This page will be for explaining and showing this games mechanics and other useful tricks and techniques as a whole.

Goal games

If you are familiar with some other Kirby games goal games, you might be happy to hear that KDL2 has probably the best and easiest goal games in the series. This game has 100% consistency in their goal games and the ability to get HP from them with complete ease. If you need health, you have a few options. You can either time it for whatever you need or you have the option to sacrifice a little more time in exchange for a completely consistent way of getting health!

Fastest possible goal game

If you don't need health and just want to complete the goal game quickly and efficiently, all you need to do is hold down the A button and you will buffer the absolute earliest and fastest goal game possible. That's it, completely free.

Goal game if just holding A

Using the goal game for HP

Timing the goal game

Like goal games in most Kirby games, you can time them to receive rewards like 1ups, stars, and most importantly, Pep Brews and Maximum Tomatoes. It is slower than just holding down the A button, but its still better than dying if you are in need of health.

Timing the goal game for HP

The main bad thing about timing the goal game is the potential chance of getting a ledge grab, which wastes a little less than 2 seconds more.

Goal game ledge grab

Using the special goal game

The special goal game is a little secret thing the developers put in for... whatever reason. When the goal game starts, if you are holding down the A button and press Up, then Down, then Up again (you can mash up and down back and forth instead if you want) you will get a special goal game! While this goal game is quite slow, it will guarantee that you can get to full HP at the end of each level and is great for new runners!

The special goal game

Door entrances

Kirby, Kirby floating, Coo, Kine, Rick, Fat Kirby, Fat Coo, Fat Kine, and Fat Rick all enter doors at differing speeds. This is due to how long each states door entrance animation is and is one of the few disadvantages that Coo has in comparison to the other characters. This animation also allows an autoscroller glitch to occur where if you can potentially take damage when entering a door.

Method	Frames	Seconds
Kirby	54	0.904
Rick	69	1.155
Kine	69	1.155
Coo	71	1.189
Kirby floating	78	1.306
Fat Kirby	78	1.306
Fat Rick	93	1.557
Fat Kine	93	1.557
Fat Coo	94	1.574

Soft resetting

Soft resetting is a way to quickly reset the game by pressing and holding A+B+START+SELECT at the same time in roughly that order. In this game when resetting the game or turning it off, you will keep your ability, animal friend, HP, score, and progress as long as the game saves. Because of this, soft resetting is very good in KDL2 especially for learning and for beginners. When starting off with runs of the game and something goes terribly wrong, it is recommended to use soft resetting as a safety net if you do not know a backup to something or what to do without a certain ability/animal combo.

Where the game saves

KDL2 saves after completing each level, exiting a level, dying, finishing a bonus stage, completing the game, or by defeating a boss once the scoreboard comes back (more on this below). If you die and you don't know a backup to recover from your death, you can soft reset before the screen fully fades to white to recover your previous ability and animal friend that you had when you last left a completed stage.

Resetting on bosses

The main practicality use for soft resetting resetting on bosses, as you can skip the Kirby dance that occurs after defeating each boss fight. However, by skipping the Kirby dance by soft resetting, in return you do not get healed after a boss fight. If you need health, you can go ahead and watch this dance to get to full health and in return you would lose 5 seconds.

The Kirby dance that gets skipped

Soft reset timing for bosses

The reset timing for five of the bosses are the same and you do not need to reset for King Dedede or Dark Matter, so that leaves one boss with a different timing from the rest. Whispy Woods is the only boss that has a different visual cue for the reset.

When you start a boss fight, your scoreboard will be replaced with the boss HP and when a boss is defeated, Kirby's scoreboard will come back after a short period and you will lose control of Kirby, this is used as an indicator to see if its ok yet to soft reset. For Nruff, Sweet Stuff, Ice Dragon, Mr. Shine & Mr. Bright, and Kracko, on the GUI if you see the "E" with a health bar under Kirby's HP, empty or not, it is NOT safe to soft reset and resetting will lose the progress of the boss being defeated. If you see a variety of numbers under Kirby's health bar, it IS safe to soft reset (reminder that this doesn't apply to Whispy Woods).

It is NOT safe to reset!

It IS safe to reset!

Whispy Woods soft reset timing

Whispy doesn't abide by the same rules as the other bosses apparently, as when Whispy's scoreboard comes back, you still have control of Kirby and the game hasnt been saved yet. The timing for when to soft reset for Whispy is slightly later, when the scoreboard comes back, Whispy's face animation will show both of his eyes closed and a tear coming from the right closed eye. This means it is NOT safe to soft reset yet as the game hasn't saved yet.

It is NOT safe to reset!

When you lose control of Kirby and Whispy's facial expression changes to having his left eye open with the tear drop slightly further down, it is now safe to soft reset as the game has been saved.

It IS safe to reset!

No one knows why Whispy's soft reset timing is different compared to the others.

Dropping abilities/animal friends and the select button

In this game, pressing the select button to drop abilities or animal friends is very finicky on when it wants work. The select button has 2 main reasons (that I'm aware of) on why it is the way it is; it can almost never be buffered, meaning you cannot be in the middle of any action when you press the select button, and it just doesn't work at all when Kirby is jumping upwards, meaning if you are in the middle of a jump you have to time your select input to when Kirby starts descending for it to actually drop your ability.

