YMMV / Kirby Super Star

• Anti-Climax Boss: Marx is fairly easy compared to other Kirby series final bosses, especially since Milky Way Wishes lets you switch out powers whenever you want and never lose them. Marx Soul steps up the difficulty a bit, but is overshadowed by That One Boss Galacta Knight right before.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The Computer Virus (or Battle Windows) is totally random even within the limited/nonexistent context provided by the game for the existence of its bosses. It's just a computer prompt window found outside of any technological area with no explanation, and it's a gimmick boss designed to emulate the turn-based combat of old school RPGs.
• Common Knowledge: Several fans refer to the beach area Kirby is shot to in the beginning of Revenge of Meta Knight as "Grape Garden," since that's what Meta Knight calls it. Except he never called it that. He actually said that the Halberd's next target was Grape Garden, while the player can clearly see it moving away from Kirby's general location. Also, the place Kirby lands in is a Palmtree Panic area that looks nothing like Grape Garden. Given the order of areas Kirby goes through to catch up with the Halberd, some people instead interpret this area and the mountain area after it as being Orange Ocean and Yogurt Yard respectively, the two worlds after Grape Garden. The fact that Meta Knight was the boss of Orange Ocean in Adventure only backs this up.
• Designated Villain: Nova getting blown up by Kirby at the end of Milky Way Wishes reeks of Guilt by Association; since, as a wish-granting being, it only went along with Marx's Evil Plan in the first place because it literally had to, after Marx hijacked Kirby's wish. Fortunately, Ultra manages to lessen the issue by having Meta Knight use the Star Power again to revive it at the end of Meta Knightmare Ultra.
• Draco in Leather Pants:
  • We have Galacta Knight in Ultra, who was so powerful and dangerous that he had to be sealed away. Sounds like some horrible villainous character, right? Exactly! That is why every other fangirl draws him as an overly-cutesy, baby-faced sweetie that loves to tickle Meta Knight. However, later info would reveal he was a ancient hero who was sealed out of fear of his power, instead of something clearly villainous that he did and there's also the popular fan theory that he's a grown-up version of Kirby, so in that case it might be justified…
  • And, of course, there's Marx. Okay, so he did incite conflict between the sun and moon just to trick Kirby into summoning Nova, granting him the power to rule Popstar and do whatever he pleases, but… but he's so cute! There have been a number of fanfics either attempting to redeem him or altogether ignoring that he was evil in the first place. He's also often shown being buddies with Magolor, a similar character from Kirby's Return to Dream Land, to the point that the two appear in a Stone transformation in Planet Robobot. Marx becoming an ally in Kirby Star Allies also helps.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Galacta Knight immediately gained a huge fanbase after Ultra was released. He has since become a Breakout Character in his own right and one of the major faces of the "modern" Kirby games alongside Bandana Waddle Dee.
  • Among regular bosses, Heavy Lobster proved popular enough to appear in the anime as the final monster before Nightmare, get his own theme in Ultra, and appear as a boss in the Kirby Brawlball subgame in Kirby Mass Attack.
  • For mid-bosses, this game turned Bugzzy into one, who much like Heavy Lobster got to show up in the anime, as the third monster, and reprising his role as an ally in Kirby Star Allies.
  • Although they have an extremely minor role, Sailor Waddle Dee is very popular among fan artists due to being one of the series' few named and speaking Waddle Dees, and for being an adorable Lovable Coward. HAL Laboratory has acknowledged their popularity by giving them cameos in later games, even appearing in Team Kirby Clash Deluxe while series staples like Meta Knight and King Dedede are absent. It's also popular to pair them up with Bandana Waddle Dee, which is acknowledged by the two appearing together in the Strato Patrol EOS minigame in Kirby Mass Attack.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Before Sailor Waddle Dee eventually got his name via a sticker in Kirby: Planet Robobot, fan circles commonly dubbed him Sailor Dee.^note This also happened to Bandana Waddle Dee to an extent, but he wasn't nearly as prominent in the original game, being among the likes of a Knuckle Joe in headgear and an Iron Mom with a topknot.
  • Since his name was not widely known to the fanbase early on, Angel Meta Knight was a common nickname for Galacta Knight for a while.
• Fanon:
  • There's an oddly popular theory that Sailor Waddle Dee dies at the end of Revenge of Meta Knight, since they're the only crew member who never explicitly evacuates the sinking Halberd. However, it's just as common of a theory that Meta Knight flies in to rescue them.
