Kirby (SSBM)

Kirby (, Kirby) is a starter character in Super Smash Bros. Melee. Makiko Ōmoto once again voices Kirby in Melee, with some voice clips recycled from SSB along with some newer, higher-pitched ones.

Currently, Kirby is ranked 25th in the F tier as the second-worst character in the game, an extreme drop from his 2nd position in Smash 64, and arguably the most severe decline in viability between games of any character in the whole series. While he has several throw options into Kirbycide, a good ground game, a solid defensive game thanks to his crouch and small size and a decent edgeguarding game, Kirby's approach and KO ability are among the worst in the game; slow attacks, a low air speed, an ineffective projectile in Final Cutter, one of the worst grab games and numerous other flaws both on the ground and in the air prevent Kirby from easily approaching enemies, and he struggles against almost all characters as a result of this. As a result of all of these flaws, Kirby has terrible matchups across the board and struggles to contend even against lower-tiered characters.

Attributes
Kirby acts as a light, weak character that is intended to outmaneuver opponents. While having an average dashing speed, he has a terrible air speed (being tied with as the 3rd worst in Melee), so his small size is intended to act as his primary way to approach. Owing to his low falling speed and high short hop, Kirby has a poor SHFFL, while his high traction gives him a short wavedash.

Despite his poor air speed, Kirby has a decent edgeguarding game. With six jumps and a low falling speed, Kirby can easily recover due to his multiple midair jumps, while Kirby's back air can be used as a rather powerful edgeguarding technique, the Fence of Pain. Assuming Kirby can knock opponents off the edge, he can make foes have a hard time recovering.

Owing to his small size, Kirby also has a solid defensive game. His small hurtboxes can potentially allow him to avoid attacks, while his small size also lends itself to a large shield, making Kirby relatively safe from shield stabbing. A low crouch also makes his hurtboxes even smaller, supplemented with his down tilt as a potential camping and spacing tactic, as his makes him able to avoid most jabs.

Kirby also has good tilt attacks as well, as Kirby's three tilts, while short-ranged, have a variety of practical applications; his forward tilt and aforementioned down tilt can act as spacing tools, while his up tilt can potentially be used as a combo starter. Kirby also has an above average grab range, allowing him to potentially use his unusual throws to his advantage; a notable application of his up, back, and forward throws involves Kirbycide, a specific type of Sacrificial KO that forces both Kirby and his opponent to lose a stock. This technique is able to KO opponents at any percentage. His down throw is also a great tech-chasing option that can notably lead to another down throw or a down smash.

Despite these benefits, Kirby's most fatal flaw lies in his awful approach. With a poor SHFFL, short wavedash, terrible air speed, short range, a laggy, predictable dash attack, and no viable projectiles, Kirby has extreme difficulty in approaching almost all of the cast; this is especially prevalent against characters with disjointed hitboxes (such as ) or powerful pressure games (such as ). The lack of a projectile can uniquely be rectified if Kirby uses on an opponent; doing so, however, is risky, due to the attack's start-up and cool-down lag, and some characters will either fail to give him a useful projectile (such as ) or a projectile in the first place (such as ). Although most of his copy abilities give Kirby additional options, they would still be inferior to the original character he would copy; Fireball from, for instance, has the Fireballs disappear more quickly than Mario's, as Kirby's lower height causes them to reach the ground faster and to have less kinetic energy when they finally hit the ground.

Even when approaching opponents, however, Kirby's various attributes also give him an unremarkable combo ability; a low air speed prevents him from easily pursuing enemies in the air, and almost all of his aerials (except for back air) either have long startup and cooldown periods (down and neutral air), high knockback (up air), or poor hitbox placement (forward air). Kirby's only noteworthy combos are his up tilt juggles, his down throw tech-chases and his Fence of Pain as mentioned earlier, and even the latter combo is inferior to Jigglypuff's Wall of Pain due to Kirby's significantly slower air speed, making it risky to use. Kirby's wild card is his aforementioned Kirbycide technique, and even this is unreliable; his up throw requires proper placement at the edge of a stage, and Kirby always loses when performed in a last stock situation. While his forward and back throws are much easier to perform and Kirby always wins when performed in a last stock situation, they are the only throws in the entire Smash series that can be potentially broken out of. As a result, if the opponent can button mash out of the grab and throw quick enough, they will remain unharmed while Kirby loses a stock, giving him one of the worst grab games in Melee, with all of his throws (except for down throw) having little to no utility due to their inability to set up combos and the forward and back throws' ability to be escaped from. To make things worse, after Kirby uses his forward or up throw, he will lose all his midair jumps.

