By Lucas White

Copyright shacknews

With Kirby Air Riders on the way, Shacknews reached out to its most knowledgeable (possibly) and weirdest (definitely) freelancer for some Kirby content in celebration of this unlikely new sequel. Now, when most people think of Kirby, I imagine they think of cute animals, cool power-ups, bangin’ music, and the ever-lovable Masahiro Sakurai. Not me. I think of Nintendo of America scribbling angry eyebrows on box art, intergalactic war crimes committed in revenge for stolen cake, and a long history of nightmare fuel secret bosses.

Let’s talk about that last one today. One of Kirby’s greatest strengths as a series is its strong sense of irony. You spend most of the average Kirby game engaging with happy-go-lucky shapes and smiles, until it decides to literally bare its fangs and throw the entire vibe for a loop with enemies like Scarfy. But things get even crazier in many of these adventures with final bosses that test the boundaries of your childhood’s capacity for existential terror. Usually, these nightmares are your reward for going above and beyond and completing their respective game, leaving more casual players with no idea what they’re missing (for better and for worse).

I decided to go over the complete list of Kirby final bosses, and pick out my favorites based on how creepy they are. Please enjoy (?) the top five most terrifying Kirby bosses.

Void Termina – Kirby Star Allies

While compiling this list, one thing I noticed was that Kirby’s evolution into 3D visuals compromised some of the terror the series’ bosses could have had. Granted, some of the DS-era games didn’t have creepy bosses at all, so it’s debatable. That said, Star Allies, perhaps a more lukewarm entry, managed to get a spot on my list.

Void Termina is an interesting boss because it takes so many different forms, and it isn’t so creepy at first. But during the fight you actually go inside its body, and facing the demon-like being’s “core” is where things get weird. First, it’s like a glowing, pulsating organ you have to break open like an evil chocolate sphere. Inside is an… entity that seems to be trying to mimic Kirby. The way it tries and fails to maintain that facade throughout the fight is super unnerving, showing us body horror is possible even with a few simple circles.

0² – Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards

Speaking of 3D, here’s another 3D boss that is definitely compromised due to, well, being from a Nintendo 64 game. However… however! Zero Two (as we’ll call it for the sake of my typing fingers) still manages to have the vibes. Part of that is because of its relation to the original Zero, which you’ll be reading about a bit later. The other part is the background visuals and music, which remind me of something horrible you might see at the end of a Mother game. This thing has Giygas energy, and the weird, splotchy blood textures you see when you damage this thing are absolutely wild coming from a game made on a Nintendo platform, explicitly for children. Good gravy.

Drawcia – Kirby: Canvas Curse

Kirby is a pink circle with a happy face, and an observable trend is how the most effectively creepy final bosses in his series are different ways in which that image is corrupted. Lots of horrendously evil-looking spheres are in this list, and Drawcia Soul is a particularly viscous-looking example.

Drawcia is particularly effective because the fight uses its two phase format perfectly. She looks pretty normal at first with her witchy attire, but you can see just enough into her slightly open cloak to notice that there’s something else going on. And when you think you’ve won the fight, the reveal is something that starts to seem like the usual “evil eyeball thing” design, until the texture fully reveals itself as something a little… goopier.

Marx – Kirby Super Star

Marx is an interesting one because he isn’t as aggressively creepy as some of the other bosses on this list. But somehow, between the ominous music and his vacant, bug-eyed features, Marx is still deeply unsettling. He’s like a slime from Dragon Quest, no brain cells but driven by bloodlust, except with the goofiness shaved off with a rusty cheese grater. He wants Kirby super dead and has zero restraint. You can see it when he fires a laser across the screen so powerful he’s practically vomiting. You can see it when he literally splits his body in half to reveal his strongest attack. Dude is fearless and cartoonishly evil, and he wears it on his face like a weapon. Sheesh.

Zero – Kirby’s Dream Land 3

Here’s the good stuff. This final stretch of video game is completely unhinged. First of all, it starts with the typical Dedede encounter, but things quickly go wrong. Dedede loses control of himself, with something else operating his body from inside. Then, if you’ve managed to complete the whole game (and it ain’t easy), you find out what is happening, as Dark Matter from the previous game reappears. But after Dark Matter is defeated, it becomes Zero, and it starts attacking you with its own blood. Wounds open up in its body before it fires at you. That stuff is traumatizing if you’re playing this as a child. Or it turns you into a games journalist, one of the two.

But it isn’t over there. Once you survive the onslaught, Zero’s eye erupts from its body, giving you way more time than you’d expect to see the exit wound as the body sinks into the abyss. The eyeball haplessly charges you, sputtering fluids in its path while all you need to do to put it down is move in a tight circle. It’s pitiful and horrifying at the same time. It’s possibly the most brutal encounter in a Nintendo game, at least one I can think of. SNES era Kirby was hardcore, folks.

If you haven’t experienced these bosses for yourselves, I definitely recommend seeking them out, and playing more Kirby games in the process. It’s an underrated series, at least relatively speaking in the Nintendo realm. And what a better way to ride a hype train to a new game like Kirby Air Riders than going back and filling in your knowledge gaps? At the very least, play Dream Land 3, because that’s a special game for more reasons than bizarre violence in an elaborate toy for kids.