Needle

"Cover yourself in pointy needles to poke your enemies and attach to walls! You can also poke needles into the ceiling and floor!"

General Information
Needle is one of Kirby's copy abilities. It debuted in Kirby's Adventure. It is a defensive ability, much like Spark or Freeze. With it, Kirby covers his body in many retractable spines. The ability impales any enemy that draws near, so in most cases, Kirby can only be harmed by projectiles. In Kirby: Canvas Curse, Needle Kirby's body is not only spiky enough to heavily damage enemies, but can also grip tightly to walls and other such surfaces. In Kirby's Return to Dream Land, there is an attack where Kirby turns the needles on his helmet into one large drill, hitting enemies directly above him. He can also roll along the ground while covered by the needles and firing small spikes from around his body at enemies.

The length of Kirby's spikes vary from game to game. The most noticeable difference is between Kirby's Adventure and its remake, Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land, where the short spikes in the original were changed to being over twice as long.

In its appearances without an ability cap, Kirby's spikes are either pink or a bright metallic gold, and they come straight out of Kirby himself.

In Kirby: Right Back at Ya!
Needle undergoes the greatest visual change in the anime. It gains an ability cap for the first time in the franchise, gaining a pink helmet with a red visor, a white chin-strap, yellow skin and orange feet, but Kirby no longer turns into one giant spike ball (spinning like one giant spike ball in the episode Flower Power). Instead, Needle is changed into a long-distance ability. A similar cap would later be used in Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land, and would make further appearances.

Kirby can launch the needles off the top of the helmet like tiny missiles, which he can then control. The needles 'grow back', but not always, leaving him defenseless at times. In the transformation sequence, a flash of red lightning forms his helmet and changes his skin color. Needles appear from the helmet, which shrink to their usual size seen in the games.

Trivia

 * In Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land, this ability still turned Kirby yellow, even in multiplayer. This was removed in later games to prevent confusion, eliminating Kirby's color-changing feature.
 * Needle Kirby appears as a Trophy and Sticker in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. The sticker uses his design from Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards.
 * In Kirby: Return to Dream Land, the Rolling Needle attack resembles Togezo's signature move, which was the first enemy to offer the ability.
 * Pre-release screenshots of Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards reveal that the colors of Needle and Cutter's ability icons were swapped; Needle was originally green and Cutter was originally orange.