DC
Smash Cadet
- Joined
- Dec 30, 2001
- Messages
- 55
Soooo you may or may not be aware that I play this game. I hate it; it's undeniably a completely imbalanced game with a childish, dumb community. However, I do play the game and in any game I play, I take great pride in studying and learning as much about my character as possible. (See: Blazblue and Noel) I think it's funny that a lot of people don't realize JUST how bad a character Kirby is, when compared to other characters. Don't get me wrong, he's far from unplayable, but the amount of misconceptions about him is hilarious. I remember one time I had an argument with Lamb Chops (who was at the time, one of the best Snake players) who said Kirby counters Snake because he "runs circles around him." Now I respect the guy, but that was just inconceivable to me! I think I've been playing the character longer than most, maybe not the longest but I'm up there. I'm definitely not the best Kirby player but I think that I've studied the character in great detail more than other any other people have. Thankfully the community is starting to come to it's senses, as you've seen Kirby has been steadily plummeting on the tier list. I'm not entirely sure of his exact placement now, but in my humble opinion I think Kirby's rightful place would be right near the bottom of middle tier. In this post I will outline Kirby's major problems and detail them accordingly. This thread is not to bash Kirby! I love my character, if I didn't I would have switched to Meta Knight long ago.
I also think it’s worth mentioning that you might not know me, I’m not on the list of top 5 players with their character (YET TRUMP AND XALTIS ARE ON THEIR RESPECTIVE LISTS? LOL REALLY SMASHBOARDS?) lol but seriously, I have players that can at least vouch for my ability to play Kirby at a high level. (Where you at, Seibrik?) I don’t really enter tournaments for the following reasons. This thread is not to john is not intended to john about my character, just to clear up some misconceptions. So without further ado...
Kirby is light as hell
Well I'm sure this seems like a given! Kirby is the 4th lightest character in the game, only underneath Squirtle, Game & Watch and Jiggs. The implications of this are obvious; Kirby gets killed earlier than most other characters do. Even with good DI, Kirby gets killed by Snakes uptilt at a mere 99%. Having good DI when playing Kirby is dire, but not everything is expected. Think back, there's been more than a few times where you've gotten hit with an attack and DI'd very poorly, putting you in a bad position. An unexpected dsmash from Meta Knight will gladly send you horizontally! These kinds of things are FATAL for Kirby. It's not outside of the realm of possibly to get killed at 40-50% by attacks near the edge of the stage, or god forbid you get hit with something on the Smashville platform at one of the sides! Brinstar? Good luck. But wait! Characters like Meta Knight and Pikachu are just as light as Kirby is! (One unit of weight heavier than Kirby, actually.) Why aren't they bad too? Well the difference between a light character like Kirby and light characters like MK and Pikachu is that...
Kirby has no killing ability
WHAAAAAAAAAAAAT? But I get hit with Kirby's fsmash all the time! That **** is broken! Maaaan... it kills me on the inside every time I hear this. Before I start, I want to detail Kirby's (arguably) PRACTICAL kill attacks. A lot of people seem to think that Kirby is some kind of walking killmachine when their character is at high percents... and he is! If you're an idiot.
PRACTICAL
Fsmash*
Bair (100% fresh)
Air hammer*
NOT SO PRACTICAL
Dsmash (fastest smash, surprisingly hitboxes above his head and to the side)
Upthrow (at hiiiigh percentages)
Note that Kirby CAN kill with other attacks. Upair and upsmash will kill at moderately high percentages, but are definitely not a go-to kill attacks. Inhale can SETUP gimps/suicides, but it's NOT practical. Fair is a terrible attack, but more on that later. Ground hammer can punish things like missed tether grabs or general stupidity, but it's important to realize that THE KEY WORD IS PRACTICAL. Anyway now that that's been made clear, let's look at these in more depth.