Outside of his abysmal approach, Kirby also has trouble KOing other characters. A majority of Kirby's finishers suffer from poor range, slow start-up (such as his Hammer), weak knockback (such as his forward smash) or have small sweetspots that make them unreliable (such as his Hammer and up smash). Arguably Kirby's only effective finishers are his down smash and his up and back aerials, which themselves require a proper read and correct timing from the player in order for them to be low-risk attacks.

As a final disadvantage working against Kirby, he has major survivability issues, with his endurance being on par with and  for the worst in Melee. Having among the lowest weights in the game alongside a low falling speed causes Kirby to be easily KOed from both the upper and horizontal blast lines ( is especially notorious in the former category). Outside of this, Kirby's recovery is also slow, linear, and predictable, despite granting decent distance as a result of his multiple midair jumps; once again, Kirby is negatively impacted by his poor air speed, and Final Cutter grants almost no horizontal distance, coupled with being very easy to edgeguard against.

Changes from Super Smash Bros.
Kirby was known as one of the most dominant characters in Smash 64, even after receiving nerfs in the North American release. This was in part to his amazing power, attack speed, range and priority on his attacks, which subsequently gave him excellent KO and shield pressuring potential. In addition to this, he was also a very simple character to pick up and play (especially compared to the other high tiers); making him a highly solid character to pick up regardless of the player's skill level. As a result of this, Kirby was drastically nerfed in his transition to Melee.

Kirby's mobility both on the ground and in the air has been noticeably reduced; which has subsequently hindered his approach. The weakening of pivots have also made Kirby's approach worse and he doesn't benefit too much from the introduction of air dodging; due to his high traction and low falling speed. As a result of this, he has an unimpressive wavedash. When combined with many returning veterans having greater approach potential, this has made his approach among the worst in the game; especially in the air.

In general, Kirby has suffered from Melee's universal changes. Apart from the changes to pivoting, Kirby has greatly suffered from the changes to shields. While Kirby is less vulnerable to shield pressure, his own shield pressure is much worse due to the universal reduction to shieldstun and shield damage. Because of this, Kirby's attacks are much less safe on shield (with Kirby lacking any moves which even leave him at a frame advantage on shield, with the exception of back aerial and up aerial, which can leave him at a one frame advantage on a perfect landing) with the reduced damage/increased ending lag on multiple moves along with the weakening of L-cancelling only further exacerbating this. Because of this, Kirby can no longer perform any shield break combos and his attacks are generally much more punishable. In addition, Kirby's out of shield options are also worse largely due to his new neutral aerial; which is much weaker, slower and has less range than his previous neutral aerial. When combined with his shield drop being longer, this means that Kirby either has to use his grab or back aerial to punish a majority of moves out of shield.

Kirby's damage output and KO potential have also been sharply reduced (even relative to the cast). A majority of Kirby's moves have reduced KO power, such as his smash attacks, neutral aerial, back aerial, his up throw (his previous forward throw) and Stone. When combined with his lower damage output on most of his moves, this significantly hinders his ability to rack up damage and close out stocks. His smash attacks are slower and weaker, making them less reliable and more difficult KO moves to land. While his new up aerial is rather powerful, it is offset by how difficult it is to combo characters.

Kirby's oppressive up tilt has also seen rather drastic nerfs both directly and indirectly. The move has a shorter duration, much less range and more ending lag which makes it much less effective at stuffing out approaches and generally makes it easier to punish. The move is also noticeably weaker; dealing much less damage. The introduction of DI has made the move much less reliable as a combo move while the changes to shieldstun combined with the move's decreased damage/increased ending lag has immensely hindered its safety on shield; completely removing its shield pressuring potential. Overall, while it is still one of his most useful moves, it is nowhere near as effective as it was previously.

