Kirby (Super Smash Flash 2)

Kirby is a veteran starter character in Super Smash Flash 2. He was one of the first four playable characters in SSF2, alongside, , and. Unlike in Super Smash Flash, both he and are now separate characters. His sprites are custom-made and based on his appearance in and his voice clips are from the same game. His moveset is taken directly from Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

Kirby is currently ranked 17th out of 40 on the tier list, placing him in the B tier; a good leap from his 27th-place position on the last tier list. Kirby has good combo-ability, disjointed range on some attacks, and strong finishers in his smash attacks, Hammer, and back aerial. He also has a strong aerial game, courtesy of his aerial attacks having immense utility, most notably with his back aerial, letting him perform a fence of pain. Due to his low falling speed, five midair jumps, and Final Cutter, he has a very strong, flexible recovery, making him difficult to edgeguard. He is also good at edgeguarding himself, due to his ability to go deep against a cast that tends to have poor recoveries on average, allowing for early gimps.

However, Kirby suffers from an abysmal neutral game, floatiness, and poor range, greatly limiting his approach options. He also puts too great of an emphasis on hard reads for getting KOs because of his inability to reliably combo into his primary finishers. Combined with his light weight and his aforementioned floatiness, he tends to get KO'd a lot faster than his opponent, although his slow falling speed means he is less vulnerable to aerial combos. His defensive options are very punishable, as many of his defensive moves lack invincibility frames and his out of shield options are severely limited.

Kirby's representation in online tournaments was initially fairly strong in the early meta, but he gradually dropped off the map as his weaknesses became more apparent.

Attributes
Due to possessing five midair jumps, slow falling speed, good vertical mobility, and a decent vertical recovery option in Final Cutter, Kirby has one of the best recoveries in the game. Kirby has reliable finishers in his forward smash, down smash (semi-spikes the opponent if they connect with his feet), Hammer and a fresh back aerial.

Kirby has a good air game, possessing good range in the majority of his aerials (especially his forward and back aerials). They also have good combo potential. He has a good ground game with good tilts and good reach in his attacks. He has a good edge guarding game due to his good aerials, having five midair jumps which allows him to safely gimp his opponent while being able to recover back to the stage and is able to perform a fence of pain with his back aerial.

However, due to his light weight and very low accelerated falling speed, Kirby is very easy to KO both vertically and horizontally while also having poor momentum cancelling.

Kirby has poor mobility with a slow dashing, walking, and air speed which allows him to be rushed down by faster characters. He lacks a reliable projectile as the shockwave produced from Final Cutter is easy to avoid and out-prioritize. He lacks reliable ways to deal with projectiles which, when combined with his poor mobility, creates problems approaching characters with good projectiles.

Kirby also has problems dealing with characters who out range him, such as and.

Changes from v0.9a
Kirby has received little changes from last demo. Kirby appears to benefit and is hindered by the low hitstun of the demo. Kirby is much harder to combo than last demo, but he has a harder time combo'ing than he did last demo along with less follow ups out of grabs. This has made Kirby appear to be seen as a less effective character.

Tier placement history
From tier list demos v0.6's first tier to v0.7's second tier; Kirby was seen as the worst character in the demos because he was always last and had a tier named after him (Kirby/K tier). However, in demo v0.8b; this all changed when Kirby was ranked 8th of B tier where he is no longer seen as the worst character in the demo.

In demo v0.9a, Kirby's position dropped to 16th, where he was seen as a mid tier character. In demo v0.9b, Kirby tier position dropped again to 26th of C tier where he is, once again, seen as a bottom tier character. On the second tier list for v0.9b, Kirby dropped further to 28th place. In the first Beta tier list, even though Kirby only rose one spot, was seen as a low-mid tier character, due to the addition of multiple characters. On the second Beta tier list, after Kirby was buffed considerably, he rose exactly 10 spots, going to 17th, of the B tier, and seen as a mid tier character.

Trivia

 * Kirby is the only character to have a tier named after him so far.
 * Like wise; Kirby is the only character to be last on the tier list multiple times which is the reason why a tier was named after him.
 * Kirby's early pixel art was based on after getting an Assist Trophy as he did in Super Smash Bros. Brawl.