Landia

"The brave Guardian Angel suddenly attacked the kingdom! Calm the dragon!"

- Quest Description

Landia is a four-headed dragon that appears in Kirby's Return to Dream Land. He is revered as a guardian of Halcandra, the inhospitable planet on which he lives, for keeping the legendary treasures of Halcandra safe since ancient times, most notably the Master Crown.

Landia is inadvertently responsible for setting the events of the game in motion. According to Magolor, he suddenly awoke from his long-lasting slumber and rampaged, attacking the Lor Starcutter and sending him spiraling to Planet Popstar; however, Magolor neglected to explain that Landia's behavior was in response to Magolor stealing the Lor and attempting to pilfer the Master Crown. Magolor battled Landia in the Lor and lost, forcing him to flee to the safety of another planet to recover--as no planets were nearby, he opened a rift and escaped into another dimension.

Physical Appearance
Landia is an orange dragon that has four heads that is roughly the size of Dyna Blade when compared to Kirby. The position of the heads are that of the four cardinal directions of a compass. The northernmost head wears the Master Crown, which has a blue jewel in its center. Each of the heads have dark green eyes, two orange ridges along the sides of their faces, and dark orange marks shaped like stars across their faces. Around the necks of Landia's heads is a mane of what appears to be white fur. His wings are like that of a bat, with the webbing colored yellow and a single light red talon atop each wing. Each head has pink and red striped horns on it, with the side heads having three horns and the top and bottom heads each having two. Landia has two large feet, each foot having three light red claws on them and being a lighter shade of orange than the main body. His underside is a shade of peach and he also has a long orange tail that ends in purple arrowhead with small orange stripes.

When knocked to half his health, Landia taps into the power of the Master Crown and splits into four smaller dragons after roaring. One of the dragons still retains the Master Crown on his head, which now has a green jewel in it. His eyes turn from green to red and each dragon has two face-ridges instead of three. The smaller Landias each have two striped horns and their own manes of white fur now. Their wings lose the talons they previously had and their feet are much smaller, each only having a single dark orange claw. The ends of their tails also lack the purple arrowhead from before.

In Extra Mode, he looks almost the same, save for a different color scheme: He is purple instead of orange. Landia EX also has a light blue underside, black star-shaped facial markings, dark red eyes, and yellow fur around his necks. His horns, claws, and arrowhead for his tail are all black, and he has orange webbing for his wings. His eyes still turn red when he splits into four after he loses enough HP. The Master Crown's jewel during this fight is orange and remains the same color even after Landia EX splits.

Kirby's Return to Dream Land
Landia appears as a boss in the seventh level, Dangerous Dinner. Landia is able to split into four separate dragons whenever needed, but attacking just one will cause damage to all four dragons. After defeating him, Magolor steals the Master Crown from the fallen dragon, and heads into an dimensional rift connecting his world and Kirby's Popstar. Landia, in his four separate forms, will help Kirby and friends get through the level as the game's Final Weapon, acting in a similar fashion to the Starship ability. They can shoot normal and charged fireballs at the Lor Starcutter and Magolor. Landia is only seen separated after that. Once Magolor has been defeated, the entire space around Kirby, Bandana Waddle Dee, King Dedede and Meta Knight will start to collapse, but Landia and the Lor Starcutter save them and bring them all back to Popstar before the darkness closes in on them.

When Kirby enters the fight against Landia in Extra Mode, a new scene will play. At first, normal Landia flies in and roars like before, but then apparently uses the Master Crown's power to enhance his own. He alters his colors and turns purple with a blue underside. When he is defeated, Landia EX reverts to his normal red-orange color scheme.

Kirby: Triple Deluxe
Landia makes a cameo appearance during the game's second boss battle. Paintra draws four images of Landia's smaller dragon form in the background, but one of them is a decoy that immediately falters and falls to the ground. The other three let out a stream of fire that they blast full-force at Kirby. Paintra DX uses the same attack, but with the Landias colored to resemble their EX form.

These aren't the actual four dragons encountered in Kirby's Return to Dream Land, but rather imitations, identical in nature to the creations of Adeleine. Landia's appearance is a direct callback to those fights, which also featured painted versions of bosses from previous games.