Kirby generally has worse frame data, especially compared to the rest of the cast. These moves include his aforementioned up tilt and neutral aerial, his forward smash is noticeably laggier; no longer being the fastest in the game (in addition to being much weaker). His down aerial has also seen a drastic increase to its startup lag and its hits less times which significantly reduces its duration and maximum damage potential. It also greatly suffers from the introduction of meteor cancelling; significantly hindering its edgeguarding potential. Kirby also naturally suffers from the changes to L-cancelling; especially since most of his aerials have worse auto-cancel windows which remove's his neutral, forward and down aerial's ability to auto-cancel in a short hop. When combined with the changes to shieldstun, this significantly hinder the utility and safety of his aerials.

Kirby also does not benefit much from having an expanded move list. Kirby's grab game is now one of the absolute worst in the game: while his new forward and back throws can be used for sacrificial KOs, however, they can be escaped with mashing, which can lead to Kirby either self-destructing at worst or leaving himself vulnerable to punishes after simply using his throws. As a result, his forward and back throws lack utility, being easy contenders for the worst throws in the game. Kirby's up throw is much weaker than his previous forward throw and it has gained two new issues; the move can no longer land on platforms above Kirby unless they are very close to the ground and Kirby now loses all of his jumps after using it (his new forward throw also has this issue); which has hindered the utility of the throw and has made it an unreliable KO option. Kirby's only useful throw is his new down throw; which can set up tech chases, though this is prediction reliant. His new side special Hammer is a very slow (yet powerful) move on the ground while in the air, yet it is very inconsistent and easy to escape its multi-hits; giving it very low utility compared to other side specials.

Lastly, Kirby's few flaws from the previous game have not been properly addressed. While his endurance has slightly improved due to his increased weight and falling speed, it is still among the worst in the game. Kirby also still struggles to deal with opponents above him, especially with the nerfs to his up tilt combined with the universally increased falling speeds. His already limited combo options have been reduced even further due to the changes to his up tilt and his forward aerial; combined with the introduction of DI. His recovery has also become worse. His air speed and jump height have been reduced and Final Cutter covers much less distance, resulting in his recovery becoming very poor.

On the other hand, Kirby has received some buffs. Kirby has greater access to his Kirbycide as he can move around when swallowing his opponents (in addition to Inhale having reduced startup lag) and his new forward and back throws are more reliable tools to Kirbycide with (although this is completely nullified by the fact that those throws can now be escaped from). A few of his moves are also either slightly faster or stronger, such as his new up aerial, which is much stronger and has much less ending lag. All of Kirby's aerials also have less landing lag; with his average landing lag now being among the lowest. This makes the weakening of L-cancelling hinder him less than most other veterans/it otherwise would have.

Overall, Kirby's few weaknesses from the previous game; including his limited combo options and significant survivability issues have been further exacerbated and he has received numerous new weaknesses as well (including poor KO potential, poor range, an extremely ineffective grab game and poor approach). His only remaining strengths are that he can abuse his small size to avoid attacks, his tilts are solid and he still has decent edgeguarding potential although the latter two points are still not as effective as they were previously. Lastly, the universal changes have significantly hindered Kirby with his approach, combo and shield pressuring potential prowess.

Due to these changes, Kirby was not only the most severely nerfed character from Smash 64 to Melee but arguably the most nerfed character in all of the series. As a result, he is an easy contender for the worst character in the entire game and is widely considered to be non-viable in competitive play.

Ground attacks

 * Neutral attack:
 * Forward tilt:
 * Up tilt:
 * Down tilt:
 * Dash attack:
 * Forward smash:
 * Up smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Forward tilt:
 * Up tilt:
 * Down tilt:
 * Dash attack:
 * Forward smash:
 * Up smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Up tilt:
 * Down tilt:
 * Dash attack:
 * Forward smash:
 * Up smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Down tilt:
 * Dash attack:
 * Forward smash:
 * Up smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Down tilt:
 * Dash attack:
 * Forward smash:
 * Up smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Dash attack:
 * Forward smash:
 * Up smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Dash attack:
 * Forward smash:
 * Up smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Forward smash:
 * Up smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Forward smash:
 * Up smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Forward smash:
 * Up smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Up smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Up smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Up smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Up smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Up smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Up smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Down smash:

