Add everything difficult about Dubior (unpredictable movement patterns, barriers, teleport spam, and more) and add the fact it constantly teleports to the screen and background (meaning that you'll be unable to hit it)... while sending out Dubior Jr.s at you. Unlike other bosses that attack from far away, you can't reflect the Dubior Jr.s with Mirror.
- In Area 5 (Rhythm Route), the boss is a Dedede Clone. It supposedly behaves like Dedede... attack pattern and everything. However, once you deal enough damage to it, the next phase of the battle becomes a huge pain in the ass. It'll end up splitting into three smaller clones, which are all extremely unpredictable and difficult to attack. They will trip, hammer, jump, and even fly to get in your way. If you don't have a power that has an invulnerability period while dashing (Hammer and ESP are two examples), good luck, as you're better off without a power otherwise. That's not even the entire boss battle, as once you defeat the clones, they ride on a giant cannon and attack you from there. Fortunately, the boss becomes easier from that point on, as their attack pattern there is now slower and more predictable.
- Later fights with Kibble Blade ("Tough" and "Tougher") rank among the hardest of the mid-boss encounters in the game. Kibble Blade is much better at protecting its front than most mid-bosses; its cutters are large, slow, and sweeping, so AI fighters get hit by them easily. Making this worse is that Kibble Blade doesn't move around much except when it charges, so it's hard to find a safe attacking position. When it Turns Red, it gains a nasty attack when it weaves in and out of the arena while spinning around a cutter; this is easy to avoid for human players, but the AI is easily overwhelmed by the large range it has. The AI struggles more against Kibble Blade than any other mid-boss, making it that much harder to reduce its HP within the time limit.
- And then there's the Greater Doomer. He shares a lot of the attacks from his fellow Sphere and Grand Doomers, but he flies around so much that he's hard to land a hit on, compared to the preceding bosses moving at a reasonable enough pace for you to get them. This manages to be both annoying for the heavyweight Hammer Lord, who can pack a punch but can't run very fast, and the Sword Hero, who can run fast but can't land very many hits. And of course, gotta have that time limit. Hope you brought plenty of Gem Apples!
- Pyribbit is listed for Triple Deluxe already, but he deserves special mention here. He's the third Ordeal boss, roughly at the halfway point of the game. His love of stalling is carried over, but he's now got much more HP and attack, and a three-minute time limit to beat him in. In the original Team Kirby Clash, he's fairly beatable provided you grind a bit, but in both this game and Super Kirby Clash, grinding is much more difficult and has less effect than buying expensive equipment. Mix this in with allies that are bad at dodging and you've got a very slow fight (in a game the requires fast fights), often marking the point where players either stop to grind Gem Apples or just start buying them. One more thing: to unlock the final area, you have to fight him again, and he's even stronger.
- Hyness can quickly catch players off guard due to the Difficulty Spike from phase one to phase two of his fight. The first phase can actually be considered a Breather Boss due to how easy his attacks are to dodge and how easily his health drops. But after he Turns Red and refills his energy, he starts attacking at a rapid rate, using attacks that can cover most of the ground, shielding himself while he throws attacks from behind. He will even roll around when his health reaches a certain point, making him both hard to dodge and hard to attack for quite a while. Corrupt Hyness, fought at the end of Heroes in Another Dimension, hurls more powerful and screen-filling versions of regular Hyness' attacks. And if you best him, well, see the Three Mage-Sisters below.
- One of the biggest criticisms of Star Allies was the lack of difficulty compared to the other games, especially for the Story Mode bosses. For this reason, the Otherworldly Four Heavenly Kings from Heroes in Another Dimension were made immensely more difficult than their normal counterparts:
- Parallel Woods sets the stage for the rest of the mode quite nicely — not only does he drop far denser amounts of apples than before, but he also drops Gordos, which stay on the screen for a long time and bounce around in unpredictable ways, and often does this while trying to inhale Kirby to screw with your movement. Once the second phase hits, he starts dropping apples during his stomp attack (which require quick reflexes to dodge since you can't see them growing on his branches) and spits air bullets that split into smaller bullets and cover a wide area of the screen.
