Kirby

Kirby (カービィ, Kābī) is a small, round, pink creature that has the ability to swallow his enemies and take on their powers. He continually has to stop King Dedede's mischievous plans and save Dream Land. Meta Knight also occasionally shows up as Kirby's rival, though Kirby has purer goals. The character first appeared in Kirby's Dream Land for the Game Boy, and was created by legendary video game developer Masahiro Sakurai, who later went on to direct the popular Super Smash Bros. series, which Kirby also appears in. Kirby has also been in anime and manga based on the games.

History
Kirby is one of the most basic video game characters ever. He was created in the early 90's by Masahiro Sakurai who was hired by HAL Laboratory to create a video game that literally everyone could complete. The protagonist for the game was originally a blob with a face that was named Popopo. Eventually they added hands and feet, which resulted in the creation of the character. Once they submitted the idea to Nintendo, the company changed the name to Kirby (more on that in a later section). Game designer Shigeru Miyamoto initially wanted Kirby to be yellow, though Masahiro was granted his wish of a yellow character. In his initial appearance, Kirby's Dream Land, Kirby was white in the American version due to the Game Boy's inability to create color. This was changed, however, with the NES video game Kirby's Adventure.

Name
Kirby was originally named Popopo, and his model was created as a blob placeholder sprite during the development of what would be the first Kirby game, originally titled 'Twinkle Popopo' instead of the current Hoshi no Kābī (translated as 'Kirby of the Stars').

It's possible that Kirby is named after the Kirby Corporation, a company who builds vacuums. It's also been said that he's actually named after John Kirby, a lawyer who works for Nintendo who saved them from a lawsuit against Universal Studios. Apparently after Kirby's Adventure was released, someone sent John Kirby a copy of the title through the mail, and he had a good laugh.

Games Kirby has Appeared In
Kirby has been in nearly 20 games since 1992

See List of Kirby games.

List of transformations
One of Kirby's main attacks is to suck up enemies and copy their attacks. The following is a list of some of the transformations that he can become. Some of the transformations can only be found in the Super Smash Bros. series. These include the major Nintendo characters such as Mario and Link.

Shadow Kirby
Shadow Kirby is an alternate version of Kirby that appeared in Kirby & the Amazing Mirror in the "mirror world". In this equivalent, he's a gray (dark gray) colored doppelganger that greatly resembles Kirby. During the beginning of the game, Shadow Kirby often times attacked Kirby, though in the end the two realised that they were after the same goal of saving their own worlds, and teamed up to take down Dark Mind.