FORWARD SMASH IS NOT A GOOD ATTACK. Go back and think about all the times you have gotten hit by fsmash. You were airdodging to the ground, right? STOP AIRDODGING TO THE GROUND. You will get hit. Stop trying to space random aerials at high percentages. You will get hit. Fsmash is only a threat to stupid people. Good players will get hit from time to time, but there is nothing special about Kirby's fsmash that makes it a significant threat to people who are playing smart! It doesn't have incredible speed like Fox's upsmash, or a deceptive hitbox like Snake's uptilt. Hell, do you want to know the sad truth? It's not even that strong of an attack. It's made for punishing people after conditioning them to do certain things, but it's not a rare occurrence for heavier characters to LIVE after getting hit by it. It's slow (comparably), it's easy to tell if you've made the mistake and are about to get hit by it, and thus easily DI'd. I'm not going to sit here and try to tell you that fmash is a BAD attack, but it's not NEARLY as good as you're thinking it is.
Bair is easily Kirby's best attack, and thus the attack you will be using most often. Meaning, IT WILL NEVER BE FRESH. It has surprising power when it's fresh, it's comparably fast, but the only time you will be killing with this attack is shortly after you've died. For your viewing pleasure: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmnSqLrJAfA
I won't bore you with the details of air hammer. This is a decent attack one you have conditioned people to airdodge once you get near them. I've probably done it to you before! In fact, I have an entire combo video about this. I airhammer, you airdoge the first hit and the second hits you. The second hit has a horizontal trajectory and decent power behind it. The cons of this are obvious, though. Hammer is an intensely slow attack, the startup is long enough to visually confirm and punish, and as stated above, intelligent players should not feel threatened. Also as previously stated, this attack is easy to confirm that you've made the mistake of airdodging, and thus easily DI'd.
So where is gimping? Kirby has 6 jumps and a very unique drill/spike (Dair) that surely screws over characters while they try to recover. I suppose this would be viable, but........
Kirby is slow as all hell
I wish more people would realize this! Kirby is not actually one of the slowest moving characters in the game, he's actually 11th slowest and has the 6th slowest falling speed, these factors when combined with Kirby's ridiculously small range makes it surprisingly hard to "gimp" other characters. In fact, those factors considered, Kirby is actually one of the easiest characters to gimp in the game. Indeed, he DOES has 6 jumps, all very short, but believe it or not, Kirby's ABSOLUTE WORST POSITION in any match is "returning to the stage."
For example, both Meta Knight and Dedede are as slow as or slower than Kirby respectively. When trying to recover, you’re generally going to try to attack these characters off stage, either forcing them to waste more jumps or to use one of their recovery attacks. Obviously you must be weary; these two characters (along with many others) still have the ability to attack you off the stage while they are recovering, MK being a good example of an especially dangerous character to follow off stage. So it’s 50/50, you have to use your better judgment and decide when is the best situation to attack a character off stage. I feel like this is not the case when Kirby is the one trying to recover. Kirby is a slow moving target, with no particular long range or threatening attacks that you need to worry about while he’s recovering. If you’re under him, Dair will be your biggest worry, but its horizontal hitbox likely pales in comparison to any attack you plan on using. Upair is a good attack I like to use if my open is above me, it’s vertical hitbox is decent and can usually catch people off-guard (such is Kirby). Fair is much too slow and laggy to use while recovering, and Bair, while quick and seemingly his best option while return to stage, is still easily spaced and punished by a large amount of the cast. Kirby’s absolute best option while trying to recover is just that… try to recover. I’m not saying that in every recovery situation Kirby should be on the defensive, silly one-way thinking like that is what gets people read and punished hard, but the risk of attacking your opponent while recovering is often much higher than the reward, because……….
Kirby trades... everything
Quick! Think of all of the characters in Brawl without (respectable) projectiles. Now, of those characters, remove all of the ones with large, powerful or disjointed hitboxes (DK, Marth) and/or above average mobility in the air or ground (Jiggs, MK) You are left with Kirby. (And like Ganondorf I guess, but his hitboxes are generally bigger). These things aren’t what inherently make Kirby a bad character, but I think all these things combined are what give Kirby one of his biggest problems. All of Kirby’s attacks are extension of his body; specifically his feet. This, along with being the prime example of a short range character, result in Kirby trading attacks… very often. The very act of attacking another character puts Kirby at a risk significantly higher than, for example, Ike attacking with Fair. Many other characters in the cast without weapons are forced to rely on spacing their shorter range hitboxes, but Kirby doesn’t have the added benefit of high mobility that characters like Wario or Yoshi do.