- Parallel Twin Kracko isn't too bad at first, since their attacks aren't any different from in the normal mode. The trouble comes in when their health is depleted and they merge to form Parallel Big Kracko. He retains the same high speed as he normally does, but now his large size means it's much easier for him to hit you with his swoop attacks. His other attacks (especially his Beam Whip and Lightning) are now gigantic and are just barely dodgeable even when running at full speed. Easily his hardest attack has him blow wind across the screen while bolts of lightning fly in from the background, which is almost impossible to dodge normally due to the sheer number of them unless you're able to run underneath Kracko, which isn't always possible because of the wind pushing you back.
- Parallel Meta Knight takes after his difficult battles from the older Kirby games, being much faster, more aggressive, and less predictable than regular Meta Knight. Even if you have the Sword ability and parry his attacks, he recovers much quicker. It gets worse in phase 2, as you'll once again have to deal with up to four Meta Knights, who are now much more of a problem than in normal mode thanks to the aforementioned increased speed and aggression.
- Parallel Dedede, like Parallel Meta Knight, is much faster and more aggressive than regular Dedede — he barely gives you time to breathe as he releases an onslaught of shockwaves, Gordos, and body slams, never pausing between attacks like he normally does. His second form manages to one-up this by combining this increased speed with Buff Dedede's increased range, forcing you to play defensively and hardly giving a good opportunity to attack back. Sometimes he even starts a new attack before the last one has completely finished, forcing you to dodge shockwaves and thrown fruit and Gordos at the same time. However, if you use an ability or have an ally with the water effect on their moves, you can clean the piles of fruit to make them into generous amounts of healing. With that, Parallel Dedede becomes a Breather Boss instead... but good luck figuring that out on your own!
- Sure, the Three Mage-Sisters are complete pushovers in the main story, but their fight in Heroes in Another Dimension has them get much more serious. This battle pits you against all three at once, and their moves can be tricky to avoid. Once they enter their second phase, things become rather hard, especially when they use their strongest attacks consecutively, which can link into each other. Finding where you are is a challenge, too, with all these attacks going on, especially when you along with your Dream Friends also happen to be the Mage-Sisters themselves. During all of this, the frame rate can sometimes lag, making things even tougher. And what's more, to get the Happy Ending, you must beat this boss with 100 Friend Hearts collected, and if you don't have 100 Friend Hearts, time to go back to previous stages to get the Friend Heart count to 100 and then fight them again.
- Once you've obtained the Three Mage-Sisters as Dream Friends, you might be tempted to go through Guest Star mode with them, as they're Purposely Overpowered enough to make the entire game a complete cakewalk. To balance this out, they're forced to fight the four Parallel bosses... and at the end, Morpho Knight EX, who makes even Parallel Meta Knight look like a complete chump. To start with, Morpho Knight EX's AI is highly aggressive compared to other knight bosses in the franchise, all of whom are also Superbosses in their own right, and it has a nasty habit of blocking your attacks at the worst possible time. Trying to fly over the boss's Sword Beam Spam is an extremely risky option, as it will simply jump into the air and Spin Attack you no matter how high up you think you are. Even if you attempt to bring allies into the fray, Morpho Knight EX will either turn them against you with a Bug Buzz attack that has an enormous radius, or suck them into a slash from its BFS that will straight-up murder them. Oh, and if you're playing Soul Melter EX, you'll have to defeat Morpho Knight EX immediately after fighting the Three Mage-Sisters, who are detailed above, in order to reach the True Final Boss at the end. Good luck!
- Parallel Nightmare: One surprise in the game is the parallel version of the final boss of Kirby's Adventure with new attacks, and each subsequent fight can be a massive pain due to how Parallel Nightmare handles and the sheer damage he unleashes. Between the six different fights with him, attacks will change with almost no warning and new ones are frequently added. Several of his attacks used by the original Nightmare in Kirby's Adventure appear to fire off the same way, only for him to fake the player out and attack in a completely different fashion, his attacks cover more of the screen than they ever did before, he fires more projectiles, and, like other modern Kirby bosses, he's immune to being stunned unlike the original's fight. In comparison to the original's fight when he was the final boss, these fights can be some of the most grueling in the game outside of the final boss himself, and the absurd amount of health he has doesn't help things in his final few fights. This isn't helped by the fact that, much like the fight with Nightmare in Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land, Parallel Nightmare takes up almost 30% of the screen and has huge hitboxes for almost every attack he uses.