Aerial attacks

 * Neutral aerial:
 * Forward aerial:
 * Back aerial:
 * Up aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Forward aerial:
 * Back aerial:
 * Up aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Forward aerial:
 * Back aerial:
 * Up aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Back aerial:
 * Up aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Back aerial:
 * Up aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Back aerial:
 * Up aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Back aerial:
 * Up aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Back aerial:
 * Up aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Up aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Up aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Down aerial:

Throws/other attacks

 * Grabs:
 * Forward throw:
 * Back throw:
 * Up throw:
 * Edge attacks:
 * Fast edge attack:
 * Slow edge attack:
 * Edge getup:
 * Edge roll:
 * Back throw:
 * Up throw:
 * Edge attacks:
 * Fast edge attack:
 * Slow edge attack:
 * Edge getup:
 * Edge roll:
 * Up throw:
 * Edge attacks:
 * Fast edge attack:
 * Slow edge attack:
 * Edge getup:
 * Edge roll:
 * Edge attacks:
 * Fast edge attack:
 * Slow edge attack:
 * Edge getup:
 * Edge roll:
 * Fast edge attack:
 * Slow edge attack:
 * Edge getup:
 * Edge roll:
 * Slow edge attack:
 * Edge getup:
 * Edge roll:
 * Edge getup:
 * Edge roll:
 * Edge roll:
 * Edge roll:
 * Edge roll:
 * Edge roll:
 * Edge roll:

Special moves

 * Swallow:


 * Final Cutter:
 * Stone:
 * Final Cutter:
 * Stone:
 * Stone:
 * Stone:
 * Stone:
 * Stone:
 * Stone:
 * Stone:
 * Stone:
 * Stone:
 * Stone:
 * Stone:
 * Stone:
 * Stone:
 * Stone:
 * Stone:

Version history
Like other characters, Kirby received some changes in the PAL version of Melee, which slightly buffed him overall as he is faster, heavier and he overall has slightly more range and KO power. These changes however fail to properly address Kirby's flaws so while Kirby is less of a contender for the worst character in the game, he still remains one of the weakest characters overall.

PAL

Moveset
For a gallery of Kirby's hitboxes, see here.

Stats
NTSC

PAL

Most historically significant players

 * See also: Category:Kirby players (SSBM)


 * - Considered to be the best Kirby in NorCal. Placed 17th at NorCal Arcadian #3 and 33rd at . Took a set off and  (though the former was intoxicated at the time).
 * - A top Kirby player in the early metagame. Has taken sets off players such as . Placed 5th at and 9th at.
 * - The best Kirby player in the world. Has taken sets off players such as and . Placed 5th at, 7th at , and 25th at . Has been ranked 3rd at the Minnesota Power Rankings several times.

Tier placement and history
Kirby has historically always ranked very low on Melee tier lists; compared to, Kirby's nerfs from Super Smash Bros. were much more significant, removing almost all of the aspects that made him dominant in the original Smash Bros. and leaving him with considerably fewer options in both offense and defense. Players immediately noticed that Kirby was left with poor KOing power, a poor approach, and a severe vulnerability to edgeguarding and premature falls due to his light weight, low air speed, and telegraphed recovery. Owing to Kirby's significant drawbacks, there have been only a few professional smashers that have developed his metagame for serious play, with a large number of them failing to place notably in large tournaments. While more prolific Kirby mains were active in the past, such as and, there exist few such professionals in present-day competitive Melee, causing Kirby's metagame to remain highly stagnant. Additionally, even prior to the stagnation of his metagame, Kirby was considered to rely on the opponent's lack of matchup experience to win matches.

As a result of this stagnancy and Kirby's numerous flaws, Kirby has consistently ranked as one of Melee's worst fighters. He is currently ranked second-to-last at 25th place on the current tier list. However, some professional smashers, such as and, believe that Kirby is underrated, as his tournament results and player base have been notably better than other characters such as Bowser, Zelda, and Ness. himself places Kirby at 24th on his own tier list, citing Kirby's crouch, tilts, and aerials as having mild utility while also having a decent edgeguarding game.

