| “ | The lights of the starry path cross and a Starship appears! Now stop Marx's mad plan!” |
| — Starship's Flavor Text • Kirby Super Star Ultra |
Starship (called Shooting in Kirby Super Star and Star Shooter in Kirby's Epic Yarn and Kirby's Extra Epic Yarn) is one of Kirby's Copy Abilities.
General Information[]
It is used for the sole purpose of taking down the giant comet, Nova, but also appears later in the remake during the battle against Kabula.
The Starship itself resembles the basic layout of a Roman chariot, but without the wheels. However, it distinguishes itself with a star on the front and two long streamers serving as walls.
Games[]
Kirby Super Star and Kirby Super Star Ultra[]
The Starship's first appearance is in Kirby Super Star. It is used as the final and ultimate ability of the game, and as such, cannot be dropped (similar to the Love-Love Stick and the Star Rod). It appears after a cutscene between Kirby and Nova in the sub-game Milky Way Wishes. In it, Kirby is knocked out of the way by Marx, who wishes upon Nova for ultimate power. With Nova under his control, Marx leaves Kirby in a seemingly hopeless position, when the power of the Dream Fountains that Kirby had activated created the Starship. In it, Kirby then soared off to the interior of Nova to destroy it before it could reach Planet Popstar. In Kirby Super Star Ultra's Revenge of the King, the Sparkling Stars banded together to form the Starship to help Kirby fight Kabula after she shot him down.
The Starship is similar to the UFO ability, but with different projectiles. The Starship rapidly fires star bullets, which do not need to be charged before use. However, there is a small delay between the bursts of shots, and fires two barriers diagonally from the star cannon. It also accelerates Kirby at extremely high speeds. However, it is very fragile, as it takes major damage if it touches any object inside Nova's first level. When fighting Galactic Nova Nucleus, the Starship does not take damage when it hits a wall, but Kirby may get crushed between the towers and the scrolling stage. The Starship is primarily used for the destruction of Galactic Nova Nucleus. The particular level the Starship is used in resembles a shoot-em-up game, such as R-Type or Gradius.
There is a Helper available for the Starship. It resembles what would be a metallic bug with large blue eyes. It is gold, has a horn on the top and bottom of its head, and rockets in the back of it. The Helper has the same properties as the Starship. It is only available in the two-player mode and cannot be used in single player. If Kirby has a Helper when fighting Galactic Nova Nucleus or Kabula, it is destroyed automatically before the fight.
Oddly, after using the Starship to escape the exploding Heart of Nova, the Starship completely disappears in the battle against Marx. This is rectified in Kirby Super Star Ultra, where it is shown that the stars used to create the Starship disappeared, leaving only the Warp Star. However, the Starship would return using the Sparkling Stars in Revenge of The King so Kirby can defeat Kabula, since there is no Mint Leaf in the game.
Techniques[]
| Move | Controls | Description | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Move (8 direction) | 
|
The Starship floats in the directions pressed. Kirby does not lose altitude while moving and stays in place unless moved. | N/A |
| Fire star bullets. |  or  or  or 
|
Kirby fires stars forward, diagonally up, and diagonally down; the straight shots travel the entire length of the screen, while the diagonal ones only travel a short distance. The Starship fires two shots forward per button press, and must be repeatedly pressed to fire continuously. | 52 per shot |
| Move | Controls | Description | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Move (8 ways) | 
|
The Starship floats in the directions pressed. Kirby does not lose altitude while moving and stays in place unless moved. | N/A |
| Star Shot |  / / /
|
Kirby fires stars forward, diagonally up, and diagonally down; the straight shots travel the entire length of the screen, while the diagonal ones only travel a short distance. The Starship only fires one star forward per button press, but the button can be held down to fire continuously two shots at a time. | 52 per shot |
| Move | Controls | Description | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Move (8 direction) | 
|
The Starship floats in the directions pressed. Kirby does not lose altitude while moving and stays in place unless moved. | N/A |
| Fire star bullets. |  or 
|
Kirby fires stars forward, diagonally up, and diagonally down; the straight shots travel the entire length of the screen, while the diagonal ones only travel a short distance. The Starship fires two shots forward per button press, and must be repeatedly pressed to fire continuously. | 52 per shot |
| Move | Controls | Description | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Move (8 direction) | 
|
The Starship floats in the directions pressed. Kirby does not lose altitude while moving and stays in place unless moved. | N/A |
| Fire star bullets. |  or  or  or 
|
Kirby fires stars forward, diagonally up, and diagonally down; the straight shots travel the entire length of the screen, while the diagonal ones only travel a short distance. The Starship fires two shots forward per button press, and must be repeatedly pressed to fire continuously. | 52 per shot |
Kirby's Epic Yarn and Kirby's Extra Epic Yarn[]
|
"Star Shooter" redirects here. |
In Kirby's Epic Yarn and Kirby's Extra Epic Yarn, this ability is used again, working just the same. It is known as the Star Shooter Transformation, and it is obtained very late in the game (in Dream Land). It is used in Cloud Palace to shoot Kracko out of the sky and on the final stage Battleship Halberd where Combo Cannon and the Reactor return. Its weaponry remains unchanged from Kirby Super Star, still firing a single star forward and two shorter-ranged ones at 45-degree angles.
In Space Land, there was a similar transformation: the Rocket. It shoots and flies upwards instead of horizontally, and instead of just shooting three streams of stars in a spread, it can project stars just forward at a rapid rate.
Flavor texts[]
| Game | Flavor text |
|---|---|
 | Ride the Starship, made from star power, into the heart of NOVA in order to stop MARX's evil plan to takeover Dream Land! |
 | The lights of the starry path cross and a Starship appears! Now stop Marx's mad plan! |
Related Quotes[]
| “ | The Sharship comes just in time! Your foe is Kabula, sky lord! It's the king's flying fortress!” |
| — Vs. Kabula • Kirby Super Star Ultra |
Trivia[]
- "KIRBY" was the name on the ability icon in the original Kirby Super Star. This was probably to differentiate from the optional Starship helper on the main screen, as the ability's actual name can be seen in the Pause Screen. This was changed in the remake, however, which renamed the ability after the vehicle.
- If the 2nd player is defeated, they will become a random helper.
- This ability is considered a Final Weapon ability, but in the games, there is always another boss after the Starship battle (Marx after defeating Nova in Milky Way Wishes, and Masked Dedede after battling Kabula in Revenge of the King). It is technically the final weapon of Kirby's Epic Yarn, as it appears in the last level of the game. It isn't used to battle Yin-Yarn, though.
- In the anime series Kirby: Right Back at Ya!, Kirby's space ship is called Starship.
- In Kirby's Return to Dream Land, though the Starship does not make an appearance, a dragon named Landia behaves in a similar fashion to the Starship.
- In Kirby: Planet Robobot, the Robobot Armor's Jet Mode serves the same function as Starship, and is used to battle C.O.G.S. and Core Kabula.
- In Kirby: Triple Deluxe, this ability appears in the form of a keychain.