So, well… a lot of characters still trade attacks also! What’s the point? You see, Kirby’s problems seem to work in tandem with each other. Not only does Kirby have low mobility and range (meaning a relatively high amount of trading attacks), but when taking into account his low weight, trading attacks is something that is rarely beneficial. For example, trade attacks up to 100% with a Snake player; while both characters are at high percentages Kirby is in significantly more danger. I believe that all of these reasons combined is what resulted in the Kirby metagame. I’ve said before that Bair is undoubtedly one of Kirby’s best attacks, quick and comparably longer ranger than his other attacks. While you’ll still find that you’re trading attacks with Bair very often, it’s a considerably lower rate than many of his other attacks, which is what leads to………
Kirby is a very straightforward character / has problems approaching
Kirby is an ANOMALY of a character. He is hilariously slow, has no range on any of his attacks and thus must approach (slowly.) However, due to his moveset, his only practical way of approaching is backwards! Surely you can see the problem in this. A character that MUST approach but who’s best options are facing the opposite direction; it is quite literally “backwards.”
Note here I’d like to mention a lot of people may want to comment that I’m wrong when I say Kirby MUST approach. “Be patient, let them come to you.” Well yes, you’ll see in that the next paragraph. Unfortunately, the only reason other characters approach Kirby is through poor foresight and low patience from the person controlling them. Like it or not, a Falco on the other side of Final Destination NEVER. HAS. TO. APPROACH. They will though, why? The player is impatient. But I’m writing this based on that simple truth; most characters with projectiles do not ever need to approach Kirby in a match… ever.
People often chastise me for "running away," when little do they realize that Kirby's absolute best position on any stage is an opponent approaching him on level ground while he is facing in the opposite direction. If there were a way to run backwards in the game, there would be less of a problem. As it stands now though, Kirby will likely be doing one of two things the entire match:
- Running towards you, shield-grab
- Running towards you, jumping up and slowly trying to space Bair
So... what's good about Kirby?
First and foremost I think that Kirby was made to be a bit different than other characters. He is neither rushdown nor is he a zoner. More than anything I think that Kirby benefits from conditioning his opponent to do certain things and punishing accordingly. I think he rewards players with the ability to read other people's intended actions, as many of his attacks are extremely slow but (arguably) powerful. Aerial hammer is the perfect example of this, as is inhale. Kirby also benefits from a player with impeccable spacing, as perfectly spaced Bairs are unpunishable except on perfect shield. Some other things that are worth mentioning...
- Great tilts: Kirby's tilts are godlike for his character. Often overlooked is Ftilt, which has amazing range and speed. Dtilt also has it's uses, I do wish that it poked shields, but oh well. Also has a decent trip rate. But the holy grail of all tilts, Kirby's uptilt is, in my opinion, one of the best and most useful non-kill attacks in the game. It's not particularly strong, but its speed, range, ability to juggle, negate, and its general practicality makes his uptilt one of the absolute best. Thank the lord for uptilt.
- Amazing dash attack: Again, this attack is often overlooked. Unrivaled in punishing spotdodges, this attack is also great on the edge of stages as it will move your opponent off the stage and into a tumble, often guaranteeing a hit if it's shielded. If it's spotdodged, it's also almost a guaranteed hit. Great attack in general.
- Command grab: Mentioned before, Kirby's inhale functions as a command grab, great after you condition opponents to shield or spotdodge as you are falling towards them (and they are expecting a bair). I won't make mention of its suicide ability, I think it's worthless at high level play. (Unless you manage to inhale Dedede off the stage, it is a guaranteed footstool.)