  • It's a common theory that the warring Sun and Moon in Milky Way Wishes are actually Mr. Shine & Mr. Bright, due to both pairs being a sentient Solar and Lunar duo, with the Sun and Moon's designs resembling those of Mr. Shine & Mr. Bright's floating forms.
  • Marx has uniformly purple eyes in canon, but that doesn't stop much fanart from giving him mismatched eyes the same colors as his jester hat (except it's his right eye that is red while the left one is blue).
• Faux Symbolism: Marx doesn't have anything to do with Karl Marx, and his name in Japanese katakana is closer to "Mark". Still, it's likely because of this reaction that the French and German localizations changed his name to Max.
• Fridge Brilliance:
  • Meta Knight telling Kirby "prepare to die" was changed to "come to meet your doom" in Ultra. This appears to be Bowdlerization on the premise of Never Say "Die" at first, but it's actually a closer translation of the original Japanese line and is in better keeping with his characterization as an Anti-Villain.^note On the flip side, Ultra's line where Meta Knight, instead of being thankful that the Meta-Knights would remain on a sinking ship for his sake, is instead frustrated with their blind loyalty and basically tells them to do what they please? That's also closer to the Japanese, though he does at least quietly apologize to them under his breath for putting them in the situation.
  • Meta Knight's desire to go to Grape Garden may be a reference to the airship level in Kirby's Adventure. It's also safe to assume that the Halberd may have gotten some design pointers from those particular airships. Also, it appears that when Kirby got blasted off of Meta Knight's ship, he got sent into what appears to be Orange Ocean, which is where Meta Knight is fought in the same game.
  • "Super Star" might be referring not just to Kirby, but also to Nova. As a giant magical robotic wishing star, surely Nova could be considered super? Nova plays a massive role in Milky Way Wishes, to the point that due to Marx's manipulation of Nova, Super Star becomes a borderline Antagonist Title.
• Game-Breaker:
  • Stone Kirby in Ultra completely annihilates the otherwise Nintendo Hard True Arena if you're willing to fight cheaply and spend a lot of time in rock form to keep from being hurt.
  • The Plasma ability is the only power with a projectile that goes across the whole screen, provided you've done at least a little charging, which itself only requires rotating the D-pad and can be done while guarding. Combine this with the fact that a full charge creates a forcefield around Kirby that does damage to enemies, and the result is a surefire way to cleave off large chunks of opponents' health.
  • Hammer has some of the most damaging attacks in the game. Its greatest strength is unlocked for Kirby in Milky Way Wishes: when using the Hammer Throw technique, Kirby sacrifices his Hammer ability for a huge amount of damage, but because of how abilities work in Milky Way Wishes, you can just re-equip Hammer and do it again almost immediately.
  • In Milky Way Wishes, the Copy Ability, which is ordinarily pointless for Kirby to have, becomes this by allowing Kirby to bypass the gimmick of Milky Way Wishes and get his ability to copy back. Consequently, the Copy Ability is very well hidden. Tac, the ability's Helper, is similarly helpful. His attack is lightning fast, does surprisingly high damage, and his guard makes him completely unhittable. Also, he fully heals when copying an ability. And you can cheese "Helper to Hero" by playing as him.
  • Wheelie, Wheel's Helper, is similarly overpowered in multiplayer as player 2 takes over Wheelie's movements while player 1 gains a new star projectile attack. These stars deal just as much damage as Tac's attack, just as fast.
  • Jet is by far the best ability in the game for speedrunning. Kirby moves extremely fast with the ability and can even bypass some mid-bosses due to how high the Jet can fly, causing it to completely fly over the usual area that would trigger the mid-boss battle. Its only weakness is that it isn't very effective against bosses compared to, say, Plasma or Hammer.
  • Any ability that offers a flexible throw attack, such as Fighter, Suplex, Yo-Yo, etc. This is mainly since if you can get your hands on any object/enemy the boss or enemy throws out, you can toss it right into them to deal huge damage.
  • This is the first Kirby game to introduce guarding and it will protect from almost anything and, in most cases, Kirby won't even take chip damage from pretty much anything that hits him, and only a handful of attacks can break Kirby's guard. Mirror takes it one step further by generating an indestructible shield that completely nullifies all damage that would normally pierce through the regular guard for chip damage, on top of reflecting projectiles that hit it. Just don't use it against grab attacks like Marx's black hole. Notably, the developers realized this by Triple Deluxe, where guarding was greatly nerfed by allowing most attacks to deal chip damage to a guarding Kirby, in exchange for implementing a dodging mechanic that rewards good timing.
