Marx Soul is the true final boss of Kirby Super Star Ultra, serving as final impediment of The True Arena. It had previously been assumed that Marx had met his doom by ramming into Galactic Nova after his battle with Kirby at the end of Milky Way Wishes, but it was shown in the cutscene "Marx Soul Appears" that Marx's body absorbed Nova's energy and grew stronger, becoming the powerful Marx Soul. He resembles the original Marx in both strategy and design, but with a few aggressive additions throughout. After Kirby lands the finishing blow on him, Marx Soul releases a blood-curdling scream as he slowly splits down the middle and turns purple; both halves then explode as the dimension grows unstable.
Marx Soul greatly resembles regular Marx in terms of his design and his battle tactics. His wings are now dark red, have three claws on each wing, the hearts on them are bright blue, and the tips of the wings are larger as well. His eyes are now much more menacing, where he has a tiny pupil surrounded by a single thin lavender-colored iris. The pompoms on his hat are larger and have spikes on the top, whereas in his original form they were small and round. The ends of his shoes are pointy, his mouth is wider with an elongated tongue that hangs out of it like a dog, and he has larger fangs. Marx Soul also wears a tarnished gold necklace around his neck with an oval, magenta jewel set in it. When his full mouth and all of his teeth are shown, they are revealed to be jagged and unevenly spaced apart. Strangely, the colors on Marx Soul's hat have been switched, having dark magenta on the left side and sky blue on the right side, unlike the usual sky blue on the left side and dark magenta on the right side. Marx Soul also has a laugh that sounds like a cackle that has been electronically distorted.
Attacks[]
Marx Soul shares most of the attacks he uses with his living counterpart, but he has gained two new attacks in the process of absorbing Nova's power which involve him splitting himself in half and that each reference Drawcia Soul. One of the two attacks Marx Soul performs involves him raining down pink and blue paint balls from the ceiling, the paint balls fall slowly at first, but soon start to fall increasingly quickly, making it nearly impossible to dodge them all. The best way to take the least amount of damage is for Kirby to move all the way to the side of the screen and guard himself, or to constantly jump in place. These balls will give Kirby the Paintability when inhaled and swallowed, but Paint oddly does very little damage to Marx Soul. The second of the two new attacks Marx Soul performs only happens when his health is about half gone. At this point, he splits into two energy orbs (one pink and the other blue) which move along the screen, in which the pink blast goes first, with the blue blast following shortly after it is off-screen, although it's mixed at times. This cannot be guarded. A fair amount of his attacks will still deal some damage or outright ignore guarding, but some will still deal no damage.
Of the attacks Marx Soul shares with his living counterpart, all of them are now significantly stronger. For example:
Marx Soul performs his cutter attack twice rather than once. Can be guarded or inhaled for the Cutter ability.
Marx Soul moves from side to side while charging up the ice bomb in his mouth. Can be guarded and also can be inhaled for the Ice ability, but he often follows up with his Laser attack.
Marx Soul now drops six seeds instead of four. The vines that grow from the seeds are twice their original size, and some parts of them bloom into roses, causing more damage to Kirby should he be hit by them. The seeds can be guarded, but the vines still do damage.
Marx Soul is faster and more precise when tracking Kirby from underground, and he springs up much faster and much higher than he does in his normal form. Can be guarded, but if he attacks directly from below, it will still damage the player.
The arrow attack and laser beam take up more space on the screen and deal more damage. The arrows can still be guarded without taking damage, while the laser cannot be guarded at all.
In comparison to normal Marx's version, Marx Soul's black hole attack deals more damage, has a wider range, and is used more often. Unlike Marx, he even uses his black hole attack as his opening move. This still cannot be guarded at all.
Marx is a character in Kirby Super Star and Kirby Super Star Ultra. He was a diminuitive jester of Dream Land with big plans. He made the Sun and Moon of Dream Land to fight with each other, and asked Kirby to summon Nova using the powers of the Dream Fountains of surrounding planets and wish the fighting to stop, but he has his own plans for that one wish Nova can grant - complete control over Dream Land.
Marx Soul's Pause Screen description first confirmed the existence of multiple Novas, as it says, "a nova's power" as opposed to "Nova's power." This is one of three sources indicating this, along with Magolor's mention of the Clockwork Stars and the appearance of Star Dream. However, it should be noted that the original Japanese version of this text does not reference more than one Nova.
Similar to Magolor's apparent defeat at the end of Kirby's Return to Dream Land, Marx still appears in the "Kirby Master" movie (which is unlocked when the file is 100% complete), despite being split in half and perishing. He would also later appear in Kirby's Return to Dream Land’s "Kirby Master" video, as well as Kirby Triple Deluxe’s.
During the cutscene where Marx makes his wish for control of Planet Popstar, the split-second before he transforms, Marx has a brief appearance somewhat resembling his Soul form, sporting a long tongue, sharp fangs, and slit pupils. Even though this appearance happened in the original Kirby Super Star (before Marx Soul was introduced), his appearance is more noticeable in the remake, and possibly what inspired the design for Marx Soul.
A rare glitch within Kirby Super Star allows one to trigger a fight against Marx outside of his intended battles within Milky Way Wishes and The Arena. When triggered within The Great Cave Offensive, Marx would look distorted while his color changes to a purplish color, similar to that of Marx Soul. His laugh is also distorted as well.