- Mixup from grabs in general: Aside from his inhale, his regular grabs are pretty amazing in themselves. They are clearly a bit larger than the rest of the cast, which is ironic because his arms are so tiny. I think his grabs, along with his command grab and his dash attack (which beats spotdodges) makes for great mixup in certain situations. For example, a Falco landing after his Side-B will usually try to shield or spotdodge, shielding will be beaten by grabs and inhale; spotdodging will be beaten by dash attack. Good range, good pivot grab, fairly short recovery makes Kirby’s grabs a pretty widely-accepted Pro.
- Good (yet predictable) vertical recovery, I guess: You can’t really deny his 6 jumps. Although they are very small and slow, he still has 6 of them. Recover horizontally is meh at best, but his vertical recovery, when taking final cutter into account, is amazing. Sadly due to the same reasons, his recovery is insanely predictable. Final cutter always goes up and never sweetspots the edge on its way up. A lot of people don’t realize this is super punishable. His cutlass IS one of his two ‘disjointed’ hitboxes (along with aerial hammer), but a quick shield and ledgegrab will force either an SD or lag from landing on the stage. It’s a double edged sword really, but I wouldn’t say that, in this particular case, the risk is greater than the reward. Everyone’s recover is generally risky but not all are as good as Kirby’s. (Unless your MK)
How can Kirby be better?
I've thought about this a lot, often have discussions with other people on ways Kirby could possibly be a better character without making him completely broken. These are just some of my thoughts; I don't expect everyone to agree.
- Give Kirby a good Fair: As stated above, Kirby has massive problems approaching. Facing someone with Kirby is already a dangerous position. His Fair is an awkward attack; three relatively slow hits that are not easily shorthopped and have quite a bit of lag. It is not recommended to be used while recovering, it’s far too slow. Aside from the occasional off the ledge surprise attack, or techchase after forward throw, Fair is NOT a great attack. I’m sure just about every character has an aerial that is seemingly useless, but when taking his approaching problems into account, it’s clear that he needs a useful Fair. My suggestion was to give Kirby his Fair from Smash64.
- A killing throw: Another one of Kirby’s problems is hard time landing kill attacks on characters (and the fact that even landing certain “kill” attacks will not kill, ever hit someone with Upsmash? Ugh) I think first I should make note that every single one of Kirby’s throws send the opponent upwards, instead of the direction of the throw. I think this makes it obvious that Kirby was INTENDED to dominate other characters in the air, which is ironic because his aerials are lackluster when compared to characters like MK or ZSS, not to mention his speed in the air is very low. Kirby’s grabs are amazing, and giving him a killing throw would solve his problems. His Upthrow is close, he can kill certain characters with it and generally high percentages. If this average kill percentage was made a little bit lower, I think he might actually be made a force to be reckoned with. It doesn’t have to be quite as strong as say, Ness or Lucas’s killthrows, but making Upthrow a reliable kill attack would be extremely beneficial.
- Increase air speed: Did you know Kirby, along with Jiggs were the fastest characters in the air in Smash64? Then in Melee he dropped to 4th to last, tied with Ganondorf. What’s up with that? I don’t expect Kirby to move as fast as Jiggs, or have the maneuverability as Wario, but increasing his airspeed by a bit would definitely make Kirby, you know, actually THREATENING in the air.
- Attack with disjointed hitbox: Wishful thinking, I know. Giving Kirby a disjointed hitbox, (I can’t think of anything they could use, maybe his Yo-Yo ability? Sorry Ness!) would probably drastically change his metagame. Why risk trading with Bair when something else is so safe? Well anyway, this would solve his short range and trading problems.
The verdict?
Kirby's a strange character. He's average to below average in everything. I think the intention was to make Kirby a great grappler at close ranges (inhale, good grabs), and a character that dominates in the air (all his throws send characters upwards). However, his air speed and range are counterintuitive and instead make it dangerous to be in the air against most characters. His ground grab game also pales in comparison to characters like Dedede or Diddy, and then there are just characters that he CANNOT APPROACH, like Olimar or Ice Climbers. So, while Kirby is a unique character, his flaws are too significant and prevalent. KIRBY IS NOT AN UPLAYABLE CHARACTER, but there are other characters that do things Kirby was intended to do WAY better than Kirby could ever hope to. Hell, there are other characters that do things Kirby was intended to do at an average level, and are still better. Don’t get me wrong, if you play stupid against a Kirby player you will get wrecked, but simply having the knowledge of his above flaws can be used instead of matchup experience, which is something that can’t be said about most characters.
