Meta Knight

Meta Knight (, Meta Knight) is a character from the series. Since debuting in Kirby's Adventure as a boss, Meta Knight has steadily transitioned into an anti-hero and friendly rival of Kirby, as he willingly assists or directly allies with Kirby on a number of occasions for the greater good, while maintaining their rivalry.

After making a cameo appearance in Super Smash Bros. Melee as a trophy, Meta Knight transitioned into a playable character in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and has remained as such since then.

Origin
Meta Knight is a mysterious character who has been depicted as both a hero and a villain, and more generally an anti-hero, in the Kirby series. He is sometimes cast as an antagonist to Kirby, but his intentions are not definitively evil. In certain instances, he sends his troops, the Meta-Knights, as enemies against the pink protagonist as a sort of training method. Titles such as ', ', and  depict Meta Knight as a direct ally to Kirby, often assisting him in his journey.

Meta Knight is a blue Kirby-like being cloaked in armor, with glowing yellow eyes visible underneath a silver mask. His primary weapon is a golden, pronged sword named, which he wields with considerable skill. He wears a cape that can turn into bat-like wings, which he uses to take flight. On certain occasions, he will cast off his cape, transforming into his wings. Meta Knight's mask breaks almost every time he is defeated, revealing a face very similar to Kirby's own. Upon defeat, Meta Knight immediately wraps himself within his cape and flees.

In battle, Meta Knight has a notable code of honor. He always provides a sword to Kirby in order to have an equal duel; in some games, such as Kirby Super Star and , there may be certain circumstances that cause him to make the first move when Kirby takes too long to get the weapon. However, in contrast to his code of honor, Meta Knight is also occasionally shown to be forceful and arrogant. This is best demonstrated in the "Revenge of Meta Knight" mode of Kirby Super Star, where Meta Knight attempts to use his battleship, the Halberd, to take control of Dream Land and end its carefree lifestyle.

The  anime depicts Meta Knight as a veteran Star Warrior and an ostensible underling to King Dedede and ; in reality, he has his own higher motives, and only uses his relationship with Dedede as a means of accomplishing them. He often acts as a mentor to Kirby, providing cryptic advice and training him to become a Star Warrior in kind. This appearance is the basis of Meta Knight's personality in Smash. In Japanese, he is even voiced by the same actor, Atsushi Kisaichi.

In Super Smash Bros. Melee
Meta Knight only appears in this game as a collectible trophy, unlocked as one of the 250+ trophies that can be collected randomly during normal play, such as in the Trophy Lottery and throughout the various Single-player Regular Matches (though it will only be available to start appearing after the player has played over 200 VS mode matches). The trophy has a factual error: while his first appearance was in Kirby's Adventure released in May of 1993, the trophy claims that his first appearance was in Kirby Super Star, released in September of 1996.

As a playable character
Meta Knight makes an official appearance as a playable character in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and he is available to play from the start. Almost all of his attacks involve his sword, Galaxia, and most of these attacks are extremely fast; for instance, his up air comes out in just two frames (1/30th of a second), referencing his swordsmanship in the Kirby franchise. Though his overall reach is average, the length of his sword relative to his small body gives him grossly disproportionate disjoints in all of his attacks, giving him excellent spacing options. In addition to fast attacks, Meta Knight is equipped with incredible recovery potential. Like, , and , he has multiple jumps, but, despite physically resembling Kirby, he doesn't puff himself up to fly. Instead, he transforms his cape into wings to propel himself upwards, and in addition, Meta Knight has the ability to glide using his cape wings. Furthermore, Meta Knight is equipped with very versatile special moves that not only improve his already stellar recovery but also heavily define his neutral and edgeguard game.

Meta Knight is widely considered to be the best character in Brawl due to him lacking disadvantageous match-ups (with one documented but heavily disputed even matchup against ) along with his overwhelming dominance in tournaments. Due to being considered "broken", Meta Knight had been banned since January 9, 2012 on the Unity Ruleset. However, after the disbandment of the Unity ruleset, prohibiting him is up to the Tournament Organizer.

As a playable character
Meta Knight was confirmed as a playable character on August 13th, 2014. He has been visually updated, with his gloves now sporting gauntlets, a detail seen in official artwork of Meta Knight in Kirby: Squeak Squad and .

Possibly due to his dominance in Brawl, Meta Knight has been significantly nerfed from Brawl to SSB4. Many of his attacks are slightly slower, and his range has been noticeably shortened, forcing him to take a more aggressive play style. His attacks no longer have transcendent priority. He has lost the ability to glide, toning down his recovery. Mach Tornado, a staple in Brawl, has less momentum and higher ending lag, removing his dominance in the neutral game. These changes have also left him more vulnerable to camping strategies.

