Kirby
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This Kirby quiz has 99 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 99 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01On many North American game covers, how does Kirby famously differ from his Japanese box art?
He looks angry
He looks angry: Nintendo of America's market research suggested that a tougher, battle-ready Kirby would reach a wider audience there than the smiling one on Japanese boxes.
Q 02Which HAL programmer, who worked on the early Kirby games, became Nintendo's president in 2002?
Satoru Iwata
Satoru Iwata was put in charge of HAL when the studio was close to bankruptcy in the early 1990s, and turned it around. In 2002 he was chosen to succeed Hiroshi Yamauchi at the head of Nintendo itself.
Q 03Kirby's Avalanche, a 1995 SNES puzzle game, is a Western re-skin of which Japanese series?
Puyo Puyo
Puyo Puyo was barely known outside Asia, so Nintendo dressed Compile's puzzle game in Kirby characters for the West, just as Sega had done with Dr. Robotnik. It was never released in Japan.
Q 04What was Kirby called during development, when the first game had a different working title?
Popopo
Popopo was only a round stand-in sprite, drawn until a proper hero could be designed. The team grew so fond of the blob that it stayed, and the game was nearly released as Twinkle Popo.
Q 05Shigeru Miyamoto says Kirby was partly named for John Kirby, the lawyer who beat Universal in court over which game?
Donkey Kong
Donkey Kong: Universal claimed the ape copied King Kong, and John Kirby won by showing the studio had itself argued King Kong was in the public domain. Nintendo thanked him with a sailboat named Donkey Kong.
Q 06What colour did North American promotional art show Kirby as for the first game?
White
White, because Nintendo of America's artists worked from the Game Boy's colourless screen. Even on the development team, only his designer had pictured him pink all along.
Q 07What colour did Shigeru Miyamoto expect Kirby to be, before Sakurai's pink won out?
Yellow
Yellow was Miyamoto's guess, since similar round characters were that colour. The idea lived on: a yellow Kirby, nicknamed Keeby, became the second player's character in later games.
Q 08What is Kirby's official height?
8 inches (20 cm)
8 inches (20 cm) is the official figure, though you would never guess it from his crossover appearances, which blow him up to several times that size beside the other fighters.
Q 09Kirby's home country, Dream Land, lies on which planet?
Popstar
Popstar looks nothing like a planet: from space it is a five-pointed star crossed by two rings, and Dream Land is just one kingdom on its surface.
Q 10Which 1993 NES game introduced the signature Copy Ability?
Adventure
Adventure: Kirby's Adventure added the power because the first game had been criticised as too simple. Certain enemies now handed over their moves when eaten, from Sword and Spark to Stone.
Q 11Which item restores all of Kirby's health at once?
Maxim Tomato
Maxim Tomato: the red tomato stamped with a black M is also Kirby's favourite food in the games. The anime, oddly, gave him a passion for watermelon instead.
Q 12In the 1993 NES game, what does King Dedede break into pieces and hand out to his minions?
The Star Rod
The Star Rod powers the Fountain of Dreams. Dedede was no thief this time: he broke it up to keep it from a villain lurking in the fountain, whom Kirby unwittingly sets loose by putting the pieces back.
Q 13Which recurring Kirby character first appeared as an unnamed boss in the 1993 NES game?
Meta Knight
Q 21In Kirby Star Allies, what does Kirby throw at enemies to turn them into friends?
Hearts
Hearts: one well-aimed Friend Heart turns a foe into an ally, and a whole team of them can follow Kirby at once, lending their powers to his attacks.
Q 22Good-Feel, maker of Kirby's Epic Yarn, later made a woolly platformer starring which Nintendo character?
Yoshi
Yoshi's Woolly World followed in 2015. Epic Yarn itself was not planned as a Kirby game at all: it began as Fluff's Epic Yarn, starring a prince who stayed on as the second player's hero.