TL;DR
Playing Kirby is like shooting yourself in both feet and entering a race. Kirby himself is like a car with square wheels.
Sorry about the typos, I’ll be editing this post to fix any I find. Also the entire above post were all my opinions.
But I ****ing love Kirby and I’ll play him until I die.
I also think it’s worth mentioning that you might not know me, I’m not on the list of top 5 players with their character (YET TRUMP AND XALTIS ARE ON THEIR RESPECTIVE LISTS? LOL REALLY SMASHBOARDS?) lol but seriously, I have players that can at least vouch for my ability to play Kirby at a high level. (Where you at, Seibrik?) I don’t really enter tournaments for the following reasons. This thread is not to john is not intended to john about my character, just to clear up some misconceptions. So without further ado...
Kirby is light as hell
Well I'm sure this seems like a given! Kirby is the 4th lightest character in the game, only underneath Squirtle, Game & Watch and Jiggs. The implications of this are obvious; Kirby gets killed earlier than most other characters do. Even with good DI, Kirby gets killed by Snakes uptilt at a mere 99%. Having good DI when playing Kirby is dire, but not everything is expected. Think back, there's been more than a few times where you've gotten hit with an attack and DI'd very poorly, putting you in a bad position. An unexpected dsmash from Meta Knight will gladly send you horizontally! These kinds of things are FATAL for Kirby. It's not outside of the realm of possibly to get killed at 40-50% by attacks near the edge of the stage, or god forbid you get hit with something on the Smashville platform at one of the sides! Brinstar? Good luck. But wait! Characters like Meta Knight and Pikachu are just as light as Kirby is! (One unit of weight heavier than Kirby, actually.) Why aren't they bad too? Well the difference between a light character like Kirby and light characters like MK and Pikachu is that...
Kirby has no killing ability
WHAAAAAAAAAAAAT? But I get hit with Kirby's fsmash all the time! That **** is broken! Maaaan... it kills me on the inside every time I hear this. Before I start, I want to detail Kirby's (arguably) PRACTICAL kill attacks. A lot of people seem to think that Kirby is some kind of walking killmachine when their character is at high percents... and he is! If you're an idiot.
PRACTICAL
Fsmash*
Bair (100% fresh)
Air hammer*
NOT SO PRACTICAL
Dsmash (fastest smash, surprisingly hitboxes above his head and to the side)
Upthrow (at hiiiigh percentages)
Note that Kirby CAN kill with other attacks. Upair and upsmash will kill at moderately high percentages, but are definitely not a go-to kill attacks. Inhale can SETUP gimps/suicides, but it's NOT practical. Fair is a terrible attack, but more on that later. Ground hammer can punish things like missed tether grabs or general stupidity, but it's important to realize that THE KEY WORD IS PRACTICAL. Anyway now that that's been made clear, let's look at these in more depth.
FORWARD SMASH IS NOT A GOOD ATTACK. Go back and think about all the times you have gotten hit by fsmash. You were airdodging to the ground, right? STOP AIRDODGING TO THE GROUND. You will get hit. Stop trying to space random aerials at high percentages. You will get hit. Fsmash is only a threat to stupid people. Good players will get hit from time to time, but there is nothing special about Kirby's fsmash that makes it a significant threat to people who are playing smart! It doesn't have incredible speed like Fox's upsmash, or a deceptive hitbox like Snake's uptilt. Hell, do you want to know the sad truth? It's not even that strong of an attack. It's made for punishing people after conditioning them to do certain things, but it's not a rare occurrence for heavier characters to LIVE after getting hit by it. It's slow (comparably), it's easy to tell if you've made the mistake and are about to get hit by it, and thus easily DI'd. I'm not going to sit here and try to tell you that fmash is a BAD attack, but it's not NEARLY as good as you're thinking it is.
