Picture yourself standing on a battlefield after all hope is lost. Your army is scattered. The few soldiers who aren’t laying bloody and still in the mud are fleeing, dropping weapons and honor to hold tight to a chance at survival. In front of you, an endless enemy draws closer, overwhelming in number and power, superior in skill and experience. You are but a young peasant conscripted to fight at your King’s behest, a sword shoved into hands that are much more familiar with the grip of a sickle, and you want so badly to drop your borrowed blade and run away from the bellowing horde before you, but some loose idea of dignity keeps your feet planted firmly in place and your face pointed towards your impending death.
The enemy lets out a battle cry and begins to race forward, more beast than human as they clamber over each other to claim your head, and you–who just days ago had been in your sleepy rural village cutting wheat and trading smiles with your family beside you–are certain that you will die on this battlefield, joining the corpses of fallen allies and foes whose blood mixes with the dirt to form a sludge that sucks at your boots when you walk.
But then, there’s a noise from behind you.
You turn, fearing some enemy that had somehow snuck up from behind, but instead, riding into battle like Achilles emerging from the sidelines in his godlike armor, you see your savior, round and pink and surrounded by a happy-go-lucky aura that doesn’t falter as he brings the enemy to their knees.
It’s Kirby.
This is a tale that has been told time and time again as girls are wrangled into playing Super Smash Bros. with their friends or siblings despite their protests. I don’t play videogames, she will say, but her words are ignored as she is forced onto the couch and a controller is thrust into her hands.
Her loss is guaranteed; after all, how could someone who has never before played Super Smash Bros. win against a group that has spent hours glued to the screen, honing each fireball released from Mario’s hands, each glinting slash of Marth’s blade? Surely, the match is over before it has even started. Surely, there is nothing this poor girl can do to even the odds against the nerds who made her participate when she was fine sitting on the sidelines.
But then, an unseen force compels her to choose the first familiar character she sees on the screen; it’s Kirby, the little pink round guy from some game she never played. The game begins, and she starts to smash buttons indiscriminately (the instructions that were offered to her were very vague and unhelpful).
A minute and thirty seconds later, the match draws to a close, and Kirby does a twirl as he steps into first-place. The girl blinks at the screen, shocked, as her videogame-savvy captors dissolve into outraged shouting.
That’s not fair! They whine. Kirby is so overpowered!
Heck yeah, he is, and he just carried me and every other poor girl who’s been forced to play videogames to inflate others’ egos to victory. Let’s break down why exactly Kirby is the most powerful being in Super Smash Bros. (and, arguably, the whole universe).
Upon first glance, Kirby does not cut a particularly imposing figure. Short, round, and a delightful peachy shade of pink, he is simply too charismatic and approachable to have the same tough-factor that Solid Snake’s chiseled abs or Donkey Kong’s savage glower provides. However, when an enemy gets close enough, Kirby can open up his mouth and quite literally suck them inside him–a power move that could send anyone to their knees. So while initial opposition may not waver in the face of Kirby’s charming little smile, anyone who has any sort of experience with him is haunted by the knowledge of what the inside of his cavernous body looks like. His intimidation factor, while slightly more belated than many other beings, is extreme.
Besides the obvious intimidation effects that swallowing one’s enemy can have, Kirby’s vacuum trick also gives him the opportunity to–if he chooses, not to spit his victim out at breakneck speeds–digest and adopt some of his enemy’s powers for his own use. Pikachu, for example, is a nice afternoon snack that will not only satiate Kirby’s hunger but also give him cute ears and the ability to generate electric shocks. This ability allows Kirby to have the versatility needed to take on any opponent as his arsenal is constantly available for expansion.
Of course, even without the help provided by ingesting the opposition, Kirby’s arsenal is already vast. He is proficient with hammer, dagger, and greatsword, regularly using all three of these weapons when laying the hurt on his enemies. While these items may seem like a pain to carry around, Kirby’s strange body composition allows him to have them with him–in him?–at all times to be called upon when a fight breaks out. Additionally, along with all the minor form changes he undergoes when copying an enemy’s power or revealing some inexplicably-hidden and comically-large weapon, Kirby seems to be capable of full-body transformation. With just a bit of concentration, the pink little blob disappears and in its place appears a stone, a heavy weight, or even a spiked ball. This full transformative ability, though used sparingly, implies that Kirby’s power is far more expansive than what little we currently know.
However, the key to Kirby’s uncontested reign over all others is his incredible mobility. Though his limbs are admittedly very short, limiting both his reach and his running speed, Kirby more than makes up for this with his ability to fly. The ability to expand one’s lungs and body by inhaling large amounts of air is not exclusive to Kirby–Jigglypuff, a similarly round and pink creature, also seems to share some sort of inflation capability–however Kirby’s power is unique in that this self-inflation gives him the ability to float, using his fin-like limbs to adjust for direction as he does so. His extensive lung capacity–which is probably related to the transformative nature of his anatomy–allows his flight time to be extensive, lasting as long as Kirby can hold the air keeping him afloat within his body. For people unskilled in the art of not getting blasted off whatever tiny battle platform was chosen in Super Smash Bros., Kirby’s ability to recover from a hit and simply fly back into the bounds of the arena is invaluable, not to mention how useful his flying ability is when evading attacks and enemies in the first place.
For all these reasons and more, Kirby is in a league far above any other known entity. It’s very kind of him to lend that extraordinary power to those who need it most: videogame newbies button-smashing their way to victory.