In Classic Mode, Kirby can appear as an ordinary opponent, as an ally or opponent in the team battles, alongside, , , or the , as a member of a multi-character battle, or as a metal opponent. In Kirby's appearances, he appears either on Fountain of Dreams or Green Greens, and on a team with the Ice Climbers, he appears on Icicle Mountain.

Adventure Mode
Kirby's sole appearance is on Stage 5: Green Greens. He first appears in a one-on-one fight then 15 Kirbys appear each possessing a Copy Ability. If the single Kirby and the Kirby team are KO'd in less than 31 seconds, the player must also fight a giant Kirby.

All-Star Mode
Kirby and his allies are fought on Green Greens.

Event Matches
Kirby is featured in the following event matches:
 * Event 6: Kirbys on Parade: The player chooses any character and must defeat three tiny Kirbys on Fountain of Dreams.
 * Event 16: Kirby's Air-raid: As Kirby, the player must defeat 10 other yellow Kirbys in 38 seconds using only Warp Stars. The yellow Kirbys are immune to the player's attacks.
 * Event 28: Puffballs Unite!: The player chooses any character and must defeat a total of 14 Kirbys, each possessing a Copy Ability, on Green Greens. Unlike Adventure mode, the Kirbys appear in groups of four instead of three.
 * Event 30: All-Star Match 3: Kirby is the first opponent the player must fight in this series of staged battles. Their character battles him on Fountain of Dreams, which will transition to the next stage if Kirby gets defeated. With a timer of four minutes, the player must defeat him along with Pikachu,, and the Ice Climbers.
 * Event 36: Space Travelers: The player uses Ness must defeat, Kirby, , and . The player battles the first three characters on Fourside and battles the last two on.

Trophies
In addition to the normal trophy about Kirby as a character, there are two trophies about him as a fighter, unlocked by completing both Adventure and All-Star modes respectively with Kirby on any difficulty:

Kirby is also the subject of five trophies that can be considered its own trophy series: the Kirby Hat series, with information about the powers Kirby gains when he uses Swallow on each opponent. The first three are "normally collectible" trophies that can be found during normal play and in the Trophy Lottery, but the last two are awarded once the player has unlocked all the playable characters involved on those trophies.

Trivia

 * Kirby's special moves from Melee are used in the game , through the use of the ability called Smash. The moves he gets are Twinkle Star (neutral aerial from Melee, although in this game it has much more range), Hammer, Final Cutter, Stone, and Vulcan Jab. He does not, however, receive Burning, which is his dash attack. He gets the ability from Master Hand, who is a boss in the game.
 * Kirby has the shortest taunt, followed by.
 * Kirby is one of the only two characters in the entire Super Smash Bros. series that has had escapable throws, the other being.
 * As the first nine hits of Kirby's down throw are meteor smashes, KO'ing an opponent with the move will earn the Meteor Smash bonus, even though neither the last hit nor the throw itself are meteor smashes.
 * A glitch exists where Kirby can dash attack off an edge, land on a different platform, and immediately perform a dash grab. This requires the player to use the dash attack within one or two frames of leaving the edge and then hold down a shield button until Kirby lands. The glitch likely exists because the game allows a buffer between "attack" and "shield" inputs to count as a "grab" input while dashing, which is not properly reset when Kirby attacks off the edge.
 * There is another glitch where if Kirby swallows an opponent and falls off the stage, the opponent will be KO'd and Kirby will not lose a life. With proper timing, a good Kirby player can even recover from a successful KO of this manner. This glitch exists due to the foe's hitboxes reacting to the blast zone before Kirby's, thanks to his small size relative to the rest of the cast.
 * Kirby,, , , , , , and are the only characters whose portraits on the character select screen match their official artwork.
 * Kirby is one of four characters (alongside, , and in NTSC versions) whose neutral special charge is lost if hit out of at least one specific special move. In Kirby's case, if he has copied one of the three aforementioned character's moves, he loses the copy ability's charge level if hit out of any of his specials.
 * In addition to this, he also loses the charge when hit for the first time per copied ability.