Kirby (SSB)/Up aerial

Overview

The hitbox of Kirby's uair.

The landing hitboxes when not Z-cancelled.

Kirby spins around repeatedly in midair, dealing 10%-6% damage depending on when it hits and somewhat high set knockback. This move is officially referred to as Twinkle Star, and would later become his neutral aerial from Melee onwards. The move comes out on frame 10 and has an FAF of 80, making it Kirby's slowest aerial and the slowest up aerial in the game by a significant margin. In addition to this since the move has set knockback, it is completely incapable of KOing, only leading to KOes if it is used as an edgeguarding option (although it can lead into early edgeguards at low percents due to its set knockback). On the positive side, the hitbox, while small, has a very long duration; lasting the entire animation once it activates, somewhat counteracting the move's relative sluggishness. The move has limited combo potential. If Kirby lands with the move, it can combo into a dash attack or a grab against most characters. Against floatier characters, the move can combo into a neutral aerial although this is the easiest to perform against Luigi and Samus. The move can also lead into an up smash against Samus although this is difficult to land. Against Donkey Kong, Kirby can land a forward smash although this requires good spacing to land.

If Kirby lands during the move without Z-cancelling it, there will be an extra landing hitbox. However, due to its somewhat high landing lag, it is still recommended to Z-cancel the move.

Overall, up aerial is considered to be Kirby's least useful aerial due to its extremely poor speed and low utility, being incapable of KOing and having limited combo potential. As a result, Kirby is almost always better off using one of his other aerials, making up aerial rare to be seen in competitive play, though it occasionally sees use on platforms for shield pressure. The Kirby main Alpha(CL) from Chile was well known for his use with this move.

In the Japanese version, the move is slightly better due to its clean hit dealing 12% damage and its mid hit dealing 9% damage although since the move has set knockback, this does not have a significant impact, besides making the move safer on shield. The move also had a bigger hitbox, making it harder to intercept.

Hitboxes

NTSC-J

ID	Part	Damage	SD	Angle	BK	KS	FKV	Radius	Bone	Offset			Clang	Effect	G	A	Sound
Early*
0	0	16%	0		10	100	100	150	5	0	60	0					Punch
Clean
0	0	12%	0		10	100	100	150	5	0	60	0					Punch
Mid
0	0	9%	0		10	100	100	150	5	0	60	0					Punch
Late
0	0	6%	0		10	100	100	150	5	0	60	0					Punch
Landing
0	0	3%	0		0	100	80	130	0	0	0	0					Punch

NTSC-U/PAL

ID	Part	Damage	SD	Angle	BK	KS	FKV	Radius	Bone	Offset			Clang	Effect	G	A	Sound
Early*
0	0	12%	0		10	100	100	105	5	0	60	0					Punch
Clean
0	0	10%	0		10	100	100	105	5	0	60	0					Punch
Mid
0	0	8%	0		10	100	100	105	5	0	60	0					Punch
Late
0	0	6%	0		10	100	100	105	5	0	60	0					Punch
Landing
0	0	3%	0		0	100	80	130	0	0	0	0					Punch

Summary

• Early*/clean/mid hit damage (16%/12%/9% → 12%/10%/8%).
  • The early hit's lower damage does not affect gameplay.*
• Hitbox size (150u → 105u).

Timing

Attack

Initial auto-cancel	1-9
Early hit*
Clean hit	10-17
Mid hit	18-29
Late hit	30-79
Ending auto-cancel	46-
Animation length	79

Landing lag

Hitboxes	1-3
Animation length	20
Z-cancelled animation length	4

Normal

Z-cancelled

Legend (1 square = 1 frame)

Lag time

Hitbox

Hitbox change

Autocancel

Trivia

• Due to what is presumably a programming error, the 10% hitbox is listed to start on frame 8 even though the hitboxes do not activate until frame 10. Because of this, the script immediately skips to the 10% hitbox and so the early 12% hit never occurs. It's likely that the early hit was meant to be active from frames 10-17 but due to a timing error (with a frame timer being used instead of a wait timer), it never comes out. Even stranger, the same error exists for the move in Melee where it became his neutral aerial, suggesting the code was copied and the error was never caught despite the altered hitbox properties/durations.
• Additionally, the move's hitboxes remain active for the move's entire animation (after they activate) because there is no flag to remove the hitboxes. According to CPU data, the hitboxes were panned to only be active until frame 37 but due to this error, they remain active until the animation ends (on frame 80). The same error can be found with Link's neutral aerial in Melee.

Kirby's moveset

Neutral attack (1 · 2 · inf) · Forward tilt · Up tilt · Down tilt · Dash attack · Forward smash · Up smash · Down smash
Neutral aerial · Forward aerial · Back aerial · Up aerial · Down aerial
Grab · Forward throw · Back throw
Forward roll · Back roll · Techs
Floor attack (front) · Floor getups (front) · Floor attack (back) · Floor getups (back)
Edge attack (fast) · Edge getups (fast) · Edge attack (slow) · Edge getups (slow)
Neutral special · Up special · Down special