• Goddamned Boss:
  • Computer Virus, especially in The Arena, Helper to Hero and Meta Knightmare Ultra. A.I. Roulette is in full effect for this boss, and it can potentially prolong the fight and make you waste precious time. For example, the Red/Great Dragon could get the first strike as soon as it appears, and use that turn to petrify itself, making it take less damage.
  • Fatty Whale seemed to have been specifically designed to teach the new guarding mechanic, as he is actually rather difficult without using it. If you do use it, the fight becomes far more annoying and tedious than difficult, as his enormous size, combined with his fast and flying attack pattern, make it difficult to get good hits in on him with regular abilities, but guarding not only prevents you from taking Collision Damage, but actually deals Scratch Damage to him as long as you keep it up. As nice as that is, the fight will take a long time regardless, and it's still definitely possible to get caught off guard by some of his attacks.
  • Jukid, for being the only boss that has Kirby lose his current ability with one hit, when other enemies and bosses don't require the specific number of times that Kirby is hit in order to lose his ability.
• Growing the Beard: If Kirby's Adventure is the game that codified the Kirby formula, then this is the game that perfected it. It controls far better, has more interesting and varied level design and is the first game to add multiple moves to the copy abilities, giving them more variety and depth. This game would serve as the standard for later games going forward (particularly the games from Kirby's Return to Dream Land and onward) with several of the game's elements becoming staples, such as its copy ability system and the Arena mode (and its rules).
• Hilarious in Hindsight: After defeating the Computer Virus boss in this game, Kirby gains some (fake) Experience Points and stat boosts. Much later on, in Team Kirby Clash Deluxe, Kirby is now able to gain real experience and stat boosts from defeating bosses.
• Ho Yay: Kirby and his helper seem to "kiss" when one of them grabs a food item and then touches the other party. Most of the possible helpers are male. Guess what's implied? And yes, the tie-in manga acknowledged this.
• Hype Backlash: While the game is still loved today, there are plenty of fans who don't see what the hype is about and disagree with the game's reputation as being Kirby's greatest game (even if they find it to be a good game in its own right). It doesn't help that its formula would become the standard for Kirby starting in the mid-2000s, with later games refining and expanding upon its ideas (particularly the games directed by Shinya Kumazaki), making it difficult for some to see the game's appeal today.
• It Was His Sled: Marx's identity as the true villain of Milky Way Wishes was a twist when the game was released, but the character's subsequent popularity led this fact to become common knowledge among Kirby fans. Same goes for Galacta Knight being released from his prison due to Meta Knight's wish in the remake.
• Magnificent Bastard: Meta Knight's one true running as Big Bad in "Revenge of Meta Knight" showcases him to be a ruthless Determinator on par with Kirby himself. Aboard his faceship the Halberd, Meta Knight attempts to conquer all of Pop Star to liberate it from its "lazy" lifestyle while repeatedly preventing Kirby from opposing his takeoff, forcing him to waste his time fighting Heavy Lobster before blowing both away with the Halberd's jets. Even when Kirby's tenacity ends up with the Halberd crashing toward the sea, Meta Knight refuses to give up, persistently hounding Kirby until the literal last minute. Even at his worst, Meta Knight is a Noble Demon, offering Kirby a sword to fight him with in an even duel as he always does, and quietly regretting he's unable to save his crew from certain death due to their Undying Loyalty toward him.
• Memetic Badass: One of the mid-bosses is a Waddle Dee with a larger than usual health bar. Despite it being as harmless as the other members of its species, fans jokingly say that it's concealing its true identity as a destroyer of worlds.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Editing clips of other media so that they perfectly transition into the ending of Milky Way Wishes where Marx is flung into Nova, causing it to explode.
  • "Gourmet Race" and "Candy Mountain" are subject to many samplings on websites like YouTube.
  • Simirror vs. CERO^ExplanationOn the Japanese box art for Super Star Ultra, Simirror's face is blocked out by the CERO rating (a trait also shared in most other regions, save for the South Korean release). The inherent silliness of the imagery resulted in it becoming a subject for redraws and parodies among Japanese fans.
