List of Copy Abilities

In every Super Smash Bros. game, Kirby has the ability to copy another character's neutral special move with his own neutral special move,. If Kirby swallows another Kirby, only damage is dealt, but if he swallows another Kirby that has a Copy Ability, it can be stolen. When Kirby copies an opponent, he will also bear a resemblance to that character, usually in the form of a hat that displays a prominent visual part of the character copied. When performing copied attacks, Kirby often mimics their voices or sounds as well as their poses, and uses the same weapons as their owners; however, unless otherwise noted, alternate costumes have no effect on his Copy Ability. Aside from the obvious range differences, copied attacks are functionally identical to the originals except where noted.

Kirby can discard the ability at any time by taunting. He may also lose it when taking damage (though there is a temporary "grace period" where this will not occur), and he will also lose it upon being KO'd. Also, anything spawned by the ability will vanish if Kirby loses it. For example, if Kirby tosses a Metal Blade onto the ground, picks it up, and taunts, the blade will vanish. Kirby will also lose his ability if the inhaled character's damage meter vanishes (indicating the character has been unloaded from memory), such as in Smash 4's All-Star Mode or certain Event matches. Against transforming characters, Kirby will keep his current ability even after the opponent has transformed.

Super Smash Bros. 4 introduced custom moves. Regardless of whether a neutral special has been customized or not, Kirby will only copy the default version of the move (with the exception of Olimar, as noted below). This applies to Palutena and the Mii Fighters' neutral specials as well.

In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, when using his copy ability, Kirby gains a 1.2× damage multiplier for the copied move; however, knockback is not affected.

Trivia

 * The copy ability (seen in ', ', and ) allows Kirby to use his standard moveset from the Super Smash Bros. series in the mainline Kirby games.
 * Masahiro Sakurai has noted that adding DLC characters is made even more difficult by the fact that Kirby has to have another copy ability added every time one is included.
 * Zelda, Falco, and Hero are the only characters whose copy ability hats are not solely based on the character's concurrent appearance in Smash. Zelda's is based on young Zelda's hat from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time in all games prior to Ultimate, despite Zelda not wearing this hat in any of her playable appearances. Falco's is based on his head design in Star Fox 64, despite this only being accurate to his depiction in Melee, as his design is changed in later Smash games. The Hero's incorporates a piece of equipment that the Luminary can wear in his original game, despite him not doing so in Smash.
 * Zelda is the only character whose copy ability hat has been based on a different version of the character copied, as Brawl and SSB4 use the Twilight Princess incarnation of Zelda.
 * In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Link is the only character whose copy ability hat is based solely on an alternate costume, as Kirby uses Link's cap from his "Hero of the Wild" armor set in spite of Link's default costume no longer including a cap.
 * Hero is the only character whose weapon Kirby can copy, but not use, with the Supreme Sword of Light being purely aesthetic.
 * While he doesn't use the Monado as a weapon, Kirby can still use it to apply Monado Arts to himself.
 * In Sora's case, he does not use the Keyblade itself, instead using a rough imitation of it made of sparkles.
 * Kirby creates replica weapons for Banjo & Kazooie and Sora's copy ability, following source material that the weapons are unique. However, this is not followed for many canonical weapons, such as the Falchion, Ragnell, and Monado.
 * Mr. Game & Watch, Wii Fit Trainer, and Kazuya are the only characters whose copy abilities change Kirby's color scheme. In Kazuya's case, the color change only applies when Kirby is in "Devil" form. This applies regardless of Kirby's alternate costume.
 * Yoshi, Little Mac, and Inkling are the only characters whose alternate costume affects Kirby's copy ability aesthetically.
 * Additionally, while their alternate costumes do not affect Kirby's copy ability, Jigglypuff (sans SSB4), Mewtwo, Olimar, Pac-Man, and Steve's copy ability hats will change color based on Kirby's costume.
 * Terry and Kazuya are the only characters whose Copy Abilities add a cosmetic to the tips of Kirby's hands when copied, specifically their gloves. He gains "sleeves" when copying Donkey Kong, but they do not fully cover his arms.
 * Kazuya is also the only copy ability in Smash to have an additional change to Kirby's form when the Copy Ability is used, being a "Devil Kirby" form when using Devil Blaster.
 * Steve is the only character whose Copy Ability completely changes Kirby's model, rather than simply adding something to it; when copied, Kirby takes on an entirely blocky appearance.
 * According to Kirby's voice actress——she is usually not given any context when recording Copy Ability voice clips, in order to maintain confidentiality. However, when recording the voice clips for copying Terry, she immediately figured out who it was solely based on the two lines she had to record, as she was familiar with Terry's dialogue through playing Fatal Fury with her brother.
 * Because Kirby is able to jump six times in a single sitting, selecting the Jump art from Shulk's copy ability allows him to remain in mid-air longer and reach greater heights than nearly any other character, except through the use of items like the Bunny Hood and Rocket Belt.
 * Masahiro Sakurai showed an early version of Kirby's Pyra outfit in a YouTube video, notably with hair that extended lower in the back that was raised later to match Pyra's hairstyle.