Meta Knight is currently ranked 16th on the tier list, placing him in the B tier. Meta Knight still has numerous strengths, such as his combos from Brawl, and his deadly edge-guarding game. He has received several buffs to his KO moves as well, with his forward smash and back aerial now dealing more knockback, and Shuttle Loop deals more damage, has increased range and much higher knockback scaling. As a result, he has a powerful punishing ability. Most importantly, his air speed has been greatly increased, now being roughly average, whereas it was tied for the third slowest in Brawl. Even with the loss of many of his advantages, his strengths heavily outweigh his flaws; this has translated to his tournament status, in which he has secured strong representation and noteworthy results.

As a costume
Meta Knight's mask is also available as headgear for all Mii Fighter types.

As a playable character
Meta Knight returns as a playable fighter, as with all previous characters, in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, now as an unlockable character. Meta Knight has received a mix of buffs and nerfs in the transition to Ultimate, but has been nerfed overall, albeit significantly less so than in his transition from Brawl to Smash 4, his Mach Tornado now only hits once. He also received a new Final Smash in the form of Darkness Illusion.

As a costume
Meta Knight's mask is once again available as headgear for Mii Fighters.

Trivia

 * Meta Knight was the first newcomer confirmed for Super Smash Bros. Brawl and the last veteran starter confirmed for Super Smash Bros. 4.
 * Barring Kirby's cameo in , which was released prior to Kirby's Dream Land, Meta Knight is the only fighter from the series to debut on a home console.
 * Meta Knight's appearance slightly differs between the Kirby and Super Smash Bros. series. Specifically, the ends of his visor slightly curve inward, the letter M is printed on his left pauldron, and his attire features purple sabatons that previously only appeared in his in-game design from Kirby's Avalanche, a dark purple cape with a bat insignia and a white ridged collar and, as of SSB4, silver gauntlets. Starting with Kirby: Planet Robobot, his appearance as of Super Smash Bros. 4 has been carried over into the Kirby games, although the gauntlets were shown in official artwork of the Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS Kirby titles, and in .
 * Meta Knight's sword is inspired by its appearance in the anime series. Prior to Brawl, the sword did not have a consistent design and was referred to with generic terms, such as "Master Sword". Its Brawl design, which first appeared in Kirby Air Ride, features four prongs as opposed to the anime's six. Along with the name "Galaxia", this design was incorporated into later games.
 * Meta Knight is the only character in the Super Smash Bros. series whose entire special moveset renders him helpless.
 * He is also the only fighter to have two different helpess animations, one with his wings and one without.
 * Meta Knight is the only sword-wielding character in the Super Smash Bros. series who lacks both a projectile and a counterattack.
 * He is also the only fighter from the series to have the former trait.
 * Unlike Kirby and King Dedede, Meta Knight's Japanese voice in the Super Smash Bros. series was directly lifted from the anime series instead of any prior Kirby games, mainly due to the fact he was never voiced in them. To further reflect this, his English voice, albeit different from the dubbed anime, features a slight accent, similar to how his English voice in the anime series has a Spanish accent.
 * Meta Knight is one of two characters that leave the victory screen in their victory animation, the other being Sephiroth.
 * Meta Knight is the first of only two characters in the entire Super Smash Bros. series to have been ranked in SS tier, followed by Fox McCloud.
 * Meta Knight is the first character in the Super Smash Bros. series (and only character in Brawl) to have a different victory fanfare than other characters from the same universe.
 * Kirby's dark blue alternate costume in SSB4 and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is intended to resemble Meta Knight without his mask and other regalia, giving Kirby dark purple skin, purple feet, and entirely yellow eyes while also removing his cheek blush.
 * Prior to this costume, Meta Knight was actually depicted as having silver eyes behind his mask and pink cheeks. The mask, in particular, turned Meta Knight's eyes yellow while it was worn, and this trait was further reinforced in Brawl when Kirby, upon copying Meta Knight, sports green eyes while wearing the mask. However, all Kirby games following SSB4 now depict an unmasked Meta Knight with yellow eyes and a lack of cheek blush. According to the developers of Kirby: Planet Robobot, this was partially a result of palette limitations in sprite-based titles. Although they considered using the pre-SSB4 design, they decided that it did not look right on Meta Knight's 3D model.
 * In an official poll held on Smabura-Ken (the game's official Japanese website) regarding characters for a potential sequel to the first game, Meta Knight placed 19th with 11 votes, tied with the Pokémon Lugia. Notably, he received less votes than Gooey among characters from the Kirby games.