  • Grammy Award Winning Artist Meta Knight ^Explanation An arrangement of "Meta Knight's Revenge" by the 8-Bit Big Band won Best Arrangement, Instrumental or A Capella at the 2022 Grammy Awards. No, seriously.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • The remake's True Final Boss:
    • The cutscene preceding the battle can be pretty chilling, seeing as it shows Marx's corpse drifting through space, eyes staring blankly and skin drained of color. Then he's engulfed in darkness and transformed into a monstrous revenant.
    • Upon dying, the boss emits a bloodcurdling cry as it's split in half.
  • Wham Bam Rock's appearance (especially his original design) is rather unsettling. His new design looks like a floating mask, his old design looked like a bunch of organic facial features floating in the dark. However, the old design gets a nod in Ultra, through Wham Bam Jewel, who looks like and has the same creepiness of the original Wham Bam Rock.
• Older Than They Think:
  • Some fans tend to think Bandana Waddle Dee made his debut in Ultra and that he is a Shinya Kumazaki creation like Galacta Knight. Although he didn’t become a prominent character until Ultra, Bandana Waddle Dee actually made his debut in the original SNES game as one of the opponents in the Megaton Punch mini game, 12 years before Ultra. That said, it's agreed that Kumazaki is the one who made him an actual character.
  • The remix of Dedede's theme that plays when facing Masked Dedede from Ultra actually predates Ultra by quite a bit, as the track is an rearrangement of Dedede's theme from the Japanese only SNES version of Kirby's Star Stacker, which came out 10 years prior to this game. The older arrangement is quite different from Masked Dedede's theme, though, most noticeably by being in 3/4 rather than the standard 4/4.
  • Remixed stages and bosses in Super Star Ultra were actually a feature in the original Kirby's Dream Land, called "Extra Mode" which radically changes enemy AI and reduces Kirby's max health by half, meant to offer more gameplay since the game was quite short.^*Kirby's Adventure also had an Extra Mode, but it was in the form of a game-long Marathon Level with the reduced health; the stage and enemy designs were untouched. The more lengthy sequels didn't have Extra Mode as they had no need of this padding, and it wasn't until Super Star Ultra that it would become a Post-End Game Content staple in future Kirby games.
• Polished Port: Outside of the music being compressed and the multiplayer being less accessible, Ultra is widely considered by many to be superior to the original game. On top of being portable, it boasts updated visuals, the addition of new games such as Revenge of the King and Meta Knightmare Ultra, and numerous control and quality of life improvements to further polish the game and/or bring it in line with the other games in the franchise. This is on top of a more faithful and refined translation that explains some things better than the original (such as Marx's motivations).
• Remade and Improved: While Kirby Super Star is still regarded as a Super Nintendo Entertainment System classic, many Kirby fans unanimously declare that its remake Kirby Super Star Ultra on the Nintendo DS is the definitive version of the game, with improved graphics, the addition of seven new games (4 main games and 3 minigames), the ability to drop copy abilities without resorting to creating a helper, the introduction of many fan-favorite characters (Galacta Knight, Marx's soul incarnation and King Dedede’s Masked Dedede incarnation) and lore, and giving Bandana Waddle Dee a more prominent role in The Arena and Revenge of the King. The only part that's generally considered a downgrade is the soundtrack, which had to be compressed a bit to fit on a DS cartridge (though it's still very solid, and the entirely new music is just as well-loved as the original).
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • In the original version, you can't get rid of your ability by simply pressing Select like in all other Kirby games. You have to create a Helper and un-create that Helper to do so, which gets tedious after a while. Ultra restores the ability.
  • The Parasol ability's Drill attack, in contrast with future games where Kirby can perform the move, lacks invincibility frames. This makes the move impractical against bosses, since Kirby will inevitably take contact damage unless the attack connects at the very end of the dash. It makes the ability's already low damage-output even lower, forcing Kirby to rely upon Circus Throws to really cause some damage. Ninja's dash attack has a similar issue, and it's exhibited against even regular enemies. It's entirely possible for its collision physics to push the enemy up into the air, with them subsequently landing on Kirby's head.
• Self-Imposed Challenge: Beating The Arena with no ability is a common one. Considered nearly impossible in the original release (in no small part due to Meta Knight's stinginess with inhalable projectiles), it was made a lot easier in Ultra since all bosses produced more "free" stars to suck up and spit. In exchange, there's defeating The True Arena with no ability, which is a near-impossibly brutal gauntlet thanks to a similar lack of both projectiles and healing items.
