Riku VS Meta Knight
“Hello darkness, my old friend…” - Simon and Garfunkel
Riku, child of destiny who walks the path of dawn in Kingdom Hearts.
Meta Knight, armed enforcer turned wandering shadowy swordsman and rival of Kirby.
Not every hero shines in the light, some battle darkness from within. Everyone has a dark side, a lust for power and tendency towards destruction. Only the strongest of us have the courage to face down our own darkness - and in the case of these two edgy swordsman rivals, literally. Between Riku and Meta Knight, who will be the last one standing in a DEATH BATTLE?
Before We Begin
Initial credits to KingCorporeal, who wrote some of the sections of this blog, and the G1 Galacta Knight vs Vergil blog for citing several sources and calcs that we have included in this blog.
This analysis will be prioritizing the games for both Riku and Meta Knight, however it will also include secondary material such as the Kingdom Hearts manga and the Kirby light novels, anime and manga where they do not contradict the primary source material or go beyond the scale of what is standard in-universe, as well as extra modes and what-if scenarios that are not traditionally canon to the main timeline. We are analyzing their entire histories, which means cataloging everything they have had in the past to examine a variety of possible scenarios, not as a blanket composite. We are also prioritizing the original Japanese text over localizations, and have used a variety of translation sources, including our own personal source for clarifying contentious translations.
Background
Riku
Born and raised on Destiny Islands with his two friends Sora and Kairi, Riku often took the reins of the big brother of the trio. Tired of their lives in solitude and longing for adventure, the three conspired to construct a raft and sail away, finding a new life elsewhere, yet together. But everything changed when the Heartless sieged the island, tearing it asunder and sending the three children in wayward directions across the universe. While Sora and Kairi had their own adventures, Riku took a different path. A comparatively much darker one.
Riku awoke in Hollow Bastion and was found by Maleficent (yes, THAT Maleficent), who brought him to his feet and offered him a reunion with Kairi in exchange with helping with her evil plan. Riku agreed, and the witch’s schemes caused Riku to cross paths with Sora once again. Maleficent twisted the narrative and turned the two former friends against one another, eventually leading to Riku coming into contact with Ansem, Seeker of Darkness. As a result, his inherent dark powers gained from Maleficent skyrocketed, causing him to be a perfect host for the King of the Heartless. He engaged in one more battle (and like five more unskippable cutscenes) with Sora, eventually resulting in him being sealed inside the Realm of Darkness along with King Mickey, and Ansem defeated.
But, that was not the end. Eventually, Riku would escape the Realm of Darkness and reconnect with his friends Sora and Kairi, still angsty but a little less evil. Even after Ansem's defeat, the darkness didn't fully leave Riku's heart, and he would have to gradually learn to temper his own darkness and trust in his friends on his road to redemption, helping Sora to save the worlds and all your favorite Disney intellectual properties from the forces that be. Unfortunately, just as it had seemed that the forces of darkness have been defeated and the worlds have returned to peace with everyone united once again, Sora disappeared. It's funny, initially, Riku accepted darkness into his heart to save his friends, and he needed help from his friends in order to pull him out of said darkness. Now, it may be the time for him to be depended on to reunite Sora with himself and everyone else once again. Riku may not ever be the perfect chosen hero of the story, but he isn't consumed by darkness anymore either. He has risen out of the darkness and shone his own type of light, like the sun rising in dawn.
Meta Knight
Meta Knight is a character defined mostly by his mysterious appearance. Initially introduced as the leader of a band of warriors known as the Meta-Knights (totally not confusing) aboard the Battleship Halberd, he was entrusted with protecting a piece of the Star Rod by King Dedede in order to prevent the unsealing of Nightmare. However, a plucky pink puffball known as Kirby sought to reform the Star Rod with innocent intentions, not knowing what it held within. Meta Knight fought valiantly to uphold his duty, but Kirby eventually was able to best him in a duel, earning his respective piece. However, upon his defeat, a crack formed in the mask, splitting it in two… and revealing a face very familiar to Kirby.
After Nightmare’s eventual defeat by Kirby’s spherical hands, Meta Knight went on his own quest across Dreamland to make a wish to Nova, a cosmic being capable of granting universe-altering wishes. Aiming to hone his skills for his next encounter with Kirby or other forces of evil, Meta Knight wished to face the strongest warrior in the galaxy. Thus, Nova summoned Galacta Knight, a character once again much more similar to Meta Knight and, by extension, Kirby, than he could’ve expected. After a long-fought battle, Meta Knight was able to defeat the legendary warrior and claim the title of the strongest warrior in the galaxy.
It seemed like he was the strongest person in the world, until one day he encountered an enemy even he couldn't defeat by himself - himself. Meta Knight had entered the Mirror World to face down Dark Mind, a cosmic entity of darkness who threatened the entire dimension. Ever draped in shadow, Meta Knight was vulnerable to having his darkness literally pulled from his body to form Dark Meta Knight, who had defeated Meta Knight and sealed him away within the Mirror World before shattering the mirror to pieces. Fortunately, he wasn't alone, and with the help of Kirby, Kirby, Kirby and Kirby, Meta Knight teamed up with them to defeat Dark Meta Knight and Dark Mind once and for all. Until he would come back for some reason only lose to Dedede in an extra mode in Triple Deluxe.
Since then, Meta Knight has fought both alongside and against Kirby on countless occasions. He once threatened a hostile takeover of Dreamland in order to put an end to its lax way of life, a plan that was thwarted by Kirby, but more often than not his goals have been of virtuous intention. He’s fought off countless beings alongside Kirby, King Dedede, and other series protagonists. He aided in the downfall of Dark Matter, directly stopped the revival of Dark Nebula, defeated Magolor empowered by the Master Crown, and put an end to Void Termina alongside his allies. When all is said and done, Meta Knight can be relied on to put an end to any threat to Dreamland, swiftly and with utmost chivalry. No matter how scary the shadows may be, there will always be a protector residing within them in Meta Knight.
Equipment
Riku
Keyblades
The Keyblade is the main weapon of Keyblade Masters, obviously, and are some of the most powerful items in the Kingdom Hearts universe. With them, Keyblade Masters can unlock any physical lock, as well as seal or unlock the keyholes to a world's heart, and can be used to attack and harm normally intangible and invulnerable enemies such as Heartless and Nobodies. In addition, a Keyblade cannot be stolen from its wielder, as it will simply return to its owner if wielded by someone who is not a Keyblade wielder. Keyblades were able to release the hearts stolen by the Heartless upon defeating them, each one sending their heart back to Kingdom Hearts, the source of all hearts and light in the universe, eventually working towards the completion of Kingdom Hearts's power. Riku has used a plethora of Keyblades over his career.
Soul Eater
Riku’s first blade, given to him during his time under Maleficent. While not a Keyblade, Riku can use it to go toe-to-toe with Sora’s Kingdom Key.
Keyblade of Heart
The keyblade that Riku gained access to during his first fall to the darkness as Ansem-Riku, it allows Ansem-Riku to unlocks the 'Hearts' of anyone it touches; giving Riku the ability to cause pain, empower the heart, or eject them from their bodies. This will be elaborated on more in the abilities section.
Way to the Dawn
Riku obtained this Keyblade after his journey in Kingdom Hearts II. Based on his original weapon, Soul Eater, it represents his newfound understanding of both darkness and light—Dawn.
Braveheart
As expected, given his original upgrade in KH2, a new Keyblade was in order by the time KH3 rolled around, Riku had finally become a Keyblade master—though apparently, this time around… he was just awarded with this oversized car key! It seems to be effective enough at vanquishing Heartless though.
Keychains
Elixirs
An item that can be thrown into the air to restore the user's MP, the energy system that Riku needs to perform his magic skills.
Potions
Tosses an item into the air that restores a certain amount of the user's HP.
Sidecar Glider
An aerial vehicle from Kingdom Hearts 2 that Riku drives in his battle against Xemnas. It can fire lasers of varying intensity, absorb damage from attacks negating it entirely, & reflect damage back.
Chain of Memories Cards
While in Castle Oblivion, Sora and Riku were unable to use their powers like normal. To compensate, they were able to use several cards which automatically enabled certain attacks or effects when used. These cards can be carried into battle in a deck and they can carry multiple of the same card, however they need to be careful to not use all of them up before they need to replenish them.
Attack Cards
Item Cards
Friend Cards
Gimmick Card
When fighting a boss battle, a gimmick card may appear in Riku's deck. These cards have seemingly random effects, but generally cause something detrimental to happen to Riku's opponent and are completely contextual in nature. For example, they can miraculously cause rocks from the ceiling to fall onto the opponent's head, or can drain out acid from an acid filled stage.
Sleights
Sleights are actions performed by using multiple cards in conjunction with one another, allowing Riku to use an ability unique to the sleight combination. Normally, he can't use any that don't exclusively come from King Mickey, however when accessing Dark Mode, Riku is able to use several sleights to use his darkness abilities.
Meta Knight
Galaxia
Meta Knight’s trusty blade, said to be forged from the will of the flame deity Photron a thousand years prior. It possesses many mystical powers in accordance with its supernatural origin, such as shooting out large energy beams, creating powerful tornadoes, and summoning, quickening, and healing allies. In order to perform its abilities, it requires the wielder to deal damage to or defeat enemies in order to gain power. With it stating to possess infinite power and was described as being so powerful that wielder could take control over the universe. It helps that it was stated Meta Knight was one of the only one's who's capable of wielding it. (12:45 - 14:00)
Galaxia has been known to have a mind of its own. If Meta Knight were to somehow be unavailable, it can fight by itself, increasing its size by a ton and summoning meteors to attack whoever is a current threat. In the Anime it has also shown another way to protect herself, Galaxia, has the power to choose who wields her (in the anime she’s woman shaddup) those she deems unworthy, is capable of brutally hurting them through shocking them, with Meta Knight proclaiming ‘only those who have the power are capable of claiming Galaxia as their own and those who are not chosen will only bring evil upon themselves’. She’s also capable of telepathically speaking to others and show visions.(15:40 - 18:50)
When Meta Knight wielding Galaxia is playable within the games, it uses a mixture of the movesets of the Sword, Cutter, and Wing copy abilities in order to create a unique moveset with its own quirks. As Galaxia is a Sword, and Kirby can gain the Sword ability via obtaining or consuming it, it can be assumed that Galaxia can also replicate any ability that Kirby can with the Sword copy ability.
By defeating enemies, Meta Knight can acquire a currency called Meta Points stored within Galaxia. By expending Meta Points (which will be abbreviated to MP for reading comprehension), Meta Knight can use a variety of special abilities. Meta Knight can hold a maximum of 50 MP within Galaxia, however he can also recover MP by deflecting enemy attacks.
By coming into contact with specific elements, Galaxia can adapt to them and gain elemental powers based on the element absorbed.
Blizzard: The element embodying cold, ice, and snow. When Galaxia gains the Blizzard element, it can create crashing icicles during select sword slices and cover the ground in slippery ice crystals during dashes.
Bluster: The element embodying wind, air, and weather. When Galaxia gains the Bluster element, it allows Meta Knight extended air mobility, slowing his descent and allowing him to float for short periods of time. Select attacks also go much farther and create small cyclones on impact.
Sizzle: The element embodying heat, fire, and warmth. When Galaxia gains the Sizzle element, it allows Meta Knight to set things aflame with his sword slashes. Various attacks have fiery flourishes added to them, with some even gaining explosive tendencies.
Splash: The element embodying water, the ocean, and wetness. When Galaxia gains the Splash element, it allows Meta Knight to create large water droplets that can damage foes on contact.
Zap: The element of lightning, electricity, and discharge. When Galaxia gains the Zap element, it allows Meta Knight to summon lightning down from the sky and produce powerful electric shockwaves from his sword.
In the novels, Meta Knight's greatest treasure Galaxia, is the most well known and treasured sword in the entire universe, with it being so beautiful everyone would be awe struck by it. Which meant many villains wanted it, for good reasons too. Galaxia has been stated to be a legendary sword that has won numerous battles. And whenever Meta Knight picks it up he gains fighting spirit and his body becomes full power. The weapon is so strong that a single strike hurts like hell and a slight swing would be able to immediately cut someone in two. It's also stated that a single swing of Galaxia is more fearsome than any of the weapons onboard the Halberd combined. Which possibly includes the “Planet Buster”.
It's also what Meta Knight uses for many abilities and techniques. Its most potent one being its healing capabilities. When Meta Knight was getting pretty badly beat up and injured by Morpho Knight (who himself had no harm due being unable to feel tired nor pain) to the point he was getting beat up so to near death and was pretty much on his last leg. Luckily Waddle dee threw galaxia at Meta Knight and all his fatigue and injuries were completely gone the second he took a hold of Galaxia. Meta Knight also immediately gained back his full power when he held his blade. Galaxia gave him strength, and Galaxia also gained its full power thanks to Meta Knight being the one to wield the sword again. Meaning only Meta Knight can use the full power of Galaxia and Meta Knight is only at full power when he wields Galaxia, they both essentially need each other to go all out.
Sword of Hades
The Sword of Hades, A grey blade with no shine or substance. It essentially is a ghost sword with no physical body. He gained this blade after he died and went to Hades. You may assume the Sword doesn't do much, however it has a brutal ability. You see, the inhabitants of Hades are unable to die, but thanks to the Sword of Hades, Meta Knight’s capable of cutting off the power of the inhabitants of Hades and making them weaker and smaller. Later it was revealed this was the snake’s true form before he got stuck in hades. Even though they’re not dead they become unable to fight at all in their new version. With Papi stating that the inhabitants of Hades while not being able to die can hurt each other enough to remove all their powers, which is a specific ability the Hades inhabitants have, which includes the Sword of Hades. This means Meta Knight can remove the powers of others with this fine blade, however there is a catch. He can only use this weapon when he's a ghost due to it having no substance.
To be clear, this isn't a sword he found in Hades itself. It's actually a lackluster random sword he bought in the real world to fight Beryl, someone who stole Galaxia from him. When Meta Knight got sent to Hades with the sword on hand, it turned into the Sword of Hades, which makes sense seeing the effects Hades has on others.
Other Swords
If, for some reason, Meta Knight were to be deprived of using Galaxia, he has other swords at his disposal, including regular blades that he used in his original appearance and a samurai sword that he used during the Samurai Kirby minigame. He can retrieve these swords relatively quickly, as in Forgotten Land, if Kirby inhales Galaxia, Meta Knight flies out and quickly comes back with a new regular sword. It helps that it's been stated that any weapon Meta Knight has in his hands would become extremely powerful, even his own bare fists.
