Glitches in Kirby Star Allies

Listed below are the glitches in Kirby Star Allies. Please read the Glitch Disclaimer Notes before attempting any of the glitches listed on this page.

Glitches in the current version (4.0.0)

Burn Persistence

If Fire Kirby, Burning Leo, or Gooey jumps while dashing, then presses the attack button, he will perform the Burn move regardless of whether the player was holding the direction at any point after the jump. Hovering or landing on the ground will cancel the window to do this. However, the window will not close if Kirby slides off of the corner of a solid surface as he "lands," as this will make him resume falling.

This has little application other than laziness, but does mean one can repeatedly use the move against a wall to ascend without holding a direction.

Air Bomb Spam

By mashing the attack button with Bluster Bomb in the air, Kirby or Poppy Bros. Jr. (whichever one being used at the time) will continuously throw bombs with no lag after each throw. By using this, it is possible to defeat bosses such as Whispy Woods in seconds.

Canvas Cover splash attack

When playing as Adeleine & Ribbon, using the "Canvas Cover" guard technique normally comes with a brief cooldown when it is released. However, if L/R and left or right is tapped rapidly, the guard can be raised and lowered multiple times instantaneously, depending on how rapidly the player taps. The splash damage that is done by releasing Canvas Cover can be exploited to deal rapid damage to bosses, making it very easy to defeat them under the right circumstances.

ESP Vanish and Reappear warp

Using Vanish and Reappear may enable ESP Kirby or NESP to skip some Room Guarder sections (normally, all the common enemies in a Room Guarder section must be defeated to proceed). This is useful for NESP to save time in Guest Star ???? Star Allies Go!.

Some other characters can also skip Room Guarder rooms with different methods.

Falling Friend Star

Though the circumstances for this to occur are unclear, a Friend Star is capable of falling through semisolid platforms sometimes, while charging the Milky Way attack.

Guest Star Planet Caverna endless loop

In Guest Star ???? Star Allies Go!, if the player enters the secret route in Planet Caverna, upon finishing the five mid-boss battles and entering the central door, they will be promptly sent back to the start of Planet Caverna instead of heading to Planet Frostak as intended. This can be exploited to gain lots of Picture Pieces in rapid succession before moving on by heading through the normal route in Planet Caverna. Any Power-Up Hearts collected will also be collectable again, allowing an early max-out for Speed and Health stats. This glitch does not work with characters who never visit Planet Caverna in their routes.

Hyness attack failure

When defeating Hyness or Corrupt Hyness just before he conjures the Jam Again attack, the Jambastion logo will appear while Hyness is in his defeat animation. The Jambastion logo will fix itself before following cutscenes.

Multiple music tracks playing at once

Under certain circumstances involving going back to mode selection from certain spots in Story Mode, both the "Twinkle☆Stars" and "Select Link" themes play at the same time on the mode selection screen for as long as the player stays on that screen.

To activate the glitch, one must either:

• Enter Story Mode and wait for a few seconds on the level selection screen before going back to mode selection
• Within Story Mode, enter Kirby Star Allies, pause, and immediately exit back to the level selection menu before activating the Star Allies Sparkler and then go back to mode select.

Parasol hitstun

When Parasol Kirby or a Parasol Waddle Dee Friend is drifting in the air, the player can press ↓ on the Left Stick while tapping ↑ on the + Control Pad or directional buttons in a quick rhythm to rapidly shift between Parasol Drift and Parasol Dive, as if the user is drilling down while slowly falling. This will constantly refresh the parasol's attack hitbox to deal massive continuous damage while notably stunning any bosses. However, this hitbox is very small and the user must get very close to an enemy in midair to attack in this way. This glitch makes Parasol one of the fastest abilities to beat The Ultimate Choice in this game.

This may not be a glitch, but an exploitable trick which first appeared in Kirby: Triple Deluxe (the exploit does not work as well in Kirby: Planet Robobot). The execution in Kirby Star Allies is slightly different from its original appearance in Kirby: Triple Deluxe.

Persistent Al Fresco

When playing as Adeleine & Ribbon, it is possible to get the canvas used for Al Fresco stuck on Adeleine if it is canceled at just the right moment by using the Fairy Dance attack (just after pulling the canvas out). The timing on this glitch is tricky, but if performed correctly, the canvas will not disappear like it is supposed to, and instead will simply move around along with Adeleine. Once the canvas is out like this, starting Al Fresco and canceling it again before it finishes will cause the painting on the canvas to stay as it was when the move was canceled. The canvas can be removed by fully performing Al Fresco, entering a different room, or watching certain cutscenes play. Having the canvas stuck like this has no direct effect on gameplay, but it can allow the player to track where ESP Kirby or NESP will reappear if Adeleine is ridding piggyback on them while they use their vanish.