Bair is easily Kirby's best attack, and thus the attack you will be using most often. Meaning, IT WILL NEVER BE FRESH. It has surprising power when it's fresh, it's comparably fast, but the only time you will be killing with this attack is shortly after you've died. For your viewing pleasure: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmnSqLrJAfA
I won't bore you with the details of air hammer. This is a decent attack one you have conditioned people to airdodge once you get near them. I've probably done it to you before! In fact, I have an entire combo video about this. I airhammer, you airdoge the first hit and the second hits you. The second hit has a horizontal trajectory and decent power behind it. The cons of this are obvious, though. Hammer is an intensely slow attack, the startup is long enough to visually confirm and punish, and as stated above, intelligent players should not feel threatened. Also as previously stated, this attack is easy to confirm that you've made the mistake of airdodging, and thus easily DI'd.
So where is gimping? Kirby has 6 jumps and a very unique drill/spike (Dair) that surely screws over characters while they try to recover. I suppose this would be viable, but........
Kirby is slow as all hell
I wish more people would realize this! Kirby is not actually one of the slowest moving characters in the game, he's actually 11th slowest and has the 6th slowest falling speed, these factors when combined with Kirby's ridiculously small range makes it surprisingly hard to "gimp" other characters. In fact, those factors considered, Kirby is actually one of the easiest characters to gimp in the game. Indeed, he DOES has 6 jumps, all very short, but believe it or not, Kirby's ABSOLUTE WORST POSITION in any match is "returning to the stage."
For example, both Meta Knight and Dedede are as slow as or slower than Kirby respectively. When trying to recover, you’re generally going to try to attack these characters off stage, either forcing them to waste more jumps or to use one of their recovery attacks. Obviously you must be weary; these two characters (along with many others) still have the ability to attack you off the stage while they are recovering, MK being a good example of an especially dangerous character to follow off stage. So it’s 50/50, you have to use your better judgment and decide when is the best situation to attack a character off stage. I feel like this is not the case when Kirby is the one trying to recover. Kirby is a slow moving target, with no particular long range or threatening attacks that you need to worry about while he’s recovering. If you’re under him, Dair will be your biggest worry, but its horizontal hitbox likely pales in comparison to any attack you plan on using. Upair is a good attack I like to use if my open is above me, it’s vertical hitbox is decent and can usually catch people off-guard (such is Kirby). Fair is much too slow and laggy to use while recovering, and Bair, while quick and seemingly his best option while return to stage, is still easily spaced and punished by a large amount of the cast. Kirby’s absolute best option while trying to recover is just that… try to recover. I’m not saying that in every recovery situation Kirby should be on the defensive, silly one-way thinking like that is what gets people read and punished hard, but the risk of attacking your opponent while recovering is often much higher than the reward, because……….
Kirby trades... everything
Quick! Think of all of the characters in Brawl without (respectable) projectiles. Now, of those characters, remove all of the ones with large, powerful or disjointed hitboxes (DK, Marth) and/or above average mobility in the air or ground (Jiggs, MK) You are left with Kirby. (And like Ganondorf I guess, but his hitboxes are generally bigger). These things aren’t what inherently make Kirby a bad character, but I think all these things combined are what give Kirby one of his biggest problems. All of Kirby’s attacks are extension of his body; specifically his feet. This, along with being the prime example of a short range character, result in Kirby trading attacks… very often. The very act of attacking another character puts Kirby at a risk significantly higher than, for example, Ike attacking with Fair. Many other characters in the cast without weapons are forced to rely on spacing their shorter range hitboxes, but Kirby doesn’t have the added benefit of high mobility that characters like Wario or Yoshi do.