Dimensional Cape
A cape that Meta Knight can often be seen wearing in several of his appearances. When wrapped around himself, it allows him to teleport away from unwanted situations or quickly ambush an opponent with a surprise attack. This technique of hit-and-run culminates with Galaxia Darkness, a move most commonly known as Meta Knight’s Final Smash in Super Smash Bros. Brawl that has since been integrated into the main canon, in which Meta Knight drapes the world in darkness using his cape, then strikes through the darkness in a single, powerful slash.
Oftentimes, it is shown that his cape can turn into a pair of wings that grant him unlimited flight, though some games make a point to establish that the wings and the cape are separate entities.
Many times, he can be seen throwing away his cape at the beginning of a fight only to miraculously apparate it after his defeat, implying that he can summon it back to his person at will.
Mask
A simple mask meant to conceal Meta Knight’s true face. While it is prone to cracking after long fights, it can defend against frontward attacks if needed.
Recovery Items
Throughout the Kirby games, there are several foods and items that can be used to heal oneself, which Meta Knight can keep on his person. The most notable example, however, would have to be the Maxim Tomato, which can recover all of Meta Knight’s health upon consumption. Meta Knight can also grant his allies health that he obtains from a recovery item by… feeding part of it to them mouth-to-mouth, like a bird. This is weird enough without having to consider how he does this while wearing his mask. Though it's also called the “healing kiss” and they do smooch so… maybe they somehow heal each other through contact? Why did they go to kissing? We don't know.
Invincibility Candy
Meta Knight has been shown to carry Invincibility Candy on hand. When ingested, the subject is granted a substantial speed boost as well as invulnerability to all forms of harm, save instant death traps like pitfalls, and also immediately kill any opponent they touch. The effect lasts for several seconds before dissipating.
Mask of Dark Bonds
During the Kirby Fighters 2 tag team tournament, Meta Knight was approached by King Dedede to join forces, to which he agreed. After the fighters are defeated by Kirby and his buddy, Dedede unleashes his secret weapon; a pair of dark masks. Donning one and throwing the other to Meta Knight, the two entered the forms of Waning Crescent Masked Dedede and Waxing Crescent Masked Meta Knight. The mask strengthened the two’s bond, allowing them more power for the bond they shared, but the two were still ultimately bested by Kirby and his buddy.
Tracking Device
In the novels, Meta knight has a small device that allows him to track anyone who he attached a transmitter on.
Friend Heart
As a consequence of the failed restoration of the Jamba Heart by Hyness’s hand, light and dark hearts were scattered across the cosmos, with some landing in Dreamland. These hearts possess a peculiar ability to drastically alter the emotional state of whoever is touched by them. Those who are hit by the darker hearts are made more aggressive and irritable, but those who are touched by the Friend Heart are pacified immediately and will become Meta Knight's ally.
The Friend Hearts are, in actuality, fragments of the four spears initially used to seal the negativity of the Jamba Heart. When the Jamba Heart erupted, one of the Friend Hearts found a host in Kirby. While we never see Meta Knight directly obtain the power of the Friend Heart in a cutscene, he is still able to use them in gameplay exactly like Kirby, as are all other Dream Friends.
Friend Hearts can be summoned freely and without limitation. They can be thrown a short distance before dissipating either on contact with a surface or an enemy. Some enemies are immediately pacified, such as Waddle Doos and Blade Knights. Some bosses are only affected after they are defeated, such as King Dedede and Meta Knight himself. Some enemies are not able to be affected by the Friend Heart altogether, such as Gordos.
Once a creature is friended, it can then be unfriended, which destroys it.
However, the Friend Hearts are much more powerful than one might think. One Friend heart is capable of affecting multiple people, meaning Meta Knight doesn't have to spam it. Though its greatest achievement was affecting a soulless, emotionless machinelike enemy. At first due to not having emotions nor a soul, it was unable to get affected by the Friend Heart. But when Kirby tried again to hit him when he had the chance, it actually started working and made him stop attacking and was able to be reasoned with. Later on he started to get emotions, a soul and became less machinelike. Though he became a tsundere. So the Friend Heart is extremely potent.
While it can be debated that Meta Knight using a Friend Heart to end a battle is possibly out of character, due to his nature as a proud and fair swordsman who constantly seeks challenge, it is best to at least address the Friend Heart in the case that it becomes important.
Battleship Halberd
Meta Knight’s flying battleship, constructed in secret under King Dedede’s castle in order to combat Nightmare, made from the latest technology. From there, Meta Knight eventually would use the ship to attempt his Dreamland coup, though Kirby would inevitably put a stop to that. Since then, the Battleship Halberd has been Popstar’s front line of defense from any alien threats to… varying degrees of success.
Regardless, the Halberd is a powerful weapon in its own right. Armed with a massive amount of laser cannons and manned by the Meta-Knights, it would’ve been able to conquer Dreamland in an afternoon if Kirby hadn’t intervened.
Its main firepower comes in the form of the Combo Cannon, a massive siege cannon mounted on the main base of the ship. The Combo Cannon comes in three parts: a grenade launcher that fires explosive incendiary rounds, a large laser cannon that can blast things out of the sky, and, in the case that somebody boards, a large mechanical arm that can hold the target in place to allow the previous two parts to hit them properly. The Combo Cannon is most notable for being able to one-shot Dyna Blade, forcing Kirby to raid the aircraft on foot. However there's also the Planet Buster that it has on it. It's kind of obvious what it does.
Though besides heavy artillery, it also has a warping mechanism. Their warp navigation is super advanced and it allows them to travel immediately at any distance. The warp device on Halberd is high performance and the most accurate in the entire universe. Which shows them immediately reaching Chiffon Star in an instance.
Onboard the ship, a large legion of mechanical bodies known as Heavy Lobsters patrol the area. Equipped with rocket boosters and flamethrowers, they have the ability to charge through walls and deploy miniature drones to attack foes. Additionally, Heavy Lobsters can shoot out a goopy substance that can blind opponents. They come in several makes, with the Silver variant being the strongest currently known model.
The Halberd is powered by the Reactor, a crystal nestled deep within the bowels of the aircraft. Defended by an exorbitant amount of miniature cannons, it is indestructible to Kirby, unless he manages to reflect one of its own rockets at the Reactor.
One time, while combating Star Dream, Kirby fused his Robobot Armor with the Halberd, gaining the ability to pilot the ship from his suit of armor. Under Kirby’s direction, the ship was able to defeat the supercomputer, though it’s unclear how much of this was due to the Halberd’s own firepower.
Boost Orbs
Boost Orbs are items that give Meta knight temporary stats or abilities buffs. Even after usage, he can use them again. These powers either need to be activated or are passive. There's quite a bunch of them so let's get going:
Souvenir Items
Thanks to Magolor's attraction park known as Magoland, Meta Knight has some items that he can carry with him, that includes; Energy Drinks that restores health by 50%, Maxim Tomatoes that Heals all your health, Balloon Bombs, which are bombs that constantly grows in size before they explode and Cracklers which are canons that automatically fires a cannonball at enemies, though it explodes after a while. Meta Knight always has access to them and can carry about 99 of each item.
Magoland Items
As said above Meta Knight gained a bunch of fun items thanks to Magolor’s little theme park; Magoland! These little trinkets include;
Scope Shotgun: An energy gun with kilometers of range. It has unlimited shots, can send weapons back and can do more damage with a charge shot.
Ninja Dojo Equipment: Besides a knight he's also a ninja! Which obviously gives him the usual Ninja stuff like a katana, throwing stars and smoke bombs.
Booming blaster: A energy gun that with every two hits evolves into a stronger weapon.
Super Blaster: A much stronger version of the blaster that shoots out a super shot, a technique that pierces through walls and defenses to strike down multiple rivals.
Energy capsule: of course the blasters aren't unlimited, these capsules are used to recharge ammo for the gun.
Smash Star: A warp star like vehicle used to smash others away. Seeing how it looks the same as the warp star and having some of its abilities in general, it is possible it has the same abilities as it.
Kirby Fighters 2 Items
In fighters 2 Meta Knight can use a bunch of random items during battle and with a ton of them having random effects added to it. These items are:
Cheer Pom-Poms: Use to dance for a while as it massively amps your power. There’s no shame in doing this.
Dash Shoes: Fight too slow for you? Well with these shoes Meta knight gains a double increase on speed and mobility! He also gains a cool new blue glow during it. While the effect is temporary he can use it more than once.
Microphone; I don’t think anyone likes earrape, too bad that’s not the only thing that the microphone does, besides busting your ears, it also damages your entire body with sound based attacks. Fun.
Mint leaf: You basically drug yourself, this causes Meta knight to float and spit out unlimited air bullets for a limited amount of time. These air bullets are much faster than DDD's and Kirby's.
Timed Dynamite: More explosives less go, Once Meta knight picks it up, the clock starts ticking and once it makes a full cycle, shit goes boom.
Zap capsule: A small capsule with an even smaller plug inside. Attacking will cause it to charge electricity which it'll later use to Zap Meta Knight's opponents into Kingdom come.
Cracker: A giant firework cracker, larger than Kirby himself. This firework launches itself to its victim and creates a giant firework explosion upon impact. Dealing massive damage. Ouch.
Ice Container: Everyone needs to crack a cold one, definitely in this heat. This heavy block of ice usually holds three random items that Meta Knight can get after cracking it open. These items range from some pretty minor healing to some game changing products. These items include; Various food items, Maxim Tomatoes, Cheer Pom-Poms, Dash Shoes, Cracklers, Invincible Candies, Gordo Balls, Mikes, and more.
Action Star
Again in Kirby fighters 2 there’s a small shiny star called “The Action Star”. What it does is upon touch, causes completely random events to happen. These events range from; Increasing everyone’s speed, making all Meta Knight’s opponents to fall in a deep sleep, decrease the speed and mobility of all Meta Knight’s opponents, drop random food items (which can include a maximum tomato sometimes), drop three timed dynamites, drop three crackers, drop bombs on everyone (including ghost fighters), and the weirdest of them all, make everyone on the battlefield explode! Forcing them to continue fighting with just 1 hp left.
Story Items
During Fighters 2 story mode, the player can choose several items after each round too upgrade themselves however they want.
Outfits
Honestly these don’t do much but give Meta Knight cool new looks and technically completely different weapons which he uses to use his abilities with. Guess it helps show Meta Knight is adaptable with any weapon. Also it technically means he kept the Armor Susie put him in.
Power-Up Hearts
These heart shaped items are used to increase Meta knight statistics and can be shared with his allies. These special hearts can amp his strength, health/durability and speed or all of it at once. However Meta Knight can only use each of them 5 times as the max. The max of the attack heart is a 3x boost, the max of the health heart is a 1.5x boost and the max of the speed heart is a 1.5x boost as well. However there’s also the All-Up heart that increases all their stats up by 1 every time it’s used, giving Meta Knight another 5x boost.
1-UPs
Meta Knight can carry up to 99 1-UPs, and when one is used, Meta Knight will resume the fight, completely recovered. When Meta Knight loses a life, his body is completely destroyed, which means the 1-UPs have no real physical limit. 1-UPs are referenced in-universe, which means their applicability in gameplay is technically canon.
Master Hand?
When Meta Knight is met with a game over, a mysterious hand can appear to push him to keep fighting. This hand actually appears a lot in Kirby games, where it often wakes Kirby up when he is asleep after being defeated. There is no reason why it couldn't do the same for Meta Knight if he were also asleep.
Dream Rod
The Friend Heart isn't the only way that Meta Knight can acquire allies. With the Dream Rod, Meta Knight can summon many other notable Kirby characters to his aid, who will help him in battle. These include:
King Dedede
Bandana Waddle Dee
Adeleine & Ribbon
Daroach
Dark Meta Knight
Gooey
Magolor
Marx
Rick, Kine & Coo
Susie
Taranza
The Three Mage Sisters
Abilities
Riku
Dark Aura
Usually, Dark Aura is a technique where Riku rushes at the opponent from all sides, flying while teleporting around them to ensure that they cannot avoid the attack. However, in Kingdom Hearts 2, it's a bit different. In that game, Riku can send out dark fire to the target, stopping their movements for a short period of time.
Darkstorm
Riku’s limit break attack, Riku can slash around the target consecutively, dealing significant damage, but it can only be activated once Riku is low on health.
Dark Shield
Being dark and edgy doesn't always mean violence. Riku is able to create a barrier around himself or his allies for a couple seconds that can nullify incoming attacks and magic - like a shield, but dark.
Dark Firaga
Because he's just too edgy for regular Firaga, Riku can use Dark Firaga and fire out blasts of dark fire from either his hands or his keyblade. This is his main projectile, and it can home in on a target as well as fire multiple dark fireballs at once. What makes dark fire different from regular fire, I don't know, but it's cool.
Thundaga
With Thundaga, Riku can summon multiple powerful lightning bolts from the sky, striking several enemies around himself at once, being notably difficult to avoid.
Blizzaga
Riku can fire an ice based projectile called Blizzaga. Multiple ice crystals can hit the opponent and can hit opponents multiple times by cutting through them, but it is less likely to do this the more hits it lands.
Curaga
Curaga is a healing spell that will recover a massive amount of Riku's health, and in conjunction with another skill Leaf Bracer, will make it so that Riku cannot be interrupted while performing it. The way it is most commonly shown, the drawback to such an ability is that it will deplete all of the user's MP.
Meteor
You saw the gif, Riku can summon a massive fuck off meteor that creates a giant explosion where it lands. The move is pretty self explanatory.
Meteor Crash
In addition to his aforementioned Meteor skill, Riku can also summon several smaller meteors to barrage the opponent.
Slow
Through some method of time manipulation, Riku can slow down the movement speed of multiple enemies at once for a limited period of time.
Stop
Continuing off of Slow, Riku can also completely halt the movement of multiple enemies, freezing them in time for a short period of, erm, time.
Sleep
With Sleep, Riku can instantly put several opponents to sleep for a short period of time, allowing him the chance to attack them or tend to himself.
Poison
Riku can shoot a projectile of undefined poison that can instantly poison the target. While poisoned, their health will slowly drain over time. This effect only lasts for a given period of time before it wears off.
Bind
Riku can use an electric shockwave to bind multiple enemies to their given position. Since it seems to use electricity, this might be a form of paralysis.
Confuse
With Confuse, Riku can inflict the confuse effect on multiple targets at once. When used on enemies, it makes them attack one another, however when a player character is affected by this status effect they will have their controls reversed.
Blackout
By using Blackout, Riku can blind several targets at once, making them unable to see anything for a period of time.
