Kirby (カービィ, Kābī) is the protagonist of the series and a playable character in every game except Dedede's Drum Dash Deluxe.
[citation needed] The main games give Kirby the same basic abilities; he can walk, run, jump, float, inhale, and spit out or swallow his enemies.
[5] He is the main antagonist of the Revenge of Meta Knight mode in Kirby Super Star,[6] in which he attempts to end the lazy lifestyle of Dream Land's inhabitants by invading it in his airship, the Battleship Halberd (戦艦ハルバード, Senkan Harubādo).
After being captured and transformed into the hostile "Mecha Knight" in the game's story mode,[17] Kirby rescues him and he helps him defeat Star Dream by letting him pilot the Halberd.
[19] Meta Knight returns in Kirby Fighters 2 alongside King Dedede as the main antagonist of the Story Mode, The Destined Rivals, and also appears as a playable character.
[30] However, Meta Knight was temporarily removed from some professional gaming competitions in the United States and Canada as he was considered to be too powerful.
[39] In the anime Kirby: Right Back at Ya!, he is a main character and the last surviving member of the Galaxy Soldier Army and its Star Warriors.
While originally planned for inclusion in both the first installment of the series and its sequel, he did not appear as a playable character until Super Smash Bros. Brawl (2008).
He returns in Kirby Fighters 2 as one of the game's starting playable characters, using his spear move set from Star Allies.
It has been depicted as both a character and as a species, the latter being generally known in Japanese as Kuroi Kumo (黒い雲, meaning "black cloud").
Dark Matter debuts in Kirby's Dream Land 2 (1995), where it possesses King Dedede and later transforms into a masked, robed being wielding a magical sword.
In Kirby's Dream Land 3 (1997), a massive cloud of Dark Matter appears in Pop Star's sky and possesses many of its inhabitants.
At the core of this world is 0² (ゼロツー, Zero Tsū, Zero Two), a form of Zero which resembles an angel and has a halo, a bandage, segmented wings, and a green spiked tail.
He is a round, lavender creature with no arms, who wears a jester hat, a bow tie, and brown shoes and is frequently seen bouncing on a ball.
After Nova appears, Marx wishes for control over Pop Star and reveals that he started the fight between the Sun and Moon.
He also appears in Kirby's Return to Dream Land (2011), fought right before Magolor EX in "The True Arena" mode as a secret boss.
When the ship crashlands in Dream Land, Kirby, King Dedede, Meta Knight, and Bandana Waddle Dee offer to help repair the Lor Starcutter so that he can return to the realm of Halcandra, which he takes them to for a visit as a reward for their efforts.
Stranded in another dimension and without most of his powers, Magolor sets out to regain them while collecting the fragments of a mysterious fruit called the Gem Apple.
Here, Magolor is a head manager of the amusement park, providing masks and souvenir items for playing games and completing challenges.
In the Soul Melter EX difficulty of The Ultimate Choice, it returns as Morpho Knight EX, which has a dark purple mask and red eyes and wings and wields two black swords.
Morpho Knight later appeared in Kirby and the Forgotten Land (2022) as the final boss of the Isolated Isles: Forgo Dreams.
Morpho Knight's fighting style is the same as its Kirby Star Allies appearance, but it has new abilities, including shooting fiery tornados, using Soul Forgo-like entities as puppets, and flipping the player's screen.
Gooey's main form of offense is to snag enemies with his tongue and spit them out like Kirby does, and can also copy abilities, but only when a second player is controlling him.
Rick, Coo, and Kine are respectively voiced by Makiko Ohmoto, Yūko Mizutani, and Nobuo Tobita in the Japanese version, and Andrew Rannells, Eric Stuart, and Darren Dunstan in the English dub.
After Masked Dedede is defeated, he asks Queen Sectonia to save him, but she does not and attacks him, prompting Taranza to switch allegiances.
[98] In Team Kirby Clash Deluxe (2017), Taranza is the main villain responsible for driving the inhabitants of the Dream Kingdom into disturbing the peace.
[100] Waddle Dee (ワドルディ, Wadorudi) are red-orange creatures with pear-shaped faces and yellow feet who serve as the most basic enemy in most Kirby games.
They were originally a single monster created by NightMare Enterprises called Fofa (ロラ, Rora, Lola), but it was split into two and sent to Dedede.
[104] In Kirby: Triple Deluxe (2014), Taranza uses his power on a nearby plant which grows into Flowery Woods (ウィスピーフラワーズ, Wisupī Furawāzu, Whispy Flowers) and is the game's first boss.
He initially believes that Kirby and his friends are intruders, but this turns out to be a setup by Dedede, who wants to destroy Whispy to build a golf course.