Q 23In the 2010 yarn game, what happens when Kirby takes damage, since he cannot die?
He loses beads
He loses beads, the craft gems that serve as his score. With no lives to lose, the only price of a clumsy run is a humbler medal, from gold down to wood, when the stage ends.
Meta Knight went unnamed in the game's Western release. He already had his code of honour, though: before each duel he offers Kirby a sword, so that the fight is a fair one.
Q 14King Dedede, the self-proclaimed ruler of Dream Land, resembles which animal?
A blue penguin
A blue penguin in a red robe, King Dedede is less of a villain than he looks: in one game the theft Kirby punishes him for turns out to be a clumsy attempt to protect Dream Land.
Q 15Whispy Woods, the tree boss of Kirby's first game, attacks mainly by dropping what on him?
Apples
Apples are his undoing, too: Kirby catches the fallen fruit and fires it straight back at the trunk. Whispy has returned as an early boss in game after game.
Q 16In Kirby's Dream Land, what has King Dedede stolen from the people of Dream Land, along with their Sparkling Stars?
All their food
All their food, carried off in a single night, which sends Kirby after him. The game sold over five million copies, a series record that stood for thirty years.
Q 17Which Kirby Super Star game remakes Kirby's Dream Land?
Spring Breeze
Spring Breeze retells the first game with Super Star's new powers added. The box promised eight games in one, but there are really nine.
Q 18What is a 'Helper' in the 1996 SNES anthology game?
An ally created from a copy ability
An ally created from a copy ability: Kirby gives up the power he is holding and it becomes a partner, steered by the console or by a second player who can drop in.
Q 19Which title is the first fully 3D entry in the mainline Kirby series?
And the Forgotten Land
And the Forgotten Land: after thirty years of side-scrolling, Kirby and the Forgotten Land let him roam freely in 3D, and it overtook his 1992 debut as the best-selling game in the series.
Q 20What is 'Mouthful Mode' in the 2022 Switch game?
Swallowing and controlling large objects like cars
Swallowing and controlling large objects like cars: Kirby stretches himself over a car to race about at full speed, or over a vending machine to fire its cans at enemies.
Q 24What is Kirby unable to do in the 2010 yarn game?
Inhale or fly
Inhale or fly: the sorcerer Yin-Yarn has turned him into a loop of yarn, so he unravels enemies with a yarn whip and morphs into a car, a parachute or a submarine instead.
Q 25Kirby Air Ride, a 2003 GameCube racing game, was originally in development for which earlier console?
Nintendo 64
Nintendo 64: it was shown among that console's first wave of games, reworked again and again, cancelled, and only years later rebuilt in a hurry for the GameCube.
Q 26In which mode of Kirby Air Ride do players roam an arena collecting machine upgrades?
City Trial
City Trial gives players a few minutes to scour a city for power-ups and better machines, then drops everyone into a surprise Stadium contest to see whose build holds up.
Q 27The 2015 Wii U game Kirby and the Rainbow Curse is styled to look as if everything is made of what?
Clay
Clay: the artists used real claymation as their reference while making the game, and even its promotional pictures were sculpted from real clay rather than drawn.
Q 28In the Kirby anime, King Dedede buys monsters to attack Kirby from which company?
Nightmare Enterprises
Nightmare Enterprises is the dark emperor Nightmare's own company: it breeds monsters and grows richer and stronger by selling them to greedy rulers across the universe. In Japanese it is Holy Nightmare Co.
Q 29What is the name of the place where Kirby crash-lands in the anime?
Cappy Town
Cappy Town takes the stranger in, led by the siblings Tiff and Tuff, who defend him when the king wants him gone. In the Japanese original the place is called Pupu Village.
Q 30Which babyish word makes up almost everything Kirby says in his anime?
Poyo
Poyo is nearly all he says because, in the anime's story, his ship woke him 200 years too early, leaving him a child. In the games, Makiko Ohmoto has supplied his voice since 1999.