- Sillydillo is a pretty large difficulty spike with many fast and hard-hitting attacks, including a cage that he can trap Kirby in and One-Hit Kill him if he doesn't escape in time, giant machete dolls that can be flung at Kirby, and especially a rolling move that pretty much demands dodging, ensuring that the no-damage mission will be a true test of skill. It also doesn't help that he spends much of the fight constantly moving around the battlefield, making him hard to hit and wasting precious time for players who want to complete the timed missions on his boss stage and "Gathering of the Beast Council."
- Phantom Sillydillo is even worse, as it can spin around twice to trap Kirby in its cage if you attempt to jump over the initial attack and throw out exploding Kirby dolls. Its charging attacks with both the papier-mache dolls and roll are now way faster, not to mention that it is no longer vulnerable after rolling and it summons a permanent sandstorm to cover its tracks at the start of the third phase.
- Phantom Tropic Woods is a huge Difficulty Spike from its normal form, with many randomly generated elements making it nearly impossible to flawlessly predict the boss's attacks. The first phase of the battle sees Tropic Woods raining Gordos all over the place and occasionally dropping a huge coconut right on top of where Kirby's standing, which forces you to stay constantly on the move instead of focusing on depleting the boss's health bar. In its second phase, Tropic Woods can now create intricate mazes full of Gordos, forcing you to either memorize the correct path to the boss perfectly or risk taking lots of damage from all the Gordos bouncing through the other paths. Its root attacks are also much faster and more persistent than before.
- Meta Knight has always been a skilled and powerful fighter, but the shift to 3D gives him the chance to show why he’s the strongest warrior in the galaxy. The sword beams he fires are large and need to be jumped over, rapid-fired, or sent through the ground to chase after you. He will dodge or swerve away from attacks and fire back with lightning-fast sword swipes, plus at 40% of his maximum health he incorporates his psychic rock-lifting attack from Kirby Star Allies which covers most of the arena, and a mean charged attack that can take a bit less than half your health if it connects. Successfully parrying his attacks disarms Meta Knight and stuns him for a long time, but if you didn’t pick up the sword at the start of the fight, come in with the ability already, or happened to lose it, this isn’t possible.
- For how strong Meta Knight is, Phantom Meta Knight takes it up a notch, firing more sword beams, including when he leaps away from your attacks, attacking and defending faster, using the psychic rock attack multiple times in a row, and being even stricter with parrying — that is, if you have Sword. To make matters worse, his fight is exclusive to The Ultimate Cup Z, being fought in Round 8 and coming just before...
- Phantom Forgo Dedede: Now taking place over a lava arena that can be easily flooded, Phantom Forgo Dedede has a large barrage of aggressive attacks that can spew more lava, making space to deal damage very limited. He is also constantly moving, especially during his second phase, making it very hard to get damage done onto him. When encountered in Forgo Zone, you're only given Tornado and Needle for the first half of the battle, which doesn't really help much.
- Leongar: The King of the Beasts fights up close with hard-hitting claw attacks and the occasional charge. Once he enters his second phase, he unleashes ranged swipes that alternate between needing to be jumped over or not, a savage biting attack that covers a lot of ground and leaves little time to land hits, and a massive laser that he can aim at you while he’s firing it, all of these dealing heavy damage and being hard to dodge. He’s decently tanky as well, taking much less damage from attacks than previous and some future bosses.
- Forgo Leon starts with the difficult second phase as described above, but once his first health bar drains, Forgo’s soul takes over completely and further powers him up to absurd levels, granting his attacks elemental properties that linger and spread across the arena as well as intensifying them. On top of that, later in the battle, Forgo will manifest and attack alongside Leon, launching orbs and explosions while you’re dealing with Leon’s own attacks.
- Morpho Knight: This butterfly knight returns with a vengeance as the final fight of Forgo Dreams, and the penultimate boss of The Ultimate Cup Z. Several of its attacks sweep across the arena, home in on you, or both, and need pinpoint timing to dodge. Morpho Knight loves to teleport away from or behind you and its melee attacks come out fast, making fighting up close almost a wasted effort. The worst attack it can do by far is its Bug Buzz attack, which, since there aren’t any computer-controlled allies to turn against you, instead tilts the camera 90 degrees in an absolutely horrible Interface Screw. At 40% of its maximum health, its attacks increase in intensity and frequency. Finally, it comes immediately after Forgo Leon, and in Forgo Dreams, there’s no rest break or chance to heal in between.