So, well… a lot of characters still trade attacks also! What’s the point? You see, Kirby’s problems seem to work in tandem with each other. Not only does Kirby have low mobility and range (meaning a relatively high amount of trading attacks), but when taking into account his low weight, trading attacks is something that is rarely beneficial. For example, trade attacks up to 100% with a Snake player; while both characters are at high percentages Kirby is in significantly more danger. I believe that all of these reasons combined is what resulted in the Kirby metagame. I’ve said before that Bair is undoubtedly one of Kirby’s best attacks, quick and comparably longer ranger than his other attacks. While you’ll still find that you’re trading attacks with Bair very often, it’s a considerably lower rate than many of his other attacks, which is what leads to………
Kirby is a very straightforward character / has problems approaching
Kirby is an ANOMALY of a character. He is hilariously slow, has no range on any of his attacks and thus must approach (slowly.) However, due to his moveset, his only practical way of approaching is backwards! Surely you can see the problem in this. A character that MUST approach but who’s best options are facing the opposite direction; it is quite literally “backwards.”
Note here I’d like to mention a lot of people may want to comment that I’m wrong when I say Kirby MUST approach. “Be patient, let them come to you.” Well yes, you’ll see in that the next paragraph. Unfortunately, the only reason other characters approach Kirby is through poor foresight and low patience from the person controlling them. Like it or not, a Falco on the other side of Final Destination NEVER. HAS. TO. APPROACH. They will though, why? The player is impatient. But I’m writing this based on that simple truth; most characters with projectiles do not ever need to approach Kirby in a match… ever.
People often chastise me for "running away," when little do they realize that Kirby's absolute best position on any stage is an opponent approaching him on level ground while he is facing in the opposite direction. If there were a way to run backwards in the game, there would be less of a problem. As it stands now though, Kirby will likely be doing one of two things the entire match:
- Running towards you, shield-grab
- Running towards you, jumping up and slowly trying to space Bair
So... what's good about Kirby?
First and foremost I think that Kirby was made to be a bit different than other characters. He is neither rushdown nor is he a zoner. More than anything I think that Kirby benefits from conditioning his opponent to do certain things and punishing accordingly. I think he rewards players with the ability to read other people's intended actions, as many of his attacks are extremely slow but (arguably) powerful. Aerial hammer is the perfect example of this, as is inhale. Kirby also benefits from a player with impeccable spacing, as perfectly spaced Bairs are unpunishable except on perfect shield. Some other things that are worth mentioning...
- Great tilts: Kirby's tilts are godlike for his character. Often overlooked is Ftilt, which has amazing range and speed. Dtilt also has it's uses, I do wish that it poked shields, but oh well. Also has a decent trip rate. But the holy grail of all tilts, Kirby's uptilt is, in my opinion, one of the best and most useful non-kill attacks in the game. It's not particularly strong, but its speed, range, ability to juggle, negate, and its general practicality makes his uptilt one of the absolute best. Thank the lord for uptilt.
- Amazing dash attack: Again, this attack is often overlooked. Unrivaled in punishing spotdodges, this attack is also great on the edge of stages as it will move your opponent off the stage and into a tumble, often guaranteeing a hit if it's shielded. If it's spotdodged, it's also almost a guaranteed hit. Great attack in general.
- Command grab: Mentioned before, Kirby's inhale functions as a command grab, great after you condition opponents to shield or spotdodge as you are falling towards them (and they are expecting a bair). I won't make mention of its suicide ability, I think it's worthless at high level play. (Unless you manage to inhale Dedede off the stage, it is a guaranteed footstool.)
- Mixup from grabs in general: Aside from his inhale, his regular grabs are pretty amazing in themselves. They are clearly a bit larger than the rest of the cast, which is ironic because his arms are so tiny. I think his grabs, along with his command grab and his dash attack (which beats spotdodges) makes for great mixup in certain situations. For example, a Falco landing after his Side-B will usually try to shield or spotdodge, shielding will be beaten by grabs and inhale; spotdodging will be beaten by dash attack. Good range, good pivot grab, fairly short recovery makes Kirby’s grabs a pretty widely-accepted Pro.