Time Bomb
Riku can trigger a time bomb effect on enemies, creating a set timer until an explosion is triggered. It seems to summon an explosion on their person rather than make them explode, so not quite like Killer Queen, but pretty close.
Mini
Riku can shrink his enemies to a tiny size, making them far weaker and more fragile. Even walking over enemies at this state will deal damage to them.
Balloonga
With Balloonga, Riku can summon several balloons which will home in on the target and deal massive damage. For some reason, this is one of the most damaging attacks in Dream Drop Distance.
Zero Graviza
Riku can use anti-gravity to force his enemies in the air for a period of time, suspending them and leaving them totally open to attack.
Esuna
Esuna allows Riku to remove any status ailments on his person as soon as he activates it.
Vanish
Vanish allows Riku to become completely invisible for a period of time, allowing him to stay undetected from enemies.
Physical Skills
Riku knows how to use a keyblade, and he has learned many specific physical skills while training in the sleeping worlds. In addition, he has also trained under Terra for a full year to learn how to better fight. Here is a list of all the ones that he can use:
Quick Blitz: The user does a curved jumping attack that strikes the enemy.
Blizzard Edge: Wrapping your Keyblade in ice, it allows the user to perform freezing jumping attacks that can cause bursts of ice to erupt from the ground.
Poison Dive: The user dives down and creates a toxic shockwave that can poison ground-based foes.
Spark Dive: Infusing the Keyblade with electricity allows you to perform a slamming dive to stun foes.
Drain Drive: The user jumps and dives down to perform a shockwave that drains HP from nearby foes.
Sliding Dash: The user propels themself forward with their Keyblade to swing at distant enemies.
Thunder Dash: The user dashes towards enemies and attacks dealing thunder damage.
Zantetsukan: The user slices at impossibly fast speeds to deal devastating amounts of damage, it has a 30% chance that instantly destroys weaker enemies.
Strike Raid: The user hurls their Keyblade in a spinning arc, summoning it back, to throw it multiple times at enemies in quick succession.
Spark Raid: The Keyblade is wrapped in light and then hurled at enemies, splitting into beams of light that fly off in all directions.
Circle Raid: The user throws their Keyblade in an orbit around themselves, to strike surrounding foes multiple times.
Aerial Slam: The user knocks an enemy out of the air, forcing them to the ground by smacking them over the head.
Dark Splicer: This allows the user to teleport around the enemy multiple times while slashing at them.
Gravity Strike: This attack allows the user to spin attack on the ground and put enemies into zero gravity.
Confusing Strike: This attack is a swinging motion that confuses enemies.
Tornado Strike: This attack knocks surrounding enemies into the air with a series of whirlwinds.
Prism Windmill: The user spins their Keyblade like a windmill to hit enemies multiple times.
Timestorm: It allows the user to spin their Keyblade like a windmill while rushing the enemy, inflicting stop or slow.
Fire Windmill: The user spins their Keyblade like a windmill, rushing and potentially igniting the enemy.
Icebreaker: An icy slash rockets the user through the air potentially freezing enemies, before following up with a fiery attack that can potentially ignite enemies.
Shadow Breaker: The user assails the enemy with a slash of darkness, before attacking with a slash of light.
Magnet Spiral: The user utilizes magnetic force to pull in foes, before attacking in a spin-attack to hit them all at once.
Limit Storm: The user performs a spinning attack that deals extra damage when the user is at low HP.
Collision Magnet: By pulling an enemy towards themself with magnetic force, they can be thrown crashing into other foes.
Sacrifice: Launch a powerful slash by sacrificing some HP.
Power of Waking
The Power of Waking is a massively powerful ability that Sora and Riku trained to master in the sleeping worlds. In essence, the Power of Waking allows the user to access the insides of people's hearts and “wake” them if their heart is sleeping or in stasis, but it has also been used to just revive people from the dead. Riku was able to use this to enter Sora's own heart and rescue him. As an alternative function, the Power of Waking has also been used by Sora to connect himself to different hearts and transport himself across locations, traversing through not only different worlds but also effectively allowing him to travel through time. Riku should be capable of this as well, however this is an abuse of the Power of Waking and rewrites reality in a forbidden way, and thus it would cause the user to eventually become banished from their original world and lose the Power of Waking entirely.
Ansem-Riku
After fully falling into darkness, Riku becomes corrupted by Ansem's influence and becomes… Ansem-Riku, a sort of hybrid of the two. As Ansem-Riku, he is more powerful than before, can effectively fly by dashing, and can create massive light and dark attacks that cover the whole area. He also attains the Keyblade to the Heart, and the ability to remove hearts, which we will talk about later. Even after Ansem lost, Riku was still able to attain this form again, however it is worth noting that he has not done this again since he lost his powers over darkness in Kingdom Hearts 2, and in Kingdom Hearts 3 Re:Mind, the Ansem-Riku part of him left Riku completely, and then Ansem himself left for good.
Heartless Replica
Back when Riku still had the powers of Darkness and was still working under Maleficent, he was able to create a shadowy clone of his foe Sora. This replica was able to mimic Sora's fighting style and abilities, and is even able to duplicate itself into even more clones. However, each time it does this, it dilutes its power among each clone.
Heart Removal
Normally, it is impossible to remove a living person's heart without being fully consumed by the darkness, like a Heartless. However, as Ansem-Riku, he is able to accomplish this by using the Keyblade to the Heart. When we say “heart”, we do not mean the physical organ, but rather the metaphysical source of their very emotions and sense of self. When this is removed, they will be turned into a Heartless, a beast with little cognitive ability, except for particularly powerful ones.
Ansem, Seeker of Darkness
This isn't even his final form! If Ansem-Riku were to be defeated, Ansem may be manifested separately into his true form. He is even more powerful like this, capable of casual flight, control over Heartless, rushing down his opponents, protective damaging energy shields, and a lot of really, really annoying energy disc attacks.
Dark Figure
This mysterious being is essentially Ansem's own personal JoJo stand which works to protect him and fight on his behalf, and Riku without fully becoming Ansem has also used it before. It can create powerful electric and dark attacks as well as rush down enemies, and even possess their bodies for a short period of time, making them vulnerable to counter-attack by Ansem. In truth, this mysterious adversary is actually Terra, a previous Keyblade wielder who had his body taken over and transformed by Xehanort. Why does Ansem have it? Because that's not really Ansem, but rather Xehanort's Heartless who now calls himself Ansem, obviously.
World of Chaos
This IS his final form and it's really weird. For some reason, if pushed to his limit, Ansem can transform into this giant fleshy flying battleship monster thing. Ansem's regular body is still present, and if defeated it will destroy the whole thing, but he has several lasers and defensive stations on himself to protect his core. If you can't tell by now Kingdom Hearts is really bizarre.
Immortality
Ansem isn't very simple to kill, as he is the darkness within Riku's own heart. When he was completely disintegrated, he managed to reform a physical form, albeit weakened and exhausted from losing his battle. When he was destroyed by Kingdom Hearts, he also did not immediately reform, however as we see in 358/2 Days and Re:Mind, he wasn't destroyed entirely by that either, merely forced back into Riku.
Meta Knight
Star Warrior Physiology
While Meta Knight’s race is not currently known by exact name, the Kirby: Right Back At Ya! anime refers to Kirby and Meta Knight as “Star Warriors”, with Kirby being an infant in comparison to Meta Knight. As such, Meta Knight’s physical makeup should be comparable to Kirby to some extent.
So, what exactly does it mean to be a “star warrior?” Star Warriors are incredibly tiny, often not standing over a foot tall. They are spherical in appearance, with two protruding circles as arms/hands and two ovals as legs/feet. Incredibly marketable, in my opinion (and, apparently, the opinion of Cappy Town as well!)
Additionally, the bodies of star warriors appear to be incredibly malleable. Kirby and Meta Knight can both survive being flattened, impaled, and sucked into black holes with only minor, temporary damage. If their body were to be severely disfigured, they would be able to snap back into place as if nothing happened.
While Kirby’s ability to inhale enemies is purely biological, there is no evidence implying that other Star Warriors can perform a similar action, despite apparently being the same race. Or perhaps Meta Knight can inhale like Kirby but simply chooses not to - it's not a very fitting fighting style for a knight like him.
Swordsmanship
As a veteran of the war against Nightmare, Meta Knight has proven time and time again that he is an incredibly skilled master swordsman. He’s fought countless times both for and against Kirby and even bested Galacta Knight, who is listed to be the best warrior in the galaxy before being dethroned by Meta Knight. His fighting style is quick, precise, and efficient, often striking as hard and as fast as possible. Meta Knight takes his training very seriously - Kirby's whole world spanning adventures are literally just Meta Knight’s daily training regimen. He trains every single day, which is really saying a lot considering that he has been fighting for over a thousand years. Meta Knight is stated to be overwhelmingly superior in swordfighting then Blade and Sword knight, with Blade and Sword Knight themselves stated to have perfect swordsmanship compared to the rest of the Meta Knights and his men himself was stated to be “nothing but the cream of the crops”. So pretty good swordsmanship.
Meta Knight uses several mundane sword techniques across the Kirby series, whether friend or foe.
Overhead Slash: Originally known as Meta Chop in Kirby Super Star, Meta Knight slashes forward with his sword in an arcing motion.
Knight Beam: A variation of the Overhead Slash that fires a blade of energy, damaging foes. This technique is only available when Meta Knight is at full health, which is likely a nod to the Legend of Zelda series.
Meta Triple Slash: A followup to Overhead Slash that allows Meta Knight to swing two more times.
Uppercut: Meta Knight makes a secondary slash following the Overhead Slash, sending the target upwards. It is less accurate than the Overhead Slash, but it is more powerful and can hit slightly airborne enemies.
Meta Multithrust: Meta Knight attacks with a fast barrage of stabs that are nearly impossible to see. This occurs in sequence with Overhead Slash and Uppercut.
Decisive Slash: Meta Knight closes the Meta Multithrust with a powerful final swing.
Sky Knight Sword: Meta Knight holds his sword upwards, charging it with energy. He then performs a crescent slash upon using Overhead Slash.
Piercing Slash: A dashing attack in which Meta Knight lunges forward, hitting the target multiple times.
Knight Spin: Meta Knight, while airborne, somersaults with his sword extended.
Underwater Spin: An attack exclusively reserved for underwater situations in which Meta Knight rolls with his sword outreached, similar to his Knight Spin.
Down Thrust: Meta Knight leaps into the air and then drops straight downward with his sword beneath him, planting it into the ground. With this technique he’s also capable of releasing shockwaves, some of them having strange homing effects.
Up Thrust: Meta Knight jumps and slashes upwards with his sword, damaging enemies above them.
Sword Dive: Meta Knight slams down on top of the foe from the air.
Final Sword: A ground-exclusive move in which Meta Knight jumps in the air and does a flip, falls with his sword outstretched, and slams against the ground, creating a projectile that travels quickly across the ground. This move and its alternate variation Final Cutter are the direct inspirations for Kirby’s up special in the Super Smash Bros. series.
Meta Spin Slash: Meta Knight winds back his sword while charging, then twirls rapidly with it outstretched, hitting enemies to both sides in a close range.
Meta Condor Dive: Meta Knight dives diagonally downwards, sending out two shockwave projectiles to either side on impact.
Shuttle Loop: Meta Knight flies in a loop and enters a gliding state afterwards where he can soar forwards with semi-realistic physics, accelerating when he flies downwards and stalling when he flies upwards. This ability is also his up special in the Super Smash Bros. series.
Meta Triple Slash: Meta Knight performs three slashes with his sword - one after the other - as he moves forward.
Guard: Meta Knight holds out Galaxia in a defensive position, becoming immune to damage.
Galactic Counter: Meta Knight holds Galaxia out in front of him, similar to a guarding position. If he were to be hit by an incoming attack, he quickly sidesteps and counters with a quick forward slash. In the Novel, Meta Knight uses Galactic Counter through taking the enemies strength and sending it right back at them. This move was so powerful it one shot Morpho Knight.
Mach Tornado
Perhaps his most iconic move, Meta Knight can spin so fast that he summons a vortex around his body. The miniature tornado makes him practically impervious to attacks while also knocking the wind (pun not intended) out of any foe that makes contact with him, or any Brawl players.
Crescent Shot
What kind of knight would he be without crescent shaped energy attacks? His most common projectile, Meta Knight can fire bite-sized Getsuga Tenshos by simply swinging his sword, cutting down anyone in his way. However Meta Knight has several versions of this funky ability. He can shoot out 3 bigger and more fiery versions of the Crescent Shot consecutively, also in blue fire as well. He can rapidly fire these crescent shots continuously. He can fire Crescent shots that intensely home in on their targets. And lastly he can fire a gigantic and darker versions of the Crescent Shot several times, which also somehow releases bats with it.
Upper Calibur
Basically a sword uppercut, Meta Knight can drive Galaxie towards you, propelling you into the air before quickly reappearing around you and slashing at the target. He probably doesn't need to do all that, he just likes showing off. Notably, this attack will ignore blocks, so your only hope is to avoid it outright or try to overpower him.
Meta Quick
Meta Knight might not be good at naming his moves, but Meta Quick can still increase his already insane speed, giving him a boost in acceleration when running, flying or fighting.
Knight Call/Meta Knightmares
Meta Knight commands a whole legion of loyal soldiers at his side, none of them too smart but they are dangerous all the same. He can summon them immediately to his area to help him fight, or alternatively, pose with him to create a giant explosion, however that works. He commonly commands his subordinates into battle against his foes before he fights them himself.
Special
In Kirby’s Extra Epic Yarn; Slash & Bead. Meta Knight gains a new ability, if his meter is completely full he can send out a special attack which instantly kills all enemies on screen and pulls in all their valuables to Meta Knight.
Heal
It does what it says on the can, Meta Knight can magically heal himself from his injuries, recovering his entire health bar and capable of fully recovering his stamina. It also temporarily gives Meta Knight a small speed boost.
Item Stealing
Meta Knight is able to steal away items from his opponents that are in their in-game inventory and not openly wielding. He is even able to increase the amount of items that he can steal with the boost Orb Cashgrabber.
Flight
Meta Knight sports a pair of batlike wings that he can use to fly. This flight is widely applicable, as he uses them to fly mid-combat at fast speeds as well as across large expanses of the cosmos. Meta Knight’s flight has been shown to keep a similar pace to Kirby’s Warp Star in the past, and Meta Knight has blitzed other characters, including Kirby himself, with these instances of flight. In addition, Meta Knight can passively damage an opponent just by flying near them.
Telekinesis
For some bizarre reason, Meta Knight has shown the ability to control objects remotely. He mainly uses this unique ability to lift and throw large rocks at his opponent. Meta Knight can get quite excessive with this power.
