Dark Mind is an evil deity that serves as the main antagonist and the final boss of Kirby & The Amazing Mirror.
Background
Dark Mind is a mysterious figure who wanted to conquer the Mirror World, so he corrupted it with his evil. Meta Knight found that this would threaten Dream Land, so he went to the Mirror World. However, he found himself beaten and imprisoned by his evil counterpart, Dark Meta Knight. It was then up to Kirby and his newly-born clones to save Dream Land and the Mirror World, so they ended up there.
Physical Appearance
Dark Mind appears to have three forms. His appearance suggests that he may be the Mirror World version of Nightmare, 0, or even both.
In his first form, he looks very similar to Nightmare. He wears some sort of crown, with his true face residing under it. He has arms and hands of a metal-like texture, with his fingers having sharp nails on them. He also wears a blue cloak. Under his cloak is a core (possibly his true form). Dark Mind's design in this form seems to be heavily influenced by the armor worn by traditional samurai.
Dark Mind's second form resembles 0. In this form, he appears as a large eyeball with a red gaseous aura. His sclera is black, and his iris is gold with a red pupil.
Dark Mind's final form is identical to his second form, but is smaller and lighter in color.
Attack List
Form 1
Dark Mind's First Form
Dark Mind's first form looks like an odd cross between 0 and Nightmare, with two mirrors orbiting the villain and a core (possibly his true form) below his cloak. His main attack in this form is firing a large number of stars in wave or stream formations or constantly teleporting around (much like Nightmare "orb").
Dark Mind is fought more than once, and as phases go on, he becomes more erratic and he gains new attacks, such as dropping stars in corners which later home in on Kirby, swinging his mirrors around in a circular pattern, shattering into glass if attacked when his core is not exposed, and dropping large bombs that destroy the whole screen if not promptly destroyed. The stars can be inhaled for Fire (red), Ice (blue), Spark (violet), or a random ability (green), and the bomb will give Crash if Super Inhaled.
Dark Mind will open his cloak for all his attacks: although Dark Mind is always vulnerable, he will take much more damage, stop whatever he is doing, and retreat if he is attacked with his cloak opened. Defeating Dark Mind in the first three battles will cause him to shatter (similarly to Dark Meta Knight, his probable creation), but the fourth defeat will cause him to explode violently and glow white as his cloak vanishes. While the Master sword is not needed to damage Dark Mind, it will not start the fight until Kirby grabs it.
During the first three mid-phase transitions, Kirby is placed in a pre-phase area, usually with a few passive and aggressive enemies. There are usually several pieces of food in each pre-phase chamber for Kirby to restore health if damaged while fighting Dark Mind.
In Boss Endurance, this form is only fought once, and is capable of using all attacks.
Form 2 (Power Orb Form)
Dark Mind's Second Form
The second, most important battle against Dark Mind, the villain starts out as a 0-like eyeball and grow enormous as it approaches the screen in a red, gaseous area similar to Dark Star's gaseous interior; if Kirby does not have the Master Sword at this point, Shadow Kirby will run into battle and throw it to him. Dark Mind uses a variety of attacks, many of which involve his mirrors (which are themselves vulnerable to damage now).
His first, most common, and arguably hardest to avoid attack has Dark Mind slowly floating down the screen with the mirrors moving in an erratic figure-8 pattern around him, circling them around in various directions (e.g the ground, mid-air or moving alongside them). After performing this attack, he will have two additional follow-up attacks. The first one aligns the mirrors in the corners of the stage, where he fires a single laser shot which can reflect in a random direction, though the mirrors may also follow to reflect the laser at Kirby. Alternatively, the mirrors will crisscross the stage before one of them drops three random enemies (UFOs being the rarest) onto the ground.
Sometimes Dark Mind will prepare a much larger beam from his eye (similar to a vertical version of the one Marx uses) and fire it in various ways. He is also capable of flipping the screen upside down, making it harder to predict attacks, though the input buttons work as normal. He is also capable of dropping the screen-engulfing bomb that he used in the previous phase.
Damaging Dark Mind can be done either by attacking his eye (which is relatively easy to hit but doesn't do much damage) or destroying the mirrors (which does much more damage and interrupts whatever he was doing, but is more difficult and made risky by the fact that the mirrors turn into cutterblades upon destruction). After all his health is depleted, Dark Mind shuts his eye and starts to reluctantly shrink...
Form 3
Dark Mind's final form
Now an unstable, fireball-like form similar in size to Dark Matter, Dark Mind retreats into the sky, hotly pursued by the Kirby(s) (now riding warp stars). Dark Mind acts much like the Power Orb form of Nightmare, shooting out barrages of stars and trying to ram Kirby: he also must be defeated the same way (namely, by shooting a lot of stars at him). Depleting his health will start both his explosion and the credits but not put an end to the battle, with Dark Mind still trying to attack Kirby but not being able to do any damage: the Kirbys can shoot him all they please until he drifts to the center of the screen, where, after several seconds he finally explodes, finally putting an end to his plan of ruling the Mirror World. It is learned that, after Dark Mind is defeated, he intended to make the Mirror World be overrun with a person's worst reflection of themselves.
Interestingly, outside of Boss Endurance, a tally is kept of how many times the Kirbys have hit Dark Mind after his health is depleted, and adds 30 to that number when he finally explodes.
Related Quotes
| “ | The hammer of an evil soul from the Mirror World. The legend of the four heroes who saved that gold-framed realm is told even now. ” |
| — Weapon Description • Team Kirby Clash Deluxe |
| “ | 'Armor that once belonged to one who schemed to rule the Mirror World. It is said his soul shattered at the flash of a blade.” |
| — Armor Description • Team Kirby Clash Deluxe |
Trivia
- Dark Mind's second and final forms heavily resemble Dark Matter and 0 from Kirby's Dream Land 3, and as a consequence Dark Mind is widely speculated to belong to Dark Matter's species or even Zero's Mirror World equivalent, similar to Dark Meta Knight and Shadow Dedede to Meta Knight and King Dedede, respectively. If this is the case, then his name "Dark Mind" may be a reference to the fact that the Dark Matter race largely operates by possessing others and manipulating them to do their bidding.
- Dark Mind could be considered Nightmare's Mirror World counterpart as well, as the two look very similar.
- While the second and final forms of Dark Mind do resemble Dark Matter and 0, they also could be a form like Nightmare's Power Orb form.
- Dark Mind makes a cameo in Kirby: Squeak Squad in an unlockable painting, alongside Nightmare, King Dedede, Dark Matter, and Marx.
- Dark Mind's first form appears to have four eyes as well as two faces, but on closer inspection, the "face" resembling Nightmare is actually a sort of crown worn by him, with his true face residing under it.
- An armor set based off his helmet and mirror weaponry appears in Team Kirby Clash Deluxe.
- The game's final boss, King D-Mind, is also based on Dark Mind, as well as Shadow Dedede.
- The music that plays during the battle against the final boss contains a remix of Dark Mind's theme (the one that plays during his second form).
- Dark Mind appears as a keychain in Kirby: Triple Deluxe.
Sprites