Kirby: Planet Robobot
Landia appears as the final boss of the Team Kirby Clash sub-game and its expansion game, Team Kirby Clash Deluxe. He retains his attacks from Kirby's Return to Dream Land. Landia EX is fought as a bonus quest.

Team Kirby Clash Deluxe
Landia is first fought in the Empyrean after being unlocked for 22 Gem Apples. He is in the Tough boss category and must be defeated before the player can access Taranza. He uses his attacks from Team Kirby Clash.

Landia EX is fought as an Ordeal boss in the Decisive Battlefield after being unlocked for 90 Gem Apples. Here he is in the Tougher boss category, and must be defeated before the player can access Parallel Susie. Landia EX uses his attacks from Team Kirby Clash as well. He is treated as a fake final boss, as the game's credits roll after his defeat.

A more possessed form of the dragon called Parallel Landia appears later in the Decisive Battlefield. This game confirms Landia's gender: male.

Main Game
Landia in his first form will use a variety of attacks, such as shooting fireballs at a downward angle, blowing wind with his wings that sends energy blades along the current, and flying down low across the screen. Another attack Landia has is to fly in the center of the screen and have his two side-heads belch out streams of fire at the ground. He will then use his two heads to sweep the flames across the ground, sometimes rising high into the air to cover more ground. Another variation of this attack is for Landia to shoot out the fire-streams underneath himself, then fly to another spot to breathe down fire again. Landia can also hover low to the ground and use his tail like a whip by spinning forward a total of three times. The dragon may sometimes spit out a single fireball in between tail-whips.

After taking out half of his health, Landia will turn into four smaller dragons with one head each. They will start out by flying to the top part of the screen and will spit a fireball downwards. They will repeat this action several times, but quickly fly to random spots and altitudes, making the attack hard to dodge. After shooting about four rounds of fireballs, they will move to new locations and surround themselves in electricity. Each Landia will shoot out an electrical beam to connect to another and move about in random patterns. The beams can be arranged both vertically and horizontally. After enough patterns have been done, the Landias will each gather into groups of two and stare at the middle of the room. Each pair will then take a turn to perform a spinning swoop towards the ground in order to hit Kirby and his friends. Another attack for them is for each dragon to move into a corner of the screen, and one will spit up a fireball. The dragons will then take turns passing it around to each with their wings. After they pass it around for a bit, one will knock the fireball into the background where it will then come crashing back down into the center of the room. It can be noted that during this attack, each Landia will move his tail slightly forward. Should enough time pass by while battling them, the four small Landias will eventually reform into their combined form and can split again into four if enough time passes by.

Extra Mode
Landia acts quite different when in EX Mode. The main differences are his new purple and blue color scheme and alterations to its attacks. His heads spit out two fireballs at a time that actually aim for the player characters in rapid succession and when it flaps its wings for the wind, it will fly to the opposite side of the screen and perform the attack a second time. The energy blades that ride along in its wind-currents also home in on the player character faster. When Landia EX touches down for its tail-whip attack, he strikes at a much faster pace with no pauses in between. His fire-stream attack now has it slowly move from left to right as he breathes fire at the ground. Landia EX can also sometimes fly into the background and quickly dive at the characters.

Things become a bit more frantic after Landia EX splits into four. He now uses his lightning attack in a different manner than before. One Landia, each in the corners of the field, will surround themselves with electricity to form vertical beams and move across the field while flickering their power on and off, acting in a similar manner to the Spark Sphere Doomer's lightning attack, only the electricity lasts longer. When the four of them start spitting fireballs at the ground, they may actually begin to follow the player's position as a group and attack several times in a row. Sometimes, three of the Landias will be spitting out fireballs, while the one wearing the Master Crown will attempt to tackle the player from the air. The newest change to the dragons' moveset is after they start passing their large fireball around. The four will start moving closer towards the center of the room as they take turns passing, trying to give the player characters less room to avoid the fireball. After they eventually move back to their corners, they will toss the fireball into the sky like before; only this time, three fireballs will rain down instead of one. Like before, if enough time passes, the four dragons will revert to the form of Landia EX.

Related Quotes
"Kirby... That dragon... Its name is Landia. It's lived on this planet for ages, but it's always been fast asleep. Recently, however, it awoke and went on a rampage! Please, Kirby, you must defeat that crazy dragon!"

- Magolor

"Kirby, I believe it's time for the final showdown. And Landia truly is one formidable foe... So team up if necessary, and use your combined powers to fell the beast!"