Duplication
Whether through speed, trickery, or some other magical process, Meta Knight has duplicated himself during a few of his fights. Each clone can act independently of one another, and are often used in conjunction with the “real” Meta Knight in order to bolster attacks. However that’s not the only way for him to duplicate. Through using his sword; Galaxia, Meta knight’s capable of splitting himself into separate versions of himself. His mirror counterpart; Dark Meta Knight, has shown to be capable of doing something similar but in a more offensive style. In The Amazing Mirror, we were shown that Dark Meta Knight had the ability to split his enemies into four different and weaker versions of themselves in a single sword swing.
Attack Reflection
Just like many people in the series, Meta Knight’s capable of sending his opponents attacks right back at them. May it be physical attacks or any energy/magical one, If Meta Knight clashes against it with his sword it’ll always get sent flying back to the sender. An interesting aspect of this is that the attack always homes in against the user, making sure it always hits them no matter what. In the anime Meta Knight has also shown to be capable of reflecting attacks back at the user through Galaxia, such as when he reflected the hell fire attack from Chili Dog.
Fire Blast
By swinging his sword, Meta Knight can send out massive blasts of fire to burn his foes.
Electricity
Through some unknown method, Meta Knight can generate electricity on the ground with Galaxia, sending it out on the ground to zap his enemies.
Tornado Strike
Not to be confused with the Mach Tornado, Meta Knight can generate a swirling vortex of wind and energy which cannot be jumped over and extends a far distance ahead of him, great for keeping a distance if he needs it.
Enhanced Senses & Instinctive Reactions
Meta Knight is capable of sensing the energies of others, and is so skillful at combat and detecting opponents movements that he can even fight and react to attacks while his eyes are closed, which he has done more than once. While Meta Knight was about to get mindhaxed by the jewel, he had his consciousness become faint, blinded and his mind became completely blank, and succumbed to that power. However he was still able to use his instincts to parry most of the Knives Gallic threw while he couldn't do much of anything. He could also sense something wrong with Galaxia, and turns out it was a fake! It also helps that Meta Knight's senses are much greater than others as while he could feel the presence of someone coming, the others needed to strain their ears to hear it.
Galaxia Darkness
That's right, that move from Smash is canon. By throwing his cape, Meta Knight can shroud the whole area in darkness before delivering a mighty strike, one shotting any unlucky fodder in his vicinity. This move seems to halt the movement of all his foes and releases the attack in a large area of effect akin to a time stop, making it incredibly difficult, if not impossible to avoid.
Revival Spell
A technique that allows Meta Knight to heal fallen or bring back dead allies. As seen in the Kirby Clash series, they’re even able to bring back allies when their soul has already left their bodies. So it’s a helpful technique to help with teamwork.
Ghost Meta Knight
If Meta Knight were to die, he can continue fighting as an incorporeal spirit. For Meta Knight in particular, he can vanish, making himself completely intangible and invisible, even to other ghosts. All he needs to do is touch someone and Meta Knight will reform a completely new body from scratch, ready to continue fighting good as new. It should be worth noting that Kirby characters can destroy other ghostly enemies, (these same enemies are directly called ghosts in Forgotten Land) and while they can interact with and “harm” the ghost of Meta Knight (as well as Kirby and other characters), they cannot destroy his spirit like they can his body, meaning that even the ability to interact with spirits and damage them would not be enough to destroy his invincible soul. This would make Meta Knight very difficult to kill for good.
This gets supported more in the light novels, where Meta Knight went to hell- i mean Hades! Pretty much the Underworld. Where he was half dead, wandering between dead and alive. Meta Knight’s soul was wandering around trying to get to his body, however if his body dies for good, he’d be stuck in Hades. It usually takes three days for that to happen though. In Kirby the undead/ghosts cannot die due already being dead in the first place, no matter how bad the injuries are. Though obviously if you get your wings cut off you won’t be able to fly again because your wings are gone. Thanks to being souls, Meta Knight doesn’t have the problems he'd have with the usual physical body, he doesn’t get tired, doesn’t need to eat or drink, doesn’t feel drowsy, doesn't get sick and doesn't feel any pain. While they cannot die, inhabitants of Hades have the ability to weaken others powers through injuring each other enough times, however that's mostly a Hades thing. Essentially this makes Meta Knight's soul extremely hard to kill and pretty much indestructible!
However if he doesn't want to get back to his physical body, he can just will it back to him, fully healed as well. Having his body come back to him right when he came back to the world of living. Captain Vul went more into it stating that, usually one's soul comes back to the body, however Meta Knight's heart/will is so much stronger that he somehow brought his body back to him. Also confirming his willpower is ridiculously powerful, even stronger than his very own physical body. With them later saying that, Meta Knight's desire to fight a strong opponent caused that miracle to somehow happen. Meaning he can simply get his body back through pure willpower.
Respawning
Kirby characters do not seem to be able to die permanently. As established earlier, Meta Knight can revive with 1-UPs and can also revive with his ghost form, however even after losing all of his lives he does not actually die. As seen in Kirby Battle Royale, when Meta Knight dies, his soul leaves his body and then dissipates before Meta Knight’s body is reformed anew. This isn't exclusive to Meta Knight, Kirby, Waddle Dees and King Dedede also display this ability, as do, uh, every single fodder enemy in Kirby games. You know how after you defeat an enemy, they will respawn after you go back to their location? Well, that mechanic is technically canon. Some enemies are able to respawn after having their souls destroyed, or even after being reduced to data and having said data completely destroyed. As additional support, boss battles slowly become more tired the more you fight against them after losing, showing that Kirby characters don't ever actually die when they lose fights and can just keep retrying.
Feats
Riku
Overall
Defeated Ansem
Passed the Mark of Mastery and became a Keyblade Master
Saved Sora from becoming the thirteenth member of the true Organization XIII
Defeated the Armored Ventus Nightmare from within Sora's heart
Along with Mickey and Sora, defeated Young Xehanort, Ansem and Xemnas in one sitting
Power
Held off a massive amount of Heartless for a significant time
Constantly portrayed as relative to Sora, who:
His constant battles with Sora and other top tiers such as Xemnas, Ansem and Xehanort put him in league with other feats from Kingdom Hearts characters, such as:
Fought alongside Sora at the end of Kingdom Hearts 3, meaning he is relative to Xehanort and the χ-Blade, which were defeated by Sora
Speed
Somehow was fast enough to beat Young Xehanort before that stupid fucking clock reset his boss fight
Relative to Sora, who:
Relative to several other Kingdom Hearts characters, such as:
Larxene, who can move around while transformed into a bolt of lightning
Zeus, who can rearrange stars in a quick manner (87.882 Million c)
Ventus, Aqua and Terra, who often fly across worlds (137 Million c)
While Keyblade Gliders are often seen opening portals, this is only to exit the world's barriers. We see them fly through the Ocean Between physically several times.
As established, is relative to end of KHIII Sora, who can keep up with and avoid attacks from Xehanort and the χ-Blade, which commanded the power of Kingdom Hearts
Durability & Resistances
Withstood the long drawl of boss battles at the final sequence of Dream Drop Distance
Can survive attacks from Heartless, who can absorb others hearts and cause life to wither
Ultimately developed a resistance to Ansem's corruption and the darkness itself
Meta Knight
Overall
Is one of the last surviving Star Warriors, fending off eNeMeE and living to tell the tale
Fought Kirby numerous times, always proving to be a worthwhile match
Defeated King Dedede, Dyna Blade, Wham Bam Rock, Dark Matter, Queen Sectonia, and several other notable fighters and bosses
Casually blew up his own fucking ship (is he stupid)
Capable of defeating Galacta Knight, who is known as the “strongest warrior in the galaxy” and does so in the Novel
Defeated Morpho Knight on his own in the novels
Broke Brawl
Power
Galaxia is powerful enough to summon whole meteors
His bout with Kirby was described as “shaking the heavens”
Galaxia is stated to possess infinite power
Alongside Kirby, King Dedede, and Bandana Dee, defeated Magolor while he was empowered by the Master Crown. Meta Knight is generally comparable to Magolor in his base form as well, who was able to defeat the Master Crown on his own
Magolor believed that, with the power of the crown, the universe would be his
This is supported by pause menu descriptions
Magolor’s defeat caused the collapse of Another Dimension, an “extra-dimensional” bulk space between universes
Magolor believed that his black holes could suck in all of Another Dimension (confirmed by our independent translator)
Has battled Kirby while Kirby was using his “true strength”
Kirby destroyed a large chunk of the moon in his battle with Nightmare
Kirby knocked a large meteor several thousands of lightyears away from Popstar with a wooden bat.
Kirby is stated as having “infinite” power.
This is corroborated by Star Dream’s analysis of Kirby & WOG statements.
Contributed along with Kirby and other Star Allies in defeating Void Termina
Void Termina was hailed as being able to crush stars and was considered to be able to destroy “everything” aswell as “all tomorrows”.
Once again, this is supported by pause menu descriptions
Void Termina’s death created a fireball that eclipsed several galaxies (10^53 kg of mass)
Should be relative to many other enemies that Kirby has defeated in the past, such as:
Speed
Stole a chest right from under Kirby and Daroach’s nose, with neither being able to react
In the novel, he dodges machine gun fire.
Casually escapes Popstar’s atmosphere and flies deep into space to other planets
Comparable to the Halberd
The Halberd rose from the seabed to outside Popstar’s atmosphere in less than a minute
Relative to Kirby, who can hit a meteor 9,999 lightyears away in seconds (14 Billion c)
Consistently shown to be comparable in speed to Kirby’s Warp Star (Kirby’s Air Ride, Kirby Super Star Ultra, Kirby's Return to Dream Land, etc.), and has piloted it himself in fringe scenarios
Should be relative to Ribbon and Dark Matter, who can travel from Ripple Star to Popstar in a short timeframe (3.6 Trillion c)
Flew from Nova to Popstar, which is at the edge of the galaxy (6 Trillion c)
Along with Kirby, is capable of fighting Void Termina while piloting the Star Allies Sparkler, which is fast enough to escape a massive explosion that eclipsed galaxies (251 Trillion c)
Comparable to King Dedede, who can dodge flying pieces of the Jamba Heart, which scattered across the universe (in-game source, re-translated from original Japanese) (587 Quadrillion c)
Relative to Magolor, who can affect all of Another Dimension with his black holes, which Meta Knight and Kirby can outspeed (Confirmed by our independent translator) (12 Quintillion c - Immeasurable)
Durability & Resistances
Survives continuous scuffles with Kirby
The main cast are capable of surviving being sucked into Magolor’s black holes
Is perfectly fine with being spat out by Dedede as a star, then reforming
Is able to resist a ghost's possession and transfer it onto others
Endured a gauntlet against President Haltman, Sectonia, Dark Matter and Galacta Knight
Went down with the ship as Kirby sunk the Halberd, emerging completely fine after the fact
Can survive being hit by Kirby’s Ultra Ability Super Bowl, which is stated to be absolute zero.
In the manga, survived being hit so hard that it created a constellation
Weaknesses
Riku
Riku’s skills all require MP to activate, and if he is not careful, he will be left without any MP remaining, forced to helplessly jump and prance around the battlefield, avoiding his opponent until he can recover his MP, as is the fighting style of the keyblade warriors in Kingdom Hearts. Also, relatively speaking, Riku hasn't really been fighting all that long or consistently. He only has a few fights in most mainline titles with exceptions in Re:Com and in Dream Drop Distance, and he only has a year of proper training under Terra and when fighting in the Sleeping Worlds.
Meta Knight
Despite his seeming wisdom among the cast of Kirby, he has been tricked, mind controlled, corrupted, joined the wrong side before, and has really odd motivations at times, such as leading a military takeover of Dreamland due to their physical laziness, like a fascist Sportacus. He also has some stern sense of honor, and will allow his opponent a sword in battle if they do not already have one, so he won't be pulling very many cheap shots. In fact, a game guide itself says that pulling cheap shots on him is the best way to defeat him. Also, he's bad at cooking.
Summary
Riku
“We can't let fear stop us! I'm not afraid of the darkness!”
Advantages:
Greater abilities
Multiple methods of impeding Meta Knight’s mobility
BALLOONS.
With Ansem…
Could counter Meta Knight's numbers advantage with Heartless
Removing Meta Knight's heart could defeat him
Ansem is difficult to fully kill
Disadvantages:
Weaker
Slower
Less experienced
Less equipment and support items
Friend Heart could counter Ansem’s immortality
Meta Knight
“This darkness must meet my sword!”
Advantages:
Stronger
Faster
Far more experienced
Larger arsenal of items
Could gain a numbers advantage with duplication and soldier summoning
Has various counters to Riku's abilities
Ghost Meta Knight is nearly impossible to kill
Friend Heart could end the fight, even against Ansem
Disadvantages:
Less abilities
Having his heart removed could counter Ghost Meta Knight
Dedede has the better theme music honestly
Before the Verdict
Kingdom Hearts Cosmology
(Credit to u/kamozerozero for the map)
The cosmology of Kingdom Hearts can be pretty abstract and complex, so we are dedicated to a section going over this blogs overall interpretation and covering up any misconceptions about the topic.
In Kingdom Hearts, you travel between several different worlds, usually (but not always) represented by a different Disney franchise, or at least Kingdom Hearts own variation of said Disney franchise. All of these worlds are located within every star system, which is shown to be literal. This kind of visualization of worlds occurs a lot, and Sora travels between them by moving through the Ocean Between in a spaceship through a clearly space themed minigame. The Ocean Between is essentially meant to represent outer space. Every Kingdom Hearts game presents the universe in this way, and hasn't really strayed from this form of cosmology. The cosmology of Kingdom Hearts containing every world has also been referred to as a universe multiple times. Worlds are isolated from each other by impassible walls, however these walls aren't supposed to exist, and we know that these worlds occupy the same physical space due to the Ansem Reports.
Ansem Report #5
To study the Heartless behavior, I picked one out for observation. It wiggled its antennae and, as if sensing a target, headed deep into the castle. In the deepest part of the castle, its antennae began vibrating, as if searching for something. Suddenly, a strange door appeared. I'd never known of its existence.
It had a large keyhole, but didn't seem to be locked. So I opened the door. What I saw on the other side mystified me. What was that powerful mass of energy? That night I observed a great meteor shower in the sky. Could it be related to the door that I have opened?
Ansem Report #6
A massive core of energy lay beyond the door sought by the Heartless. It may be the ultimate goal of the Heartless. But what is that energy? I have devised a hypothesis, based upon my observations of the Heartless.
