Smash Advent Calendar - Day 10 - Kirby

Kirby is our Day 10 character, yet another veteran of the series from its very first days on the N64. Kirby is one of the most popular Nintendo characters in existence, with his simple design and childish personality winning over gamers everywhere. His power to inhale enemies and steal their abilities is famous, and has always made for fun gameplay in his starring roles. Of course, this carried over to Smash Bros., taking the Neutral+B ability of any character he ate and gaining a cute little hat to show he did it!

Kirby really shone in his debut on the N64. His long range was coupled with good power to produce a very dangerous fighter. Attacks were quick, able to combo and his up-tilt is famous for having a huge disjointed hitbox. His cutter was able to meteor with ease, meaning edgeguarding was very easy, and he had a good range of recovery with 5 jumps and a decent vertical range with his Up+B. His aerial combat was also good, similar to Jigglypuff in Melee. Solid air attacks, with Down+A hitting several times for good damage and Back+A reaching stupidly far.

In Melee however, he was hit by the nerf stick very hard. He lost a lot of his power and the best spots in his hitboxes were drastically reduced, leaving Kirby without much KO ability. He had his aerial movement slowed down so much that his recovery could be easily predicted and dealt with by most characters. He also became much easier to combo, his dash attack became slow and vunerable and generally Kirby was hit by nerfs more than any other character in Smash Bros. history. He improved in Brawl with a good grab game and a bit more power to him but he was still fairly low on the tier list.

Even if Snake isn't in, this should be.

Kirby's inhale is his main gimmick, and varies drastically in usefulness in every game. Some offer some new ways to approach - Falco's blaster gives him some options by making enemies flinch and characters like Mewtwo and Samus give Kirby a way of keeping enemies at bay by holding a fully charged shot. Characters like Marth and Donkey Kong also give Kirby some serious offense, though with shorter range. However, many moves, such as Mr. Game and Watch's frying pan, offer little to Kirby's game. This is obviously hard to address, some characters aren't suited for copy as their moves compliment one another and don't do much alone. We could see some other buffs come with copy, like a slight speed boost if Sonic is eaten, for instance - however, this could be difficult to balance. Other options would perhaps be to not just take a characters Neutral+B, for instance if the character has a good standalone Side+B it could make a good substitute.

Overall, Kirby has great potenital proven by his dominance in the original so long as the developers aren't afraid to throw some buffs back his way; more speed is essential, especially in the air; more power is needed in attacks other than his forward smash; his aerial control and power should make its way back towards the N64 era. Once we see changes like this, we might see a competitive character return.

What do you guys think of Kirby? Play him despite his disadvantages? Scrub out and just use inhale to kamikaze off ledges? Let me know in the comments below or leave a comment on the facebook page.