• Squick: This game introduces the mechanic of sharing healing items with Kirby's partners... by having him vomit the food he had just eaten directly into his partner's mouth. This was retained in every 2D Kirby game with multiplayer, but it's likely due to the gross factor that the "food sharing" animation was changed to a simple hi-five in Forgotten Land.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: The ending theme for Revenge of Meta Knight sounds remarkably like "House of the Rising Sun".
• Tear Jerker: The ending of Revenge of the King. Poor King Dedede. At least, it starts off that way, but becomes a heartwarming moment when his Waddle Dees come up to console him.
• That One Attack: Meta Knight has two. His Mach Tornado moves back and forth through the arena and homes in on Kirby, making it very hard to avoid, and his Tornado Slash summons a giant tornado that goes from the floor to the ceiling and also homes in on Kirby, and if Kirby is at the opposite end of the screen from Meta Knight, the attack is unavoidable. Neither attack can be guarded. Ultra notably makes his Tornado Slash less dangerous by giving Meta Knight a slow, visible telegraph for the move, giving Kirby much more time to avoid it.
• That One Boss: Meta Knight. You thankfully aren't forced to use the Sword ability against him unlike in Adventure (by virtue of making a Helper, taking the sword, dropping the sword, and unmaking the Helper, or just waiting about 30 seconds), but he's still incredibly fast, has good A.I., is a small target, and has several new hard-to-dodge attacks such as his Mach Tornado and Tornado Slash. In The Arena, you can count on him to be the one to kill you (if you're just starting out) or force you to use a Maxim Tomato (if you're already experienced). Not to mention if you plan to do this without an ability, the original game pretty much has him scarce in spawning any projectiles to suck in and spit back out at him (Ultra thankfully remedies this by having produce more "free" stars).
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: In the Ultra version of The Great Cave Offensive, a few of the treasures are changed. Most notably, all four seasonal hearts were replaced (Springtime was replaced with the Seasons Heart, while Summertime, Autumntime, and Wintertime were respectively replaced with the Power Paintbrush, Triple-Star Cane, and Gold Watering Can). However, replacing some of the more generic items with Shout Outs (such as the Zebra Mask with the Phanto Mask, the Nunchucks with the (Hydra) Machine Parts, and the Dud with the Cell Phone) is usually considered a good decision.
• Tough Act to Follow: The sheer acclaim this game received for its innovative take on the Kirby formula quickly cemented it as the expected standard for later games in the series, which led to inevitable fan backlash when later games split off into a wide variety of directions, from the slow-paced puzzles of Kirby's Dream Land 3 and Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards to the Metroidvania style of Kirby & the Amazing Mirror, among many, many other examples. Dream Land 3 and 64 would eventually be Vindicated by History down the road, but the series sat so heavily in the shadow of Super Star that it took a remake of the game and the return to its gameplay style in Kirby's Return to Dream Land for the series to see mainstream recognition again.
• Unfortunate Character Design: Wham Bam Rock's original design, with his huge, red lips, saucerlike eyes, stereotypically "tribal" design, and black background making him resemble blackface imagery. The remake addresses this by redesigning him to resemble a Mayincatec stone statue; Wham Bam Jewel meanwhile is closer to the original design, but is made more obviously nonhuman with fangs and a third eye.
• Underused Game Mechanic: A common criticism from fans and critics is that because the game is split into several different small games instead of being one big game, none of the gimmicks or ideas presented within the different games really get as fleshed out as they would have if they were the central focus, making them feel underutilized as a result. It should be noted that several of the subgames' structures would be used for their own dedicated games: the world map of "Dyna Blade" would be used for Squeak Squad, Triple Deluxe and Planet Robobot, the semi-Metroidvania structure of "The Great Cave Offensive" would be fleshed out into an outright Metroidvania for Amazing Mirror, the planet hopping of "Milky Way Wishes" would be used for The Crystal Shards and the last portion of Star Allies, and the racing/Eating Contest gameplay of Gourmet Race would be expanded upon in Dream Buffet.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: Dyna Blade is sometimes referred as a male by certain people despite obviously being a mother; the same mistake was made in Kirby Air Ride, which may contribute to the confusion. The same applies to Kabula, even though her redesign in the remake features Tertiary Sexual Characteristics.
• Vindicated by History: Super Star had the misfortune of releasing in America mere days before the Nintendo 64, which overshadowed it. Today, it's considered one of the best Kirby games and one of the best SNES games.

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