The Heartless feed on other's hearts, and they yearn for that energy core. That thing beyond the door must be a heart, too--the heart of this world. There is no proof, but, having felt that immense energy, I am certain. That was the heart of the world.
The Heartless are trying to take hearts not only from all living creatures, but from the planet itself. But what do they mean to do with the heart of the world?
Ansem Report #7
I am studying material from the meteors that rained down that fateful night. What a find! The material is foreign to our world. It is elastic to the touch, and when two pieces are combined, they bond easily. None of the records even mention such a substance.
Was it introduced to this world when I opened the door? I wonder how many other such materials drift through the atmosphere of this tiny world... I wish I could soar off and find out! Could there be uncharted worlds up there? My curiosity never ceases to grow.
But I should stop speaking of such unrealistic dreams. For now, there is no way to venture outside this world. My people and I are all but prisoners of this tiny place.
Ansem Report #9
Simply astonishing! Today I had a guest from another world. He is a king, and his vessel is built of the material that composed the meteors. He called the pieces "gummi blocks". It seemed that my opening the door has opened a path to interworld travel.
We talked for countless hours, but one story in particular caught my interest: that of a key called the "Keyblade". The Keyblade is said to hold phenomenal power.
One legend says its wielder saved the world, while another says that he wrought chaos and ruin upon it. I must know what this Keyblade is. A key opens doors. It must be connected to the door I have opened.
Ansem Report #11
Opening the door to a world's heart causes its walls to crumble.
These fragments are seen as shooting stars.
This explains why these "gummi blocks" can travel freely to other worlds.
I know the catalyst of this collapse—the appearance of the Heartless. However, it will take time to search out the worlds' doors and to retrieve each heart.
Furthermore, the doors can be locked using a Keyblade, making the heart forever unattainable. I must take action before the wielder of the key appears in this world.
If the princesses and the Keyblade are connected, they should resonate.
I've chosen a girl. I don't know if she holds the princesses' powers, but I will find out. She may lead me to the key bearer.
I shall set her free and observe.
Essentially, the only reason why worlds are closed off from each other is because the hearts of their worlds are locked. When they are unlocked, these physical barriers shatter, allowing one to access the different worlds by normal means. Ansem also refers to their worlds as planets, and speaks specifically about how the barriers material exists in their world's atmosphere and talks about how he wishes to see more worlds outside of his own. This would make no sense if each world was actually a fully sized universe and it is directly contradicted by Ansem, but if you really think about it, it wouldn't make sense to begin with.
We know from Birth By Sleep that every star they see is the location of another world, so think about the implications of that. If every world was indeed a universe, and every star was a different world, then that means that these universes only have one star, their own sun. This would suggest that these hypothetical dimensions are extremely small, not nearly the size of a full universe. Have that said, each world does have their own time axis, which makes sense as it would explain why decades and centuries in lore can go by while the Disney characters like Snow White seem to stay the same age throughout. However, this by itself is not enough to prove that worlds are as large as full universes.
However, despite this, it is still worth going through the arguments for worlds being universes to show that the case for it is fairly weak in general, and some of the arguments for it even harm its case.
“Zeus rearranging stars implies that star systems ≠ worlds”
This argument is frankly bizarre. The argument is that Sora does not seem to mind Zeus doing that, but there is no reason to assume that this act was harmful to anyone, or that those worlds were inhabited. It's trying to gleam more from the scene than it is really trying to convey, which is not meant to be a statement on cosmology. On the other hand, Terra very directly tells us that each star in the sky is another world, which is far more explicit of a lore explanation and should be prioritized. There's also nothing stating that the barrier would prevent someone's telekinesis from affecting other worlds, the barrier has only prevented physical travel, and several Disney characters have magic that can affect Heartless and Nobodies, so it's not a massive stretch that Zeus, a very powerful entity, may be able to breach the barrier as well, if it had such a constraint. Also, other Disney characters have breached the barrier before without gummi blocks, namely the Galactic Federation, but we will talk more about that later.
“The Toy Story world is stated to be its own timeline”
This is not what Nomura has stated, let's look at what he actually said, with complete context.
Nomura: The catchphrase was added after editing on both trailers, but since Sora begins with diving and sliding energetically. I absolutely wanted to close with the words "jump in." Based on that, I thought about the original catchphrase, and returned to the original concept of KH. I argued that the Toy Story world was absolutely necessary in KHIII. As I was setting up for the first Kingdom Hearts game, I was talking through the various parts of the story...that was long ago. (laughs) John Lasseter was in Japan, and I was asked to tell him about the specifications, and tell him what I wanted to include.
--- Is this during the first Toy Story movie in the timeline?
Nomura: The Toy Story world has an original story that cuts out [from the timeline] after the second film, Sora and company aren’t tied up in the [film stories]. It’s not a parallel setting. Events in KHIII will also be included in the Toy Story series timeline.
Nomura was talking about the timeline in terms of the order of events in the Toy Story movies and how they fit into Kingdom Hearts, not an in-universe separate timeline. He never says that they are a distinct timeline, and if anything contradicts it by talking about how it fits into Kingdom Hearts’ own timeline.
Now, we are going to get into the real meat of world-universe Kingdom Hearts discussion, which is the Stitch stuff. I'm going to cover every scan and argument from it that I could get to present a holistic view of this argument.
The Galactic Federation's role
The Grand Councilwoman is stated to oversee the universe, and the Galactic Federation obviously travels across space in the Lilo & Stitch series as well as in Kingdom Hearts. We know that people are normally unable to exit and travel to other worlds without gummi blocks, so wouldn't the Galactic Federation necessarily require a universe sized world narratively?
Well you might want to hold onto that thought and what that implies, because in Terra's story, we can directly, visibly see the Galactic Federation fly through the Ocean Between. This not only disproves the argument that the Galactic Federation could only operate in the Deep Space world, but it also directly suggests that the Ocean Between is the stand in for the universe itself in Kingdom Hearts. After all, the Grand Councilwoman does not oversee a multiverse, she operates within a universal setting. If the Galactic Federation operates on a scale extending across the Ocean Between, and thus the larger Kingdom Hearts universe, then that means that the Lilo & Stitch story in Kingdom Hearts is not confined to one world, further supporting the interpretation that worlds are meant to be planets/star systems as they are consistently portrayed.
If Kingdom Hearts is one universe, is Stitch the strongest character in Kingdom Hearts???
No, but let's talk about this. The exact quote goes as follows:
"Experiment 626 (Stitch) The most powerful biological weapon in the universe, created by Dr. Jumba. He was supposed to only have an instinct for destruction, but through meeting Terra, Ventus and Aqua, he awakens the idea of "bonds".
Stitch is not called the most powerful being in the universe, as some have claimed, but rather he is the most powerful biological weapon in the universe, which is a massive distinction. This statement isn't meant to be a statement on cosmology, it is simply repeating what it said in his own series, that Jumba created him to be the greatest biological weapon ever, which isn't the same as being the strongest person ever. Even if you try to argue that other Kingdom Hearts characters could be considered “biological weapons”, it ignores the point that this is an ultra-specific scientific term and that the writer likely was not considering other characters to be in this specific category.
What about the statements that Stitch comes from another universe?
For the record, I am not accusing anyone of purposely mistranslating scans, nor am I saying that anyone is poor at translating. However, based on the information given to us by our personal translator, previous translations saying that Stitch comes from a different universe do not line up with our own research. There are multiple scans commenting on where Stitch exactly came from, so let's go over all of them. If they seem rough or grammatically odd, it is because I requested a literal translation rather than a corrected version, but we will go over what they mean in a bit.
KHII Ultimania:
Born in the far space, a mysterious life form wandered into the Hollow Bastion from the world he used to live in. Is a mischievous and uncontrollable hooligan, however feeling of "Ohana (family)"'s importance is strong. It seems that Stitch recognized Sora, whom he met in Ansem's lab, as Ohana and helps with his ray gun and ukulele performances.
Pre-KHIII Ultimania:
A mysterious life form born in the distant space. Makes the HP prize to emerge and makes Sora's MP fully recover, but is whim, so it is unknown when and what kind of action he's going to take.
KHIII Ultimania:
Alien, made under the { Trial Product 626 } number in the genetic experiment. Is a naughty rascal, escaped the investigating installation placed in the far space, and got picked up by a small girl called Lilo on the island [where he had an] emergency landing. Values Ohana (family), and receives help from Ohana and Sora, [the one who] observed him.
To anglicize this, all of the scans say that Stitch came from far away in space. Think like, “the far reaches of space”, or “far out into space”, or even “Deep Space”, I am sure that sounds familiar. Various machine translations have also supported this interpretation, but what really matters is that our Japanese speaker does not believe that the context supports the interpretation of Stitch coming from a different universe.
Not only does this not support the idea that worlds are universes, it even further supports the opposite argument. If Stitch came from far out into space, that suggests that the worlds all exist in one universe, and it makes more sense that way if you think about it. Stitch probably didn't even come from the Deep Space world, since the Galactic Federation was flying into that direction when they had already imprisoned Stitch and Jumba, which suggests that Jumba made him somewhere else.
So what is Deep Space, anyway?
At the very least, I do find the Deep Space argument understandable, in that it is a world that is just a vague area of space. However, since we do not have any more evidence suggesting that Deep Space is a universe and plenty of evidence against it, I think saying that it is because of that alone is rather presumptuous. It is possible that they were in a star system that didn't have a planet, or that Deep Space is simply different from most other worlds and is just a vague segment of space. After all, one of the worlds in Kingdom Hearts is literally just a big whale, so it wouldn't be unprecedented to have a world that isn't a conventional world.
All in all, the evidence for worlds being whole universes is pretty weak. It lacks substantial evidence and it doesn't make sense logically or narratively with the consistent presentation of the Kingdom Hearts universe throughout the games. It makes so much more sense if worlds were just planets and star systems, with a few unconventional outliers, while assuming that worlds are universes would open up a ton of problems that are never really fully resolved by supporters of this claim.
Having that said, it is still possible for the Kingdom Hearts universe to be infinite in size, as there are a few statements which make that claim. It is possible that they aren't completely literal, but it can work as a valid interpretation if you chose to go that route.
In addition, while worlds may not be universes, that doesn't mean that the Kingdom Hearts cosmology can't be larger than our observable universe. Within the Kingdom Hearts cosmology exists more than just the material universe, which is known as the Realm of Light. Deeper than that is the Realm of Darkness and the Realm Between. The Realm of Darkness is the counterpart to the Realm of Light, which is where worlds consumed by the Heartless reside, whereas the Realm Between is an in-between space between them, as the name would imply. Kingdom Hearts, the source of all light and hearts in the universe, is also able to act as a direct gateway between the Realm of Light and Darkness via the Door to Darkness. We see that the Kingdom Hearts technically exists in both the Realm of Light and Darkness.
It would not be a massive presumption to equate the sizes of the Realms of Light and Darkness, giving their matching roles and that the universe technically started as only Darkness until Kingdom Hearts produced light. There is, however, not as much information about the size of the Realm Between, nor any reason to assume it is equivalent in size to a whole universe. There are also other realms, such as the data realm, the realm of memories and the sleeping realm, but they are not physical universes and it is difficult to combine them into any scaling with cosmology affecting feats, as they would already be affected by proxy of the real world. In general, it should be fine to assume that the Kingdom Hearts macrocosm is at least two times, possibly three times the size of the observable universe with this information.
In addition to this is Quadratum, the world that Sora disappeared to at the end of Kingdom Hearts 3. Since it is the setting of Kingdom Hearts 4, we do not know everything about it yet or how it works, however in Melody of Memory, Ansem theorized that it is an “unreality”, a fictional world on the other side of their real world. It should be worth noting that Quadratum is a lower plane of reality than the base setting, and is thus a hypoverse and would not upgrade Kingdom Hearts into an outerversal cosmology.
Kirby Cosmology
Kirby's cosmology begins with the standard universe that Popstar resides in, but there is far more than just that. Ever since Kirby and the Amazing Mirror, we have known about the existence of alternate and parallel dimensions, however this was further expanded upon in Return to Dreamland where we got introduced to the macroversal Another Dimension, but what exactly is it?
Another Dimension is an interdimensional bulk space that exists between every dimension, and is often used to travel to other parallel dimensions. Through its pathways, it provides tunnels to every other dimension in the Kirby multiverse, however we also see it exist as the space around every universe - think of it as a spatial foam that every dimension resides in. There are dozens of dimensions that AD leads to, including the main universe, Halcondria, the ones from Star Allies's Heroes in Another Dimension, and the ones from Return to Dreamland Deluxe, among a few. We have actually been given a conceptual diagram displaying how this cosmological structure works, and although it doesn't capture the entirety of Another Dimension as there are potentially countless other dimensions it could contain, we can use it as a baseline to get a rough estimate for how large it might be at minimum by scaling the universes we do see with the available landscape, as this does not depict the entirety of Another Dimension, which can come out to over a hundred thousand times larger than our own universe. There are alternative methods you can use, for instance angsizing would get it over 50,000 times the size of our observable universe, and some people may contend using a stylized graphic for scaling Another Dimension's size at all. However, it is important to remember that Another Dimension is not only the universes it contains within it, but the space that exists outside of it and in-between the dimensions, which should inherently make it much larger than just the sum of its universes. As the actual scale of Another Dimension's full size is unknown, and stylized graphics have been accepted for map scaling before, we have opted to use this method. It is likely the closest we can get to the developer's intended depiction of the space.
In the Kirby light novels, Another Dimension is suggested to contain infinite space within it multiple times. However, these statements do still fall under the realm of potential hyperbole.
Another Dimension doesn't just connect universes, it extends across time itself and has been used as a medium to travel through time. Game Director Kumazaki's Miiverse interview goes into very explicit detail about how this works:
Q: “While we're on the topic of Meta Knightmare Returns, Galacta Knight was supposed to be sealed away in a crystal, but he broke that seal and showed up again in The True Arena. Are Meta Knightmare Returns and The True Arena connected at all in relation to the story?”
A: “The True Arena is like another "what if" scenario, so you can't really consider everything to be connected. Furthermore, the extra-dimensional road that opens up when Galacta Knight appears transcends space-time, so it's difficult to give it a concrete place in the timeline. But if you consider the stages in which Galacta Knight appeared in the past three games, I think that will give you some food for thought.
Also, once Galacta Knight has shown up, it should be clear why he cuts down Star Dream: It forced him to travel through time and space and so he considers Star Dream his enemy. That's why Galacta Knight appears as an antagonistic sort of character.”
“The third and final Secret Kumazaki Fave goes to ロヘイ!