- Good (yet predictable) vertical recovery, I guess: You can’t really deny his 6 jumps. Although they are very small and slow, he still has 6 of them. Recover horizontally is meh at best, but his vertical recovery, when taking final cutter into account, is amazing. Sadly due to the same reasons, his recovery is insanely predictable. Final cutter always goes up and never sweetspots the edge on its way up. A lot of people don’t realize this is super punishable. His cutlass IS one of his two ‘disjointed’ hitboxes (along with aerial hammer), but a quick shield and ledgegrab will force either an SD or lag from landing on the stage. It’s a double edged sword really, but I wouldn’t say that, in this particular case, the risk is greater than the reward. Everyone’s recover is generally risky but not all are as good as Kirby’s. (Unless your MK)
How can Kirby be better?
I've thought about this a lot, often have discussions with other people on ways Kirby could possibly be a better character without making him completely broken. These are just some of my thoughts; I don't expect everyone to agree.
- Give Kirby a good Fair: As stated above, Kirby has massive problems approaching. Facing someone with Kirby is already a dangerous position. His Fair is an awkward attack; three relatively slow hits that are not easily shorthopped and have quite a bit of lag. It is not recommended to be used while recovering, it’s far too slow. Aside from the occasional off the ledge surprise attack, or techchase after forward throw, Fair is NOT a great attack. I’m sure just about every character has an aerial that is seemingly useless, but when taking his approaching problems into account, it’s clear that he needs a useful Fair. My suggestion was to give Kirby his Fair from Smash64.
- A killing throw: Another one of Kirby’s problems is hard time landing kill attacks on characters (and the fact that even landing certain “kill” attacks will not kill, ever hit someone with Upsmash? Ugh) I think first I should make note that every single one of Kirby’s throws send the opponent upwards, instead of the direction of the throw. I think this makes it obvious that Kirby was INTENDED to dominate other characters in the air, which is ironic because his aerials are lackluster when compared to characters like MK or ZSS, not to mention his speed in the air is very low. Kirby’s grabs are amazing, and giving him a killing throw would solve his problems. His Upthrow is close, he can kill certain characters with it and generally high percentages. If this average kill percentage was made a little bit lower, I think he might actually be made a force to be reckoned with. It doesn’t have to be quite as strong as say, Ness or Lucas’s killthrows, but making Upthrow a reliable kill attack would be extremely beneficial.
- Increase air speed: Did you know Kirby, along with Jiggs were the fastest characters in the air in Smash64? Then in Melee he dropped to 4th to last, tied with Ganondorf. What’s up with that? I don’t expect Kirby to move as fast as Jiggs, or have the maneuverability as Wario, but increasing his airspeed by a bit would definitely make Kirby, you know, actually THREATENING in the air.
- Attack with disjointed hitbox: Wishful thinking, I know. Giving Kirby a disjointed hitbox, (I can’t think of anything they could use, maybe his Yo-Yo ability? Sorry Ness!) would probably drastically change his metagame. Why risk trading with Bair when something else is so safe? Well anyway, this would solve his short range and trading problems.
The verdict?
Kirby's a strange character. He's average to below average in everything. I think the intention was to make Kirby a great grappler at close ranges (inhale, good grabs), and a character that dominates in the air (all his throws send characters upwards). However, his air speed and range are counterintuitive and instead make it dangerous to be in the air against most characters. His ground grab game also pales in comparison to characters like Dedede or Diddy, and then there are just characters that he CANNOT APPROACH, like Olimar or Ice Climbers. So, while Kirby is a unique character, his flaws are too significant and prevalent. KIRBY IS NOT AN UPLAYABLE CHARACTER, but there are other characters that do things Kirby was intended to do WAY better than Kirby could ever hope to. Hell, there are other characters that do things Kirby was intended to do at an average level, and are still better. Don’t get me wrong, if you play stupid against a Kirby player you will get wrecked, but simply having the knowledge of his above flaws can be used instead of matchup experience, which is something that can’t be said about most characters.
TL;DR
Playing Kirby is like shooting yourself in both feet and entering a race. Kirby himself is like a car with square wheels.
Sorry about the typos, I’ll be editing this post to fix any I find. Also the entire above post were all my opinions.
But I ****ing love Kirby and I’ll play him until I die.