Kirby's Return to Dream Land/Characters and Copy Abilities/Ninja

Knife Throw (Press 1)

• Tips
  • Knife Throw is incredibly fast. Use it a few times when a boss/miniboss is out of horizontal reach for a brief moment; if a boss moves away horizontally for a long time, you're better off going off to Quad Shock spam the boss.
  • Usually better to use this in the air, as Kirby can move while throwing knives.

• Attack properties ^[1]
  • 1st hit - 8 dmg
  • Repeat hits - 7 dmg per hit

Shock (Hold 1)

• Attack properties ^[1]
  • 25 dmg

Quad Shock (Hold 1 next to foe)

• Tips
  • This is the most versatile, powerful melee attack in the game, as it can be spammed in both air and ground with excellent DPS. It is not as mobile as Wing's Dive Bomb; whichever is better goes by a case-by-case basis
  • Try to hit with the tip of the blade, so the far shockwave hitbox hits to deal the extra 3 damage

• Attack properties ^[1]
  • Shockwave Near - 21 dmg per hit
  • Shockwave Far - 24 dmg per hit
  • Entire combo (Shock + Quad Shock) does 46 dmg
  • Shockwave does more damage to farther things.

Stealth Slash (Dash + 1)

• Tips
  • There is lag at the end because of the animation of Kirby putting away his weapon. The lag can be cancelled by any action before Kirby puts away his blade, meaning the lag of Stealth Slash can be cancelled by another Stealth Slash.
  • Master the timing and use this over sliding, as it's faster
  • Stealth Slashes off ledges will cause Kirby to hang in the air, which can then be cancelled by any action, including puffing, Knife Throw, and Ninja Kick.
  • Be careful when using a Stealth Slash directly adjacent to an enemy. Doing the button input will cause Kirby to grab the enemy and Air Drop, which can lead to suicides.

• Attack properties ^[1]
  • 1st hit - 8 dmg
  • Repeat hits - 7 dmg per hit
  • Max total – 29 dmg
  • Invincible for the duration of the move

• Distance ^[2]
  • Flat ground: 5.3 blocks

• Speed ^[2]
  • Successive first-frame Stealth Slashes seem to be 38 frames apart. That's 38/5.3 = 7.2 frames/block on flat ground.
  • With slower timing, say 43 frames apart, it's 43/5.3 = 8.1 frames/block on flat ground.

• Hitlag ^[2]
  • Enemies: 0 frames on enemies, usually, but in one instance during testing, 1 frame of hitlag was observed. More testing is needed to find out what caused this.

Ninja Kick (Down + 1 in air)

• Tips
  • Ninja Kick can be cancelled by puffing Kirby; because the momentum from Ninja Kick translates somewhat into puffing Kirby, Kirby will then fling forward a short distance faster than floating by itself. The player can take advantage of this by alternating Ninja Kicks and puffing/unpuffing Kirby for reasonable horizontal speed in the air. Here's a specific procedure for doing it:
  1. Get into the air.
  2. Continuously hold Down on the control pad for the following steps. Don't touch Left or Right, as that'll ruin your momentum.
  3. Press 1, and then 2 right afterward, so you do a Ninja Kick and immediately cancel it with a flutter. Try positioning your thumb over both the 1 and 2 buttons, so you can press 2 as soon as possible after 1.
  4. Let Kirby briefly glide through the air with the momentum, then about .3 of a second later, press 1 to let out an air pellet.
  5. As soon as the air pellet animation ends, repeat steps 3 and 4.

  It is possible, but tricky, to maintain the same height or even gain height by fluttering only once after each Ninja Kick. In general, though, occasional extra flutters may be needed to maintain height during this technique.

  • Ninja Kick falls faster than just falling normally.

• Attack properties ^[1]
  • 18 dmg

• Horizontal speed ^[2]
  • Ninja Kicking as soon as the previous air pellet ends, cancelling the Ninja Kick immediately with a flutter, and letting the flutter go on for about .3 seconds:
    • 8.8 frames/block with very good timing, 9.3 frames/block with slower timing (timing the kick after the previous air pellet a little less precisely, or occasionally fluttering for a few frames too long).
  • Letting the flutter go on longer, say .4 seconds instead of .3, is slower.
  • Letting the Ninja Kick go downward more (say, 2-3 blocks) before cancelling it with a flutter, and then compensating for the lost height by fluttering up more, is much slower.

Smoke Screen (Down + 1)

• Tips
  • Very useful to spot-dodge attacks, as Ninja Kirby will generally be in close-range against bosses. This allows Kirby to remain in ideal position for quad-shock spamming without taking damage.

• Attack properties ^[1]
  • 16 dmg
  • Invincible for the duration of the move

Blossom Storm (Up then Down + 1)

• Tips
  • Not useful in a speedrunning setting, but it's useful to look pretty while idling.

• Attack properties ^[1]
  • 1st hit (Fan) – 10 dmg
  • 2nd hit (Flowers) – 17 dmg
  • Max total – 27 dmg
  • No invincibility, but has a wide hit box about the size of 2.5 to 3 Kirbies in radius.

Hide Guard (1 after being attacked)

• Tips
  • The offensive version of Smoke Screen, it's not a bad idea to mash 1 if you think you're going to get hit.
  • Can't use Hide Guard if Kirby would lose his Ninja ability from getting hit, so if your strategy involves Hide Guard, make sure it's based off of an attack that won't knock Kirby's ability out of him.

• Attack properties ^[1]
  • 26 dmg
  • Kirby is invincible until he reappears, the smoke does damage

Smoke Counter (1 right after attacked while guarding)

• Attack properties ^[1]
  • 26 dmg

Air Drop (Up/Forward/Back next to foe + 1)

• Tips
  • Use whenever possible against bosses/minibosses, as this is the strongest grab attack in the game if it hits twice.
  • Be wary of accidentally triggering this over bottomless pits and breakable blocks (especially when spamming stealth slashes for stages) as this move is notorious for leading to suicides.

• Attack properties ^[1]
  • Rising hit - 50 dmg
  • Diving hit – 50 dmg
  • Thrown object – 60 dmg
  • Max total – 110 dmg

References

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9} An ability and damage guide at the Kirby's Rainbow Resort forums. It's mainly maintained by Plas Durock and contains contributions from several members of the Rainbow Resort forum and the GameFAQs KRtDL forum. http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/935607-kirbys-return-to-dream-land/62398037
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3} Frame tests by Yoshifan. This involved DVD-recording a test run, and then analyzing the recording frame-by-frame in 60 FPS using VirtualDub. For detailed info on the setup, see this SDA forum post. The block measurements and frames/block tests are particularly prone to inaccuracy, because the human eye is used to count "blocks" in the terrain and figure out exactly how many frames it takes for Kirby to travel a certain amount of blocks. It is estimated that test results may be up to 0.5 frames/block off from the actual values, possibly more if block-counting or math mistakes were made. If one could test on emulator, using a memory value to see what is Kirby's x and y position (or even x and y speed) according to the game, that could result in much more robust tests than these.