This screenshot seems to depict the extraordinary meeting of the Lor Starcutter with...itself! This craft is capable of traversing space and time, so a meeting of two Lor Starcutters from different times is certainly possible. Wow, wouldn't it be cool if that really happened?
I wonder - the Lor Starcutter that can be seen when Galacta Knight performs this attack...what time is it from? And, if there is someone inside it, who are they, and where are they going? Presumably, when the rift opens and we can see them, they can see into our world, too! Ooh, it really sets the imagination racing, doesn't it!
Congratulations, ブラウン, たる and ロヘイ!”
In addition, in a May 2023 interview, Kumazaki also reiterates that Another Dimension transcends time and space in the context of alternating passages of time, timelines which Another Dimension encompasses.
What all of this essentially means is that Another Dimension is an extra-temporal dimension, and that by moving through it you are able to also move through time. If you've ever heard about how the 4th dimension is time, it's pretty much like that. It is an extra-dimensional bulk that transcends time, and thus the time axis itself is precluded within Another Dimension. Feats of affecting all of Another Dimension could likely include this as well.
It is often said that the reason why Another Dimension reappears after being destroyed in Return to Dreamland is due to this, and that it exists in multiple points in time. However, this is largely just a fan theory, as there is no official Kirby media stating this to be the case. There is no actual explanation for why Another Dimension re-emerges, similar to how there is no explanation for why characters such as Dark Meta Knight or Marx reappear in later games despite visibly dying in their own stories.
Kumazaki: There is no clear timeline for the game stories. This is to avoid being constrained by past settings, and so that we can easily take on new challenges and prioritize the optimal gameplay experience for each installment — even in a series with a long history.
However, we can't progress the story much if we have Kirby meet King Dedede for the first time in the opening of each game, so new installments inherit story elements that can be naturally accepted and easily understood by the players. For example, we use story elements that are effective at making each new game better, such as when the character Magolor repented his past actions and moved to Dream Land, or when Meta Knight got his revenge on Kirby.
I also pay attention to the details when writing the text for the story. This is because, if future installments are going to inherit these story elements, we need to first prepare detailed settings for each installment. However, the main focus of the Kirby series is action and gameplay, so we prepare the settings required to make these elements more appealing in each game.
This is most likely the actual reason as to why Another Dimension reappears in later games, as well as the reason behind other supposed continuity errors. If they want to use characters or locations that have been removed from the story, then they will simply use them again. Think of it like how the universe could be destroyed in a cartoon and then reappear in the next episode. Kirby still follows a continuity, it just doesn't restrain itself to it.
Power of Waking, What it is, and Conceptual Regeneration & Damage
The Power of Waking is an ability that Riku trained to learn while going through the Sleeping Worlds in Dream Drop Distance, and one that Sora would later acquire throughout the events of Kingdom Hearts 3. We already explained what this ability does in Riku's abilities sections, but there has been some confusion towards its applications and particularly its role in Sora's revival upon his death in Kingdom Hearts 3 and how that may affect Riku's own abilities. We will be going over it in this section.
As explained, the Power of Waking's intended purpose is to allow the user to enter someone's heart, which manifests as a pocket dimensions with those stained glass platforms you often see referenced in Kingdom Hearts. What a heart exactly is is not entirely clear, but throughout the series it has been portrayed as a manifestation of someone's emotions and will, their personal agency so to speak. Once inside someone's heart, the user can awaken them from a cognitive stasis or “sleep”, hence the name the Power of Waking.
Near the end of Kingdom Hearts 3, Sora is defeated by a large group of shadows, and as a result arrives in the Final World, a separate realm Sora entered where his self was shattered into conceptual pieces and he needed to gather them back in order to return, and once he did he was able to go back in time before he was defeated. Some people have argued that Riku could accomplish the same feat, due to having a similarly powerful heart and having the Power of Waking, but both of these are untrue.
To start with, the Power of Waking is clearly unrelated to Sora's resurrection. It was only after he managed to restore his pieces of himself that Chirithy suggested he attempt to use the Power of Waking in order to restore the hearts of his friends, meaning that he was not using it to restore himself. Sora is also noted as having a particularly powerful heart due to all of the connections and bonds he shares, and there is no evidence that Riku's heart possesses the same qualities that Sora's does. He is the protagonist, after all.
The Final World is a world that some people may arrive to once their bodies and hearts perish, and Chirithy makes it clear that Sora's appearance here was very unusual, and was the result of some outside force tethering him there. It's because Sora arrived in the Final World at all that he was able to restore himself by gathering pieces of his body, and Riku explicitly did not arrive in the Final World when Sora and his friends were defeated. This outside source that prevented Sora's death was Kairi, who was consciously keeping him tethered to reality and preventing him from fading away and dying. Sora required outside assistance in order to survive in the way that he did, and it is not something that would happen with Riku, especially in a solo fight like this.
Finally, once Sora uses the Power of Waking to locate Riku in another world, we see that Riku's astral self is completely unconscious and unable to reform himself in the same way Sora did, even before the Lich stole his heart. If Riku were truly able to restore himself from death in the same way that Sora did, he wouldn't be in this situation that we see him in, which is a result of the exact same circumstances that defeated Sora.
But wait, why was Sora able to time travel in the first place? And how did he use the Power of Waking to locate Riku in an entirely different world? While the intention behind the Power of Waking is to enter hearts in order to awaken them from sleep, as all hearts are connected to each other and each world as well, Sora can use the Power of Waking to traverse different worlds in order to locate a specific person's heart, and this apparently even allows him to go back in time as well. Theoretically, Riku should be able to perform these feats as well with the Power of Waking, especially given that he has better control over it than Sora. However, doing so breaks a forbidden rule in nature, and will cause him to lose the Power of Waking and be banished from his world, with no way to return.
Lastly, there are arguments that exist for Keyblades having the ability to destroy concepts, but they aren't very substantial. One instance used to argue this is Xehanort destroying Kairi and comparing that to when Sora was split conceptually by a swarm of Heartless, however there is nothing to suggest that Kairi was destroyed conceptually, this is purely headcanon. Chirithy did suggest that Sora isn't supposed to be using the power of waking to restore hearts that have faded away from existence, however in context this isn't literal as Sora was restoring his friends hearts by retrieving them from the Lich after stealing them. This means they weren't actually destroyed, just not in their plane of reality, which is just what happens to someone when they die in Kingdom Hearts. The Keyblade is able to destroy Nobodies who have a degree of intangibility, however there is nothing suggesting that Nobodies are purely conceptual in nature. They are remnants left by people who have become Heartless. Hearts themselves are embodiments of people's emotions rather than concepts, but Keyblades aren't intended to destroy hearts, they are meant to destroy Heartless which releases their stolen hearts back into Kingdom Hearts.
Verdicts
Art by superdrama11, commissioned by Danielffs2002
The Monster King
Okay, so technically, this blog took the longest to make out of every blog we've done, mostly because it wasn't really in active production for a long time but still. Thankfully I've learned how to not turn blogs into memes.
Anyways, usually when I begin my verdicts I start by explaining what I like about the matchup, and right now I feel I have to especially defend this pairing. I know that a lot of people want a theme that is deep for Riku, and Kirby characters aren't really known for having the most complex writing, but I do believe that Meta Knight hits on a lot of the things that I think make Riku interesting, and it serves as a good Meta Knight matchup too. They both have had to face the manifestation of their own darkness and had help from their friend/rival to overcome them and they both heavily tie into darkness, yet they use it to fight against darkness, which is Riku's whole thing. They also both kind of have the same thing going on in that they are both the cool edgy counterpart to the main protagonist who the games occasionally let you play as, I think it's a pretty obvious connection to make. Plus, Kirby and Kingdom Hearts as a series combo works surprisingly well in a lot of areas. It is sort of weird to put Meta Knight against a lot of serious swordsmen, but he's really not out of place in Kingdom Hearts at all, not only because they fight with Disney cartoon characters, but also because Meta Knight literally looks like a Heartless, and the overall aesthetic is really cool. I don't have a whole essay about the deep philosophical connections between Riku and Meta Knight, but I think the fight works well enough on a thematic level and is just super cool. It has aura.
Now with that out of the way, we can begin discussing who wins. There is a lot going on here, and while I don't always do this I think for this particularly, I will divide my verdict into a few different categories.
Power
Riku and Meta Knight themselves don't have amazing displays of power, though both can do things like summon a bunch of meteors, their real strength is shown by the various enemies they have had to face and overcome in their journeys. A lot of characters in Kingdom Hearts that Riku can scale to or above are capable of destroying and shifting whole worlds, not to mention Zeus who moved a bunch of stars around into a constellation, however what really matters is Xehanort and the χ-Blade. Being comparable to an endgame Sora, Donald and Goofy means that Riku would be able to contend with the χ-Blade in power as well, which commands Kingdom Hearts, the source of the realm of light that could overrun and warp the whole universe, returning it to its original state. This doesn't just affect the Realm of Light, but also the Realm in-between and the Realm of Darkness, which is a counterpart to the universe. However, despite how insane that sounds, it's not quite enough to match with the kind of threats that Meta Knight and Kirby have to face.
Kirby isn't a series to shy away from showing how absurdly powerful their characters are, often having planet busting or even planet sized threats. Void Termina upon its death even generated a cosmically gigantic fireball that is quadrillions of times more massive than the observable universe, and- okay, let's talk about this whole “quadrillions universes Void” thing for a second.
At the end of Star Allies when Void Termina is defeated, he generates a massive fireball that is so large, it is visible from a shot where the entire previous background is no longer visible, which is really important considering that said background has galaxies. We can compare the two shots and angsize them to find the distance that the fireball and the Star Sparkler traveled, but wait- there is a problem. Because it is a different shot, it is possible that we only see the background from a different angle rather than having fully zoomed out. Thankfully, the Void Termina fight beforehand, and the background that we see before we zoom out in perspective is fully visible in 360 degrees, meaning that we are able to see every angle of the background. Because of this, we were able to confirm that while it does reuse certain galaxy textures, the background itself wasn't the same as the one we see after. This means that the perspective did indeed zoom so far out that Void's fireball would have eclipsed several galaxies, which means it is a gigantic object that would have to have a ton of mass. Since space is mostly empty, a fireball like this would have mass exceeding that of the observable universe. I do not know whether this feat will really stick or not, it may be deemed unusable later on, but it ultimately doesn't matter because of what Magolor and the Master Crown can do.
Magolor with the Master Crown has similar statements of overrunning the universe as the χ-Blade, but was also able to collapse the entirety of Another Dimension at the end of Return to Dreamland, which we know happened thanks to the novelization. In addition, he also says that his black hole can suck in all of Another Dimension, and Meta Knight is capable of battling and defeating Magolor with the Master Crown. As we have covered in previous sections, Another Dimension is a veritable multiversal construct, and is far larger than a simple universe. Finite estimates for it can put it at as large as a hundred thousand times the size of the observable universe, but even lower end interpretations still make it much more massive than the Kingdom Hearts cosmology, and we do not even know the full extent of Another Dimension's full size. Really, it's as simple as Kingdom Hearts characters can affect a universe, but Kirby characters can affect a multiverse.
Now, the Kingdom Hearts universe does have statements suggesting it contains infinite space, but they are few and far between and can reasonably fall in the realm of hyperbole. Another Dimension has similar statements as well as various statements of the characters in Kirby possessing infinite power. Now stay with me here, I know that “infinite power” statements are usually met with eye-rolling, but there is actually quite a bit of substance behind this argument in particular. Firstly, we have found five different infinite power statements in relation to Kirby. The first one is actually directly for Meta Knight, which states that his sword Galaxia possesses infinite power, fairly bluntly I might add. The second statement refers to Magolor Soul and how the Crown he uses possesses infinite power. The third is the one that everyone probably knows, the Robobot pause screen which says that Kirby has infinite power. The fourth is a statement from Kumazaki himself, where he says that Kirby's infinite power made the Invader Armor exceed its mechanical capabilities, which is already really crazy. That's like saying that someone is such a good driver that they could drive a car faster than its maximum mechanical output can take it. And finally, and most importantly, is Star Dream's analysis of Kirby during their final fight. Right before Star Dream was going to get Gurren Lagann'd in the face, it analyzed Kirby's energy levels and determined that he may be too much to overcome. Although the American version says that Kirby had near infinite power, in the original Japanese, it flat out says infinite. Star Dream is a hyper-analytical super computer who does not hyperbolize and he was specifically referring to Kirby’s energy levels in this fight, so it is very clearly talking about general power levels. Of course, you do not have to use these as arguments, but the point is that Kirby technically has more support and substantiation for this level of power than Kingdom Hearts does.
I am aware of higher dimensional arguments existing for Kingdom Hearts, but frankly, they are somewhat weak. Pete was sent to an area that is referred to as a hyperspace, but that's kind of it. We don't get any more elaboration on what this entails or if it is equivalent to a higher spatiality compared to the worlds, it is a large assumption to be made out a nebulous term that is used once and never again. By contrast, Kirby has an equivalent argument thanks to the way that Another Dimension works, except we actually do observe it function in a way that would suggest extra-spatiality. There are plenty of statements suggesting that Another Dimension transcends time and space, and there are several times when it has been used to traverse time. It's like an extra-temporal dimension, where you can go from one point in time to another via movement through it. We even see two Lor Starcutters at the same time within Another Dimension due to this exact reason, and since it is outside of the main timeline, it possesses the same attributes that any higher dimensional Kingdom Hearts argument could possess but with better substantiation, and evidence that it actually operates in the way it would be argued to. You can make the argument that the Ocean Between exists outside of and therefore encompasses the worlds, which have their own time axises to say that it is a hypertimeline, but it requires somewhat lax standards and Another Dimension also does the same thing. It is difficult to justify granting Kingdom Hearts one argument for power while not giving Kirby the same benefit.
Overall, Meta Knight has greater power when accounting for finite interpretations, has better support for infinite arguments and has better support for extra-dimensional arguments. I'd say that due to this in most scenarios Meta Knight has the edge in strength.
Speed
There are a lot of feats of interstellar travel in Kingdom Hearts, I mean, the overworld in nearly every game is you flying across star systems, and you can pilot through asteroids and shit while doing so. General speed in Kingdom Hearts can very consistently reach millions of times the speed of light, and since Riku can scale to the Kingdom Hearts he can potentially match its speed when moving dozens of worlds back to their positions, which can get up to billions of times lightspeed, though that calculation is somewhat generous. But, when it comes to speed, Meta Knight is just built different.
