Kirby inhales so many things with reckless abandon that it was only a matter of time before one such thing came back to haunt him. And so Smash players discovered an exploit this week that turns him into an raging fireball. Fire Kirby doesn’t change much, gameplay-wise. But it’d make a hell of an anti-smoking ad.
The “Fire Kirby” exploit was first found by Swedish Smash player Enis Al-Maatooq, the guy who previously discovered a nifty and highly technical way to reduce character lag in the latest Smash Bros. He told me that he poked around with Fire Kirby to see if the exploit had any similarly game-changing consequences, but didn’t find any...yet.
As he explains in a video he made earlier this week, the way to get the fire roaring is by charging Kirby’s side-b move, and then release it just when he’s about to be inhaled by either another Kirby or King Dedede—the pink blob’s close partner in sucking:
Kirby’s side-b is his hammer move, so if you want to get Fire Kirby for yourself, just think of it as winding up the hammer and then releasing it at just the right moment before he goes into his aggressor’s mouth. Here’s a helpful slow-mo GIF from another video that followed up on Al-Maatooq’s discovery:
Don’t let the light go out, Smash fans. It’s lasted for so many years.
To contact the author of this post, write to yannick.lejacq@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter at @YannickLeJacq.