This Kirby quiz has 50 free questions with answers and covers three decades of Nintendo's roundest hero, from the Game Boy original that a 19-year-old Masahiro Sakurai directed to Kirby and the Forgotten Land, the first fully 3D entry and the best-seller of the lot. It takes in the games (Adventure, Super Star, Epic Yarn, Air Ride), the cast (King Dedede, Meta Knight, Whispy Woods, Waddle Dee), the anime with its 100 episodes, and the odd corners of the lore, like the placeholder name Popopo and the lawyer the character may be named after. About a third of the questions are answerable by anyone who has floated through Green Greens; the rest are for players who know which game introduced copy abilities, what Kirby loses in Patch Land instead of lives, and why Miyamoto wanted him yellow. Every answer has been checked against a cited source, shown under each explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who created Kirby?
Masahiro Sakurai
He designed the character and directed the first game at HAL Laboratory when he was 19. He later created Super Smash Bros. and founded Sora Ltd. in 2005.
Q 02How old was the character's creator when he designed Kirby and directed the first game?
19
Kirby's Dream Land was his directorial debut. HAL's president at the time, Satoru Iwata, later ran Nintendo.
Q 03Kirby first appeared in Kirby's Dream Land in 1992 on which system?
Game Boy
The monochrome screen is why nobody outside HAL knew what colour he was, and why the North American box art painted him white.
Q 04What was Kirby called during development, when the first game had a different working title?
Popopo
The name Kirby came late. Shigeru Miyamoto has said it was chosen partly to honour John Kirby, the lawyer who defended Nintendo against Universal over Donkey Kong.
Q 05According to Shigeru Miyamoto, Kirby's name partly honours John Kirby. Who was he?
The lawyer who defended Nintendo against Universal
The 1984 Universal City Studios v. Nintendo case established that Donkey Kong did not infringe King Kong. The vacuum-cleaner theory is the popular alternative.
Q 06What colour did North American promotional art show Kirby as for the first game?
White
It matched his look on the Game Boy screen. Kirby's Adventure on the NES in 1993 was the first game to show him in colour.
Q 07What colour did Shigeru Miyamoto expect Kirby to be, before Sakurai's pink won out?
Yellow
Sakurai had always pictured him pink. The round design was deliberately simple so that anyone could draw him.
Q 08What is Kirby's official height?
8 inches (20 cm)
Which makes his fights with the galaxy's strongest warriors even more absurd. He hails from Planet Popstar and lives in Dream Land.
Q 09What is the name of Kirby's home planet?
Popstar
Dream Land is the territory on it where he spends most of his time. Ripple Star is the fairy world of Kirby 64.
Q 10Which 1993 NES game introduced the signature Copy Ability?
Adventure
Kirby's Adventure offered 25 abilities. The Game Boy original only had temporary power-ups picked up from the ground.
Q 11The 1993 game that gave Kirby colour and copy abilities came out on which console, late in its life?
NES
It came out ten years after the console launched in Japan and pushed the hardware hard.
Q 12In the 1993 NES game, what does King Dedede break into pieces and hand out to his minions?
The Star Rod
The twist is that Dedede did it to seal away Nightmare, and Kirby accidentally releases the villain by putting the pieces back together.
Q 13Which recurring character made his first appearance as an unnamed boss in the 1993 NES game?
Meta Knight
The masked swordsman, about Kirby's size and shape, wants to fight the strongest warrior in the galaxy. Dedede and Whispy Woods date back to the first game.
Q 21How many copies had the 2022 Switch game sold by March 2024?
7.52 million
The chinchilla-like Elfilin guides Kirby through a world overrun by the Beast Pack. A Switch 2 version followed in 2025.
Q 22Which studio, not HAL, developed the yarn-themed 2010 Wii game?
Good-Feel
The game started life as 'Fluff's Epic Yarn' with Prince Fluff as the hero, until Nintendo suggested swapping in Kirby.
Q 23In the 2010 yarn game, what happens when Kirby takes damage, since he cannot die?
He loses beads
The yarn Kirby also cannot inhale or fly; he turns into a car to move fast and a submarine underwater in the fabric world of Patch Land.
Q 14King Dedede, the self-proclaimed ruler of Dream Land, resembles which animal?
A blue penguin
The gluttonous king wields a giant hammer and swings between villain and reluctant ally.
Q 15What is Whispy Woods, the first boss of the 1992 original?
A tree
The apple-dropping tree guards Green Greens and has returned in almost every game since. Kracko is the one-eyed cloud.
Q 16How many copies had the 1992 Game Boy original sold by 2010, a series record until 2022?
Over 5 million
The whole main game can be finished in about half an hour, with an optional harder 'extra game' to stretch it out.
Q 17The 1996 SNES anthology was billed as how many games in one?
Eight
Sakurai built it that way because he thought too many games took too long to beat. Milky Way Wishes is the biggest mode and ends with the jester Marx.
Q 18What is a 'Helper' in the 1996 SNES anthology game?
An ally created from a copy ability
The system made co-op possible without a second Kirby. The DS remake, Kirby Super Star Ultra, sold just under three million copies in 2008.
Q 19Which title is the first true 3D entry in the mainline series?
And the Forgotten Land
Released for the Switch on 25 March 2022, it became the best-selling Kirby game ever, passing 7.5 million copies within two years.
Q 20What is 'Mouthful Mode', introduced in the 2022 Switch game?
Swallowing and controlling large objects like cars
The image of Kirby stretched over a car became the game's meme. Two new copy abilities, Drill and Ranger, arrived alongside it.
Q 24What is Kirby unable to do in the 2010 yarn game?
Inhale or fly
The sorcerer Yin-Yarn turned him to yarn, so air passes straight through him. He whips enemies with a yarn lasso instead.
Q 25The 2003 GameCube racing game was originally in development for which earlier console?
Nintendo 64
It finally shipped on the GameCube with one-button controls: the craft moves forward on its own and A does everything else. A sequel, Kirby Air Riders, arrived on Switch 2 in 2025.
Q 26In which mode of the 2003 GameCube racer do players roam an arena collecting machine upgrades?
City Trial
The city also holds a forest, cave and volcano. City Trial's chaos is the main reason fans begged for a sequel for two decades.
Q 27The Kirby anime, known in English as Kirby: Right Back at Ya!, ran for how many episodes in Japan?
100
Hoshi no Kirby aired from October 2001 to September 2003. 4Kids handled the English dub.
Q 28In the anime, King Dedede buys monsters to attack Kirby from which company?
Nightmare Enterprises
It is Holy Nightmare Co. in Japanese. Kirby crash-lands in Cappy Town and is befriended by the siblings Tiff and Tuff.
Q 29What is the name of the place where Kirby crash-lands in the anime?
Cappy Town
It is Pupu Village in the Japanese version, populated by the mushroom-shaped Cappies.
Q 30Who has voiced the character since Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards in 2000?
Makiko Ohmoto
Her 'Hi!' and 'Poyo!' are almost the character's entire vocabulary. Ōtani is Pikachu.