Recall how there are multiple feats within Kirby of characters being able to travel across not just star systems, but even entire galaxies relatively quickly, which includes Meta Knight himself flying all the way from Nova to Popstar. This would place Meta Knight at trillions of times the speed of light at minimum, but he can go even higher. King Dedede of all people, who Meta Knight is certainly faster than, was able to dodge the flying Jamba Hearts which flew across the entire universe, and the Landia were able to outrace the waves that were collapsing Another Dimension, who Meta Knight defeated. Meta Knight can also outrun Magolor's black holes, which are powerful enough to suck in all of Another Dimension if he so wanted, and given that Another Dimension is an extra-temporal space, this would imply Immeasurable speed. Otherwise, it is still far faster than Riku. Even ignoring all the high end speed feats in Kirby and focusing on the galaxy traversing feats and Meta Knight's own personal speed feats, his low ends are greater than the high end speed of Kingdom Hearts restoring the worlds by hundreds and thousands of times.
Even aside from all that, Meta Knight’s whole thing is focused on being fast and making super quick movements. He also has better mobility, given his notable travel speed, his flight, and his dimensional cape which lets him teleport. However, to be fair, Riku does have a few methods of impeding Meta Knight's mobility and speed, which brings us to our next category.
Abilities
These two have a bunch of abilities at their disposal, but at the end of the day, it is a JRPG character against a scrimblo bimblo platformer character, so how well does Meta Knight actually stack up next to Riku? Well, let's take a look and see how he may interact with Riku's standard notable abilities.
Slow can decelerate the speed of Riku's opponents. Meta Knight can pretty effectively counteract this with Meta Quick, which increases his speed.
Stop and Bind can halt the opponent's movements for a period of time. Meta Knight can achieve the same effect with Galaxia Darkness, which appears to stop time like Stop. If you accept Meta Knight as having immeasurable speed, then that would also allow him to overcome Stop.
Sleep can put an opponent to sleep. Master Hand is able to wake Meta Knight up if he were to fall asleep to continue a fight, and in the light novels, Meta Knight can resist being forcibly put to sleep by the effects of Hades.
Poison can poison Riku's enemies for a period of time. Meta Knight can sustain poison damage from Miasmoros as well as poisonous gasses with no lasting ill effect, and he can also heal his HP.
With Confuse, Riku can reverse Meta Knight's controls and disorient him. I'm not aware of Meta Knight himself fighting any Kirby enemy that can do this or having any specific counter, however he does have mental resistances, and his skill in fighting even while blinded probably means he'd be able to adapt. He's also been able to fight while his mind was completely blank and devoid under mental attack, reacting totally instinctually.
Riku can use Vanish to make himself invisible and Blackout to blind Meta Knight. Meta Knight has multiple methods of turning invisible himself, and he has shown that he is able to fight even without sight, while Riku hasn't.
Riku can shrink Meta Knight for a period of time with Mini. Meta Knight does not have a counter to size alteration specifically, unless you were to include his resistances to being forcibly transformed, however his skill at flying could make him an even more difficult target to hit during this until it wears off, and he has teamed up with Kirby to fight the planet sized Star Dream.
Riku can use Zero Graviza to lock Meta Knight into a position in the air. Meta Knight can counter this with telekinesis, plus like, he can fly lol.
Both of them have attacks that relate to using fire, electricity and meteors, and Meta Knight can also imbue Galaxia with all of the elements that Riku has.
Both Riku and Meta Knight can heal themselves fully.
To our surprise, Meta Knight actually can deal with Riku's kit fairly well, and he even has a few extra abilities over Riku such as telekinesis, his special from epic yarn and duplication. However, overall, while Meta Knight does have some nifty counters and has more abilities than you'd think, Riku's fighting style is still generally more diverse and he has more options in terms of abilities and skills. Although not entirely, Meta Knight largely just focuses on his swordsmanship, while Keyblade wielders utilize all sorts of magic and even combine them for certain attacks. Riku takes the advantage in abilities.
Items
Riku may take abilities, but when it comes to their physical arsenal, it's a totally different story. The multiple different keychains and Keyblades Riku could use don't really functionally change how he fights all that much, and he doesn't have a lot of options outside of that, whereas Meta Knight has the Sword of Hades, the Dimensional Cape, Invincibility Candy that makes him invincible and instantly kills anyone he touches, 1-UPs, the Dream Rod, the Friend Heart, actual armor, and all of the extra shit from Battle Royale, Fighters 2 and Star Allies that can give him a variety of different options and benefits. Meta Knight has a giant flying battleship filled with a legion of military soldiers at Meta Knight’s command. Riku has… the Sidecar Glider.
Riku has recovery items to recover his HP and MP, but Meta Knight has the same kinds of things. Not only that, but Meta Knight can actually steal Riku's own items for himself, and even increase the amount of items he could steal with Cashgrabber. He could not steal his Keyblades as they would return to Riku, but that would probably be the least in character thing for Meta Knight of all people to do in a fight anyways. That doesn't mean, however, that he is above stealing Riku's potions and elixirs, and potentially even using them for himself.
Meta Knight takes a clear advantage in this category.
Experience
Since Riku has the edge in abilities and Meta Knight has the edge in equipment, we need to find out who can make the most of their own advantages and skills, and we can do that by looking at their battle experience and fighting prowess.
Meta Knight trains every single day, and he's been doing this for at least a thousand years. He is constantly seeking to become a better fighter and challenge the most powerful and skilled people he can find because he actually wants to be the best fighter he can be, whereas Riku mostly fights out of necessity. We've seen in Nightmare in Dreamland that Meta Knight’s training consists of literally going through Kirby's whole world spanning adventures just as his average training regimen, and he has bested foes like Galacta Knight, who is the greatest fighter in the galaxy.
Comparatively, if you really think about it, Riku hasn't really been fighting all that much. Aside from his battles in the Sleeping World and escaping Castle Oblivion, Riku only ever really fights rather occasionally, and his training consists of one year under Terra and undergoing the Mark of Mastery, a far cry from the kind of things Meta Knight has been doing. Riku has also never demonstrated the same kind of finesse that Meta Knight has, who can fight even without looking at his opponent. One time, he's even countered mental manipulation by having his mind go completely blank and battle completely instinctually. He can literally use ultra instinct.
Not to mention, Meta Knight not only has a lot of experience training, but also in fighting many people with the same kinds of abilities that Riku has. Fire, ice, electricity, meteors, he's seen it all, and his primary rival is Kirby, one of the most versatile characters in video games. This means that even with Riku's advantage in abilities, Meta Knight would be able to overcome it with his greater battle experience. Meta Knight wins in experience.
Survivability
The final category we have to talk about is survivability, and this is super important. Both of them have healing options, but Meta Knight is able to survive being impaled, twisted, squished and squashed with minimal ill effects. Not only that, but if he were to die then he can simply revive, or even keep fighting as a ghost, whereas Riku lacks any special post mortem support by himself. We've seen that he can die before, and needed Sora's help to bring him back. While the Keyblade can defeat Nobodies, who are normally intangible, interactivity isn't exactly the issue here. Meta Knight's ghost is just completely unable to be destroyed, even by other Kirby characters who can interact with ghosts. They can still touch and “harm” his ghost, but they are unable to actually destroy it for good because it's just totally invulnerable. It's less like it has infinite durability and more like it has infinite health - or rather, it has no health, so there is nothing to deplete. Even if Riku could destroy his ghost, looking at the Fighters 2 portrayal of his revival and scaling to lesser enemies means that Meta Knight could possibly revive even if this were to happen. The Fighters 2 thing is funny, Kirby characters literally kill each other during sports and basketball analogues, but because everyone is just so unkillable and revives nobody bats an eye and it is totally normal. There are even several references suggesting that in-game revives, game overs and retrying are canon. There is the argument that Keyblades could destroy characters “data” due to defeating data entities in Coded, however that is only from within a data-based world, and there's no reason to think it'd work in a physical world on beings not made from data. Even if you were to argue this, lesser enemies who Meta Knight can scale to in Planet Robobot can survive being reduced to just their data, then having their data destroyed and return just fine. Kirby characters are just so overpowered.
Because of all of this, Meta Knight should win in survivability. He's too tough to kill, is too physically superior, and his greater equipment and experience all put him over the edge.
Although, there is one thing I forgot to mention. Throughout the blog, we included a lot of things from when Riku was still under Ansem's influence. If Ansem-Riku were included, then that changes the game entirely, and Riku gets a bunch of additional benefits to help make up for his shortcomings.
When Riku still had control over darkness, he was able to create Heartless duplicates of his foes, and Ansem-Riku is able to use the Keyblade of Heart, which can remove someone's heart, the metaphysical embodiment of someone's emotions and motivations. Not only that, but Ansem can also regenerate from basically nothing, control Heartless to even the numbers game, command the Dark Guardian which can possess people, and he even can turn into a giant flying battleship like the Halberd. If this were included, can Meta Knight still win?
Well first of all, we do need to preface that this isn't exactly standard. Riku lost a lot of his control over darkness near the end of Kingdom Hearts 2, and his whole story arc is about not letting himself be controlled by the darkness. He hasn't gone Ansem in a very long time, not since his battle with Roxas, and Kingdom Hearts 3 makes it very clear that Ansem is pretty much done and that they are completely departed from one another. But let's say that we do include it for the sake of argument, and look at the fight from that lens.
Riku making a copy of Meta Knight from his darkness is interesting, especially when considering that in Kirby and the Amazing Mirror, Meta Knight was defeated by Dark Mind creating a clone of Meta Knight from his own darkness, Dark Meta Knight. From that angle, that is a pretty awkward look for big MK, but there's also more nuance here. First of all, Dark Meta Knight is not just Meta Knight but evil. He also has mirror powers separate from Meta Knight's own arsenal, as well as Dark Mind's own added power. Not to mention, Dark Meta Knight has his own thoughts, feelings and motivations and can strategize, such as when he tried to trick Kirby, whereas Heartless are mostly all beastial and lack very much cognitive capabilities. Meta Knight has defeated other versions of himself on multiple other occasions, and he can also use the Dream Rod to summon allies as support. There is also no reason to believe that the Heartless would possess Meta Knight’s same spiritual physiology and ability to resurrect, so I'd say Meta Knight shouldn't have too much trouble defeating it.
As for the Dark Guardian, he only possesses people for a short amount of time, and Meta Knight can somewhat resist possession in Kirby Battle Royale. In that game, if he is possessed by a ghost, he can resist its effects and transfer it to other people, meaning he could probably transfer it back to Ansem.
Ansem's ability to recover from nothing and remove others' hearts are very important, so we do need to talk about it. Frankly, Meta Knight has no real counter to Ansem removing his heart. It's not connected to your body or soul, and so Meta Knight would likely be turned into a Heartless. While it may be possible that he will retain sentience as a Heartless like Sora did, due to how he remained himself while in Hades and didn't turn into a mindless monster, I don't think he could do very much at that point. Ansem can regenerate from basically nothing, so it seems like he may be able to defeat Meta Knight, but there's a few wrinkles here. Let's unravel them.
When Ansem regenerated from his destruction in Kingdom Hearts 1, he was exhausted from losing the battle, and couldn't really fight anymore. Not only that, but when he was defeated again by Kingdom Hearts, he couldn't immediately reform and was forced back into Riku. Therefore, there isn't much reason to believe that Ansem can indefinitely keep resurrecting in the same way that Meta Knight can, and him being exhausted from losing leaves him open to Meta Knight’s most powerful weapon of all, the power of friendship!
Yes, really. Meta Knight's friend heart can instantly make Ansem an ally, ending the fight. Even if you were to argue for Ansem having some form of mental resistances, the friend heart can work on people who resist its effects, like bosses, once they become exhausted and defeated in battle, kinda like Ansem's state after he was defeated in Kingdom Hearts 1. And remember that the Jamba Heart was able to affect Meta Knight himself, who has mental resistances, which the friend heart can override. While removing Meta Knight’s heart could seal his defeat and the friend heart may require Ansem to be tired, he was unable to really do so against Sora, and didn't attempt it during their battle. Given that Meta Knight still possesses many of his other advantages as before, and that he is more skilled a fighter than Kingdom Hearts 1 Sora, I'd say that Meta Knight will do fine, and manage to even defeat Ansem the Seeker of Darkness if he were to be put into this comparison. I will say, it is funny how Ansem's main win condition is removing Meta Knight's heart, and Meta Knight's main win condition is giving Ansem a heart. Poetic.
One more thing I will talk about, because I feel like some people may mention it in regard to some of my arguments is that I worry that the whole “Meta Knight is stoic and noble and wouldn't resort to anything underhanded and would tie his hands behind his back for a fight and let his opponents do everything they want and is literally Goku” thing might be taken a bit too far. Meta Knight doesn't just give weapons away to every foe he sees, as we can see when he goes on adventures and fights many enemies and boss battles. He does this with Kirby specifically as a way of testing him and Meta Knight himself, ala Battle Royale. We also see this supported in secondary media as well. Meta Knight did not offer Kirby a sword in Squeak Squad, where the situation to stop Kirby was actually dire, and he also sends his minions to outnumber Kirby multiple times. He may be a noble knight, but that doesn't mean that he is so self-sabotaging that he wouldn't do things like outnumber Riku with allies and minions, steal his items, or even use the friend heart if the situation called for it.
Riku was impressive, impossibly powerful with many crazy abilities, but Meta Knight’s physical prowess, arsenal, insane skill and experience, and unkillability were enough to put down this Keyblade warrior.
Riku had risen from darkness unto Dawn, but then the sun set, and he met a night. That has to be my best pun yet.
The winner is Meta Knight.
Pasbros
Oh god i'm back at the Fucking G1^2 Blogs again!!!
Ello, i think you all remember me, this is my third time writing a verdict here, so let's just cut to the chase. This match up- many people have mixed signals on it. While I myself cannot talk much about the connections of this match up, i do fuck with the aesthetic heavily. I mean It’s Kirby and Kingdom Hearts, that's like the most obvious series pairing. It isn't even that out of left field, Riku fights Disney characters for crying out loud, him going up against Meta Knight would be an average Tuesday for him- Also come on, it would be a cool fight. Meta Knight is also one of the more series characters in kirby
Anyways, this fight isn't the hardest to talk about, but it was interesting to analyse, both characters do have quite some stuff on them. So I'll be splitting this into 5 categories; Stats, Experience, Abilities, Arsenal & Survivability.
First Up is Stats- the very basic gist of Vs in general. Who is stronger, more durable and faster. I'll be keeping this section more simple, if you want a more in depth explanation you can check TMK's.