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  Performing Fairy Dance at the right time causes the canvas to persist when it is not supposed to.

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  The canvas will subsequently follow Adeleine around, even when she is using other moves.

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  Canceling Al Fresco again at certain moments will cause the painting on the canvas to persist.

Post Mage-Sister Lag

Defeating The Three Mage-Sisters while the game is heavily lagging causes the game to drop frames even during their defeat animation. The lag may even carry over to the Morpho Knight EX rest area in Soul Melter EX of The Ultimate Choice.

Surge Speed Exploit

Using a Condor Head, Magolor Surge, or any similar move up a slope gives extra speed. While doing this, bumping into a wall gives extra height. This makes it possible to clear the first room in Guest Star Birdon in under 13 seconds.

Tumbling parasol

If Kirby defeats the Parasol Waddle Dee in the bottom of the vertical room of Fruity Forest in a certain way, it will fly back and disappear as normal, and its parasol will fly upward into the semisolid platform, also flashing in its defeat state. Instead of going through it or exploding, the parasol will stay in one place as it spins against the platform for a few moments before eventually expiring. It may also work with other Parasol Waddle Dees in similar setups.

This has no meaningful effect on gameplay.

Glitches in previous versions

These glitches have been fixed in newer versions.

Bag crash

Exclusively in Version 2.0.0, if the Animal Friends or Gooey are defeated by means of being crushed whilst they are guarding, the game will crash. This is due to the fact that the protective bag is still there, so the game searches its character to despawn the bag from it. Since the character died first, the bag cannot be despawned without its character, which leads to this error, closing the game.

Boss health bar glitch

In Versions 1.1.0 to 2.0.0, if the boss' first phase is defeated before the health bar even loads, the bar won't appear in the second phase. This glitch is purely cosmetic, however, and won't affect actual gameplay.

Dark Calibur glitch

Exclusively in Version 3.0.0, if Dark Meta Knight uses the Dark Calibur attack on specific bosses and the final slash hits them right before a phase transition, the final slash hitbox will stay put and keep doing damage to bosses after the phase shift for unknown reasons. This effect ends when Dark Meta Knight hovers.

Guest Star Kirby

Main article: Guest Star ???? Star Allies Go!

In Versions 1.1.0. to 2.0.0, it is actually possible to play Guest Star ???? Star Allies Go! as Kirby. If while in handheld mode, the player taps a specific area on the screen in the main menu between 'New Game' and 'Best Time', they will be taken to a scoreboard for 'Guest Star Kirby' and asked if they want to start. Doing so begins a run of this mode as Kirby. There are a few elements to this that would suggest this is a glitch rather than an easter egg. These are as follows:

• Kirby's pause description text, regardless of what ability he is using, reads as (未せってい) in all languages, which can be translated as 'Not set' in English.
• Kirby does not vocalize as he normally does when activating Friend Platforms or using the Dream Rod.
• Reset Platforms do not take away Kirby's ability, and Kirby does not lose his ability when calling upon a Friend from it.
• Kirby cannot interact directly with Copy Essences or discarded ability hats by touching them. He can still use them by tossing Friend Hearts at them or inhaling the latter.
• Tutorial signs do not display any characters, nor do they get marked when the shown action is performed.
• Kirby's 1-Up portrait changes depending on which ability he is using, along with the title displayed in the pause menu (e.g. 'Guest Star Sleep').
• The title that shows in the credits will display the name of the Friend who corresponds to Kirby's currently-equipped ability. Despite this, any scores will still be saved to Kirby's score table.
  • If Kirby has no ability which corresponds to an ally, the title will default to one of his allies, or to a completely different ally if he has none.

Starting with Version 3.0.0, the main menu's design has been changed to accommodate for the addition of multiple save files at once. As the Continue button is now permanent after starting the mode once, this glitch no longer works.

A screenshot of this glitch in action was officially shown on the Play Nintendo website.

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  The high score screen for Kirby in 'Guest Star ???? Star Allies Go!'.

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  The pause screen for Kirby in 'Guest Star ???? Star Allies Go!'. Notice the placeholder text in Japanese, despite the game being played in English.

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  The pause screen for Bomb Kirby in 'Guest Star ???? Star Allies Go!'. The placeholder text is once again present, and the top left now says "Guest Star Bomb" instead of "Guest Star Kirby".