- Magolor

"Kirby, it's finally time. Landia is a truly fearsome foe. Super fearsome, even. So team up if necessary, and use your combined powers to fell the beast!"

- Magolor

"A four-headed dragon that sleeps on Halcandra, Landia has been revered as a protector since ancient times…until now."

- VS Landia

"Landia has lived on Halcandra since ancient times, protecting the land and guarding the world’s most legendary items, but …"

- VS Landia EX

"Landia to the rescue in Planet Popstar’s – no, the entire universe’s – time of need! Joining up with Kirby, the dragon takes to battle!"

- Pause screen description

"Dark clouds loom over the mountaintop... Prepare to fight the Four-Headed Guardian Angel!"

- Team Kirby Clash Quest description

"The four-headed Guardian Angel has descended and unleashed its true power. Only you can stop it!"

- Team Kirby Clash Quest description for Guardian Angel Landia EX

"The Guardian Angel brings his true power to the last, decisive ordeal!"

- Landia EX Quest Description

"Thank you for protecting everyone in the kingdom when Landia EX went berserk! Things may look peaceful now, but tough times are always around the bend... I suspect that more challenging battles are in your future! The only one who can save the world...is you! I believe in you, Kirby! Good luck!"

- Bandana Waddle Dee

Trivia

 * Landia's combined form is the only boss in the Kirby series to be a single entity with multiple heads, excluding tag teams, Computer Virus, and Twin Woods.
 * When the battle starts, Landia's eyes are green (dark red in Extra Mode); when he separates into four dragons, they turn to red, and when Landia is finally defeated and helps the party, they turn blue.
 * Although introduced as a four-headed dragon and described as such in the background info, Landia does not recombine after being defeated and spends the rest of the game as four separate dragons that seem to share the same mind, even departing Popstar in this state. It is therefore not clear if the combined form is Landia's natural form or a result of the Master Crown's power.
 * It is also possible that Landia started as a four-headed dragon, relying on the Master Crown's power to separate and recombine himself; when the crown was lost, he was stuck in its separated form. This is supported by the fact that Landia has to visibly tap into the crown's powers in order to accomplish the split for the first time.
 * Landia is one of the few characters in the Kirby series to start as a villain and to become an ally of Kirby's later in the same game; ironically, Magolor does the exact opposite shortly before Landia allies with Kirby.
 * Landia's theme music is reused for the second phase of the battle with HR-D3 and later in The True Arena for the first phase of Galacta Knight.
 * Although all of Landia's smaller forms register damage to their shared health bar, attacking the dragon that is wearing the Master Crown will do more damage than attacking the other three.
 * Many of Landia's attacks are based on the similar-looking Great Dragon summoned by the Computer Virus.
 * Landia's concept may be based around the mythological dragon known as the Hydra. Both are dragons with multiple heads. According to the myth, once a hydra's head is cut off, two heads would grow from the stump; this could be the inspiration behind Landia's technique of splitting into four dragons halfway through the battle.
 * Landia's roar sound effect is the same one used by Gyarados in Pokémon Snap as well as Fracktail and Wracktail in Super Paper Mario.
 * In Team Kirby Clash and Team Kirby Clash Deluxe, if Landia is defeated with a Team Meteor while separated into four smaller Landias, the dragons bounce around the screen rapidly before smashing into each other, defeated.
 * Landia's flavor text in Another Dimension parallels part of Magolor's final monologue. Both state that Planet Popstar will be effected by Magolor's power, then correct themselves by mentioning that the whole universe will be impacted, adding to the gravity of the situation.
 * Somewhat ironically, in Team Kirby Clash Deluxe, Landia meets a fate similar to Magolor's in Kirby's Return to Dream Land. Magolor Soul's pause screen description implies that the Master Crown had possessed him, and, in comparison, the description for Parallel Landia reads, "Blinded by the power of the crown, the dragon attacked. Bring him back to the light!" Additionally, Parallel Landia's color scheme is extremely similar to Magolor Soul's.
 * Like Gigant Edge, Landia is shinier in games for the Nintendo 3DS.
 * The music for Landia EX's battle in Team Kirby Clash Deluxe is an arrangement of the music heard in Castle Lololo in Kirby's Dream Land, which also plays during the first phase of King D-Mind's battle.