Again keeping it simple, both have the strength to summon giant meteors, both have fought monsters who could threaten their entire worlds, mess with entire star systems and even fought threats that were going to destroy or control their respective universe. Well actually both go even further then simply that. Riku scales to the X-blade which returns the world into its original form, which includes the Realm of Light, The Realm In-between and The Realm of Darkness. Giving Riku 3x uni. However Meta Knight scales to a crowned Magolor, who is capable of destroying Another Dimension. Well, what AD gets too is a whole talk in of itself, but let's keep it basic and low. We've seen AD host 15 dimensions in Returns, with AD bottom at the fight with Magolor + the 4 dimensions in Star Allies, getting Meta Knight at 20x uni. Which would make Meta Knight about over 6x stronger then Riku. And that's the lowest interpretation. Although not one shot stronger, it is an obvious advantage in power, though both characters aren't really raw power characters.
But what about speed? Well this is where things go differently. Both series LOVE their interstellar travel feats. With them crossing through star systems, in general speed is just their thing. Riku scales to many characters who can travel to them, going from Sora piloting the Gummi ship going from (1.724 Million c) to Ventus, Aqua and Terra crossing worlds (137 Million c). Which is fast, but Meta Knight's own traveling speed is leagues above it. Meta Knight flying to Nova and Popstar, which is at the edge of the galaxy, gets him too (6 Trillion c). Even scaling to the Kingdom Hearts which gets him to (29 Billion c) is still thousands of times slower than Meta Knight’s own speed feat. Obviously Meta Knight can get faster through blitzing King DDD, who dodged a Jamba heart meteor going at (587 Quadrillion c). (While it's contested if the Jamba Heart traveled the galaxy or universe, the re-translation to japanese of Star Allies does say it traveled the edge of the universe.)
While strength isn't the most important here, The speed gap is massive! So stats easily goes to Meta Knight.
And experience is not any better for The Keyblade Master.
Riku isn't exactly a seasoned fighter, he has been training for a year, but compared to Meta Knight who has been training everyday for at least a thousand years, it's not really much. Certainly not due Meta Knight's swordsmanship is leagues above Sword and Blade Knight, whose swordsmanship was above the other Meta Knights, who are known to be excellent sword fighters.
Riku also only really fights in necessity while Meta Knight's whole goal in both games and novels is to continuously get stronger to protect the ones he holds dear. He NEEDS to get stronger, is what he always thought in the Novels. He's also a blood knight Archetype. He wants to fight a good fight, he wants to fight a strong opponent. Riku doesn't really want to fight.
So experience easily goes to Meta Knight
However, Abilities is where things get more interesting.
Though let's get things clear, Riku most definitely takes Versatility, there's no debate there, i mean it's a JRPG character Vs a main character but not THE main character of a platformer. No matter what that was bound to happen. It also gets more fucked when you go into their fighting styles, where as Riku always uses magic spells in his kits and combos, Meta Knight’s fighting style was alwaya pure skill, while he does use more escentric powers like some telekinesis here, some sword beam there. Compared to Riku, he doesn't use it as much. So Versatility obviously goes to Riku, but what about the effectiveness of these abilities?
Well here is where we found something really interesting, nearly every spell Riku has, Meta knight resists or has counters to them! Let's look at them closely?
Many energy & projectile spells like Dark Firaga or meteor crash are something Meta Knight can easily reflect with Galaxia and some of them could potentially home in on Riku, sending the attack right back at him.
The elemental spells like Thundaga and Blizzaga can be absorbed through Galaxia, giving Meta Knight the element’s powers.
He can counter Slow through Meta Quick (Weirdly enough, Heal also gives Meta Knight a speed boost.)
Moves like Blackout, Vanish and Confuse, while it would work on Meta Knight, his ability to sense other’s presence, bloodlust and use his instincts to fight, both while blind AND while his mind became blank and he couldn't think straight. Means he could fight even after these effects.
Poison, Sleep and Mini are all things he resisted, the latter two through being immune to the effects of Hades and Poison due to being able to take poisonous hits without any issue.
However, the others? Abilities like Stop, Zero Gravity and Bind can keep Meta Knight at bay and stop his movements. And moves like Balloonga, Drain drive, Magnet Spiral and Collision Magnet can mess with Meta Knight real good as well. Of course, to give Meta Knight some credit, he himself has some great powers. Attack reflection, Telekinesis, Duplication, Teleportation, summoning and both his special and galaxia darkness are great powers that can keep Riku on his toes, but overall Riku not only has much more, but in general just better ones, even if some are resisted. Doesn’t help that again, Meta Knight mostly relies on his skills then his powers, whereas Riku is again a JRPG character who usually use his magic a ton.
This category goes to Riku.
However the category, Arsenal is a bit of a different note.
In this section, believe it or not, Meta Knight is the one who has the versatility. I mean compared to Riku, he has a shitton of items that just do a lot more. May they be orbs or stars that increase his stats and health. Orbs that allow Meta Knight to be invulnerable, invisible or simply passively deflect attacks. Invincible Candy which makes him invulnerable, gives him a massive speed boost and allows him to nearly instakill anyone he touches. The giant warship Halberd, His Dimensional Cape, his several recovery items, his 1 UPS, the action star, Armor, The Friend Hearts. inhale
Not to say Riku doesn’t have good items, his elixirs and potions help him to continue the fight, but compared to Meta Knight it’s an immensely different story. Certainly looking at their main weapons alone shows us that. To be fair, Riku's Keyblade of Heart is quite powerful. Its ability to Unlock Meta Knight’s heart could be dangerous and the keyblade can never be knocked out of Riku’s hands. However Galaxia and The Sword of Hades are a different beast. Galaxia’s ability to constantly amp Meta Knight to full power and also instantly remove any battle damage he gained is quite powerful. adding in its ability to reflect attacks, absorb elemental powers, duplicate him and just being able to attack on its own. It just has many options. And the Sword of Hades’ ability to simply cut away the power of anything it cuts is also extremely dangerous.
It doesn’t help either that Meta Knight has the ability to steal the items of the person he strikes. Meaning he could simply steal the potions and elixirs. Obviously he can’t steal the keyblade as it’ll go back to Riku, not too mention, it’s fucking Meta Knight, he wouldn’t do that.
Tbf saying Meta Knight using the items in the first place might be a bit iffy, though he isn’t below using healing items and Galaxia on its own does a lot of what most of Riku’s items do. So even if we consider Meta Knight doesn’t use these items, our queen Galaxia kinda does 99% of them anyways. But it is interesting to think on, Riku is also much more on using his items then Meta Knight, but Meta Knight being able to just steal his items still counteract that.
This category was going to be close due to Meta Knight’s character, however Galaxia came in clutch for him. So this one goes to Meta Knight
However none of these advantages would really matter due to one thing, their survivability And hoo boy is this one a doozy.
In their base this section isn’t the hardest to look at, both have great healing methods, being able to heal their health and stamina. However Riku’s healing methods have a limit, if he runs out of potions or magic, he can’t heal any longer. While Galaxia’s healing power kinda just came from him simply holding her in his hands. So in the long run, he’s gonna continue getting healed and if Riku does somehow kill him, he can just use 1 UPS to come back, of course they’re limited as well, but Galaxia’s own healing method never ends making them unnecessary in the first place. Ghost Meta Knight is also able to regenerate his entire body or just simply continue fighting as a Ghost, which thanks to the novels, makes Meta Knight immune to getting tired, feeling pain or dying in the first place.
However things get different when we talk about one form, Ansem-Riku. While he lost the form and Ansem. I just wanted to talk about it to show more on both their survivability. Well what does this form give besides the usual boost in stats which makes that closer, Ansem also gains some new abilities, most importantly being able to remove Meta Knight’s heart. Though most importantly is his ability to come back from completely nothing! which is equal to what Meta Knight can do with the 1 ups and his ghost form. So, what can Meta Knight do on this?
Well for starters, the full body regeneration did make Ansem exhausted, so Ansem-Riku would likely get tired to continue the battle in the first place, although it’s likely Riku wouldn’t get as tired from healing limbs or half his body so it’s still good regeneration. However it still pales in comparison for Meta Knight. Yeah Respawns are really powerful. fodder enemies can regenerate their entire bodies, souls or straight up getting turned into data and being destroyed. Something far from anything Riku can do. While the ‘stealing meta knight’s heart’ could kill him, it’s actually possible he can just, will his body and soul back to him. Recall in the novels, how Meta Knight was able to will his body back to his soul, due to his heart being much more powerful than his body himself. And them then saying Meta Knight’s desire to continue fighting made him able to do this. It’s very possible Meta Knight can replicate the same feat here. I mean, the feat was a complete accident in the first place, he didn’t even know he could do it in the first place.
And for Ansem-Riku? he can only do the full body regen once, if Meta Knight destroys his entire body again, it’s game over for him. That’s not even going over his many incap arsenal, like the friend hearts or the sword of hades. It makes sense though, Kirby in general has a much more friendly and cartoony vibe to it, so them having this broken regeneration isn’t out of left field. So in the end, Survivability goes to Meta Knight.
And yeah, that's pretty much it.
Riku was a tough Opponent, his Versatility, powers, Good regen and ability to turn Meta Knight into a Heartless made him a terrifying opponent. But Meta Knight's Stats, Arsenal, his thousand of years long Experience and his Immortality made him able to steal the victory.
Sadly it seems like Riku met his match against this knight and sadly he didn't have the heart to finish him off.
The Winner is Sir Meta Knight.
Stars
I’d like to personally thank TMK for inviting me to the blog—he’s always super fun to work with, and he puts in a ton of effort into what he does. (Here’s hoping there’s plenty more blogs to come!)
Now, onto the actual debate. Honestly, it’s pretty straightforward all things considered—so let’s dive into the categories and break it down.
Attack Potency
This one’s a bit varied due to their different showings, but Meta Knight consistently scaling to Kirby gives him absurd power levels. Kirby’s taken on foes like Magolor and Void Termina, who at minimum can destroy entire dimensions—and in Void Termina’s case, output a force somewhere around 41 quadrillion times the observable mass of the universe.
Meanwhile, Riku’s best feats scale him to the destruction of a single universe at most—since, as discussed earlier, the "worlds" in Kingdom Hearts aren’t actually universes. That leaves Riku at 1x universal, while Meta Knight is 41 quadrillion times… which means one hit from him would literally atomize Riku on contact. Meta Knight safely takes Attack Potency.
Speed
This isn’t much different. While both characters have MFTL+ feats in the millions of times the speed of light, even being extremely generous to Riku only gets him to about 29 billion c, based on scaling to Kingdom Hearts restoring the stars in KH1.
Meanwhile, Kirby has casually hit a meteor from light-years away in microseconds (14 billion c), and most of his Warp Star feats clock in well into the trillions of c. Meta Knight scales to all of this, meaning Riku wouldn't even get the chance to land a hit. Meta Knight would blitz horribly.
Arsenal & Abilities
This category’s admittedly closer. Riku’s an RPG character, so he has a large toolbox: clone creation, time stop, barriers, blinding, magnetism, the ability to remove hearts, and even balloon-based homing attacks. Sounds like a nightmare, right?
Well... not really. Meta Knight resists basically everything Riku throws out as a standard part of his kit. He can summon allies more reliably and in-character, steal nearly any item on Riku aside from the Keyblade, reflect attacks, use telekinesis to ragdoll him, and regenerate from his soul. Unlike Riku, who relies on vapor regen, Meta Knight won’t stay down.
Worse yet, Riku’s only realistic win condition is going into a form he hasn't used in years—one he explicitly swore off, tied to Ansem and the Darkness. The last time he used it, he hated it. Add to that the fact that one of his key abilities, the Keyblade of Heart, could actually be stolen and turned against him? It’s GG. Riku’s never come back from being turned into a Heartless or having his heart forcibly removed. I’m going to be honest, even just the INVINCIBILITY CANDY from Meta Knight’s side… is more impressive than 99% of Riku’s arsenal.
And if we’re talking about hearts—Meta Knight could literally Friend Heart Riku at any point in the fight and make him an ally. Riku’s abilities sound better on paper, but versatility isn’t always the deciding factor. Meta Knight takes Arsenal & Abilities.
Experience, Stamina, Intelligence, and Skill
These traits can easily swing a fight—and in this case, they all swing in Meta Knight’s favor.
Experience-wise, Meta Knight has been alive for centuries, and he’s fought enemies just as versatile (or even more so) than Riku. Meta Knight takes experience.
Skill-wise, both have trained for most of their lives, but Meta Knight’s long history and refined swordsmanship give him the edge. He’s simply more disciplined, more controlled, and more tactical. Meta Knight is more skilled.
Intelligence-wise, Riku’s young, impulsive, and has been manipulated a lot. Meta Knight, on the other hand, is notoriously independent, wise, and often plays the long game—especially as shown in the games and Kirby: Right Back at Ya!. Meta Knight is more intelligent.
Stamina-wise, it’s not even close. Meta Knight fights Kirby-tier threats daily for training. He’s shown no signs of fatigue, while Riku has outright collapsed in the past from exhaustion. Meta Knight is less easily exhaustable.
Conclusion
This is probably the cleanest sweep I’ve ever seen.
Realistically, Meta Knight doesn’t have to do anything special. Any hit atomizes Riku. Riku is frozen in place due to the speed gap. Most of his items and abilities can be stolen or reflected. His few win conditions are unreliable, out-of-character, or flawed. Meanwhile, Meta Knight has multiple ways to end the fight—including just making Riku his friend or just turning his own weapons against him. Riku tried his best, but in the end… he just couldn’t Key up with Meta Knight. The winner is Meta Knight.
Team Riku:
Team Meta Knight: The Monster King, Pasbros, Stars
I know this has taken a long while to complete, but thank you for reading this! Starting in our next blog, we are going to be handling them a little differently.
Everyone is going to be able to contribute to our future blogs by joining our discord server here. In there, we will have a public channel dedicated to volunteer research, where everyone can opine and offer opinions and research to help contribute to our blogs. You can also join our server to ask questions you have about this blog or any others we have made, or just chat with us. Only a few people will be directly editing the blog, but everyone will be able to contribute in this way, and they will be credited for their work in the blog as well. That way, we can gather as many perspectives and research as we can, while also allowing anyone who wants to help their own avenues to do so. See you next time!
soyjack in blog... smh 0/10
ReplyDeleteASS i HATE it....,.,.,.,.,.,.,.!!!1!
why did lucy comment at 9:11? is she stupid?
DeleteThis is perfection. Fantastic job!!!
ReplyDeleteMeta Knight: "You wanna be lazy? THEN SLEEP FOREVER"
ReplyDeleteInteresting characterization lol
THIS IS SO HYPE. I love this matchup to pieces, and I am so grateful it's out!
ReplyDelete