Select button not working while jumping up

Full jumps vs non full jumps

When you you jump in this game, if you don't do a full jump (holding A all the way through until the start of Kirby's descent) you will freeze in the air for a single frame. This frame is basically never noticeable and hardly matters, but you can technically shave off frames by trying to reduce the amount of times you jump, changing those jumps to full jumps, or making sure you bonk your head when jumping with something above you.

Video example and explanation:

Input buffering

You can buffer a few inputs in this game in a small amount of ways.

Float buffer

This is arguably not considered a buffer, as it is a directional input which means these inputs are designed to be held, making them technically almost always able to be buffered, however I think this is worth at the very least mentioning.
When you are jumping while holding A, if Kirby is rising, your up input will not come through until after Kirby starts descending. This makes it to where in a few spots you can hold jump and up at the same time to sort of simulate a float buffer. This is mainly useful when you need to enter the doors after defeating mid bosses as those doors take a small period of time to open up.

Float buffer inputs

Float buffer exiting mid boss

Buffering inputs through room transitions

When going through a door, once the room starts to fade out (ie, the room transition begins) every single action (except for start/pausing) can be buffered into the next room if the button is held. This is surprisingly rarely useful in runs, as its main three uses are buffering select inputs in 7-7 when discarding used abilities to obtain the Rainbow drops, buffering a jump input when entering 5-2, and buffering a jump input when entering the Coo room in 6-2.

Jump buffer demo

Ability use buffer demo

6-2 applicable input buffer

Moving left vs moving right

This mechanic is one that you will probably never need to know about, but might be interesting for a few people. When you walk to the left, your speed will get set to the highest value its supposed to be, however for whatever reason, in this game when you walk to the right your speed will fluctuate between two speed values. When walking to the right, your speed will jump to the highest value its supposed to be but for the next frame it will drop a slight amount of speed and it will repeat this process for every single frame you are walking to the right. Because of this, moving to the left will always be faster than moving to the right.
The main applicable places this can be utilized is when you are first actionable when going into the 1-1 door, the world 2 hub when going into 2-1, and the 5-5 rainbow drop room in the Best Ending/100% categories.
While being a very small piece to the Coo clip puzzle, it technically makes Coo clips slightly more complicated when trying to make Coo clips consistent.
Video demonstration and explanation:

This does not apply when you are mashing fast enough with either Coo or Kine as their speed will not get a chance to alternate dropping.

Slope speed

In this game when you walk upwards on a slope, you will start moving slower but if you walk downwards on a slope, you will move way faster. This isn't that surprising as its a thing in a lot of games but can add a little more depth to some parts of the game.

Walking up and going down slopes

To avoid losing speed from walking upwards on inclined surfaces, simply jump up those parts instead and contiue sliding down the downwards parts.

Select button not working while jumping up

Slope state

When you are going up or down a slope, Kirby's slope state will be changed and different things can be effected while Kirby is in the slope state. Mostly going to focus on the slope state Kirby is put into when he is sliding downwards on a slope as that is way more interesting.
If Kirby is going downwards on a slope, his speed will increase and he will be placed into a slope state. If you decide to jump while physically on the slope, Kirby will lose the speed he has gathered (somewhat slowly) but he will still be in the slope state. If you where to inhale an enemy now while still in the slope state, you will essentially speed back up for a brief period giving Kirby a little speed boost.

Inhaling while in a slope state

Inhaling while NOT in a slope state

This can be combined with exhaling tech (locking speed) to greatly increase Kirby's speed for a short period.

Storing slope state

While jumping off a slope to set Kirby's slope state while in the air, this state will usually be kept until Kirby lands on the ground, however this state can be sort of "stored" or conserved longer by performing frame perfect jump inputs. By jumping the frame you are first able to jump when landing on the ground, Kirby's slope state doesn't get updated back to zero basically, and if you keep this up for long enough, you can inhale an enemy that might be further away for a little tiny speed boost!

Carrying slope state for a tiny speed boost

To our knowledge, the only applicable place this can be used is in 1-1 of any category.

Locking speed (exhaling)

In this game with solo Kirby, exhaling locks your speed if you are continuing to hold a direction while exhaling for 24 frames. This might not sound like it would be too beneficial as you often use Coo, Kine, or have the ability Burning but it can be used in a few spots (most prominently in 1-1 and 2-1) and is one of the coolest pieces of tech in the run! Because exhaling locks your speed, this means anytime you gain speed while Kirby has something in his mouth, that speed can be extended further by exhaling! However, that also means if you are moving at a slower speed, (walking up on an inclined slope as an example) if you exhale you will be locked at a slower speed for 24 frames.

Exhaling while walking down a slope

This unfortunately doesn't work all too well with animal friends, as they all slow down when exhaling anyways. Even the land animal, Rick, harshly slows down while exhaling making it only applicable to use with Kirby. (Sorry Rick)

Exhaling down a slope with Rick

Exhaling with slopes and slope state

With combining slope related techniques you can gain and maintain quite a bit of speed!
If you are on a slope with something is Kirby's mouth, you can slide down it and jump immediately followed by an exhale (exhale the frame after jumping for the best results) and you can keep all of that slopes built up speed into the air while staying in Kirby's current slope state. If Kirby now inhales something else before touching the ground, he will still gain his speed boost from having Kirby's slope state still set. After this enemy is inhaled, Kirby will be unable to exhale for 15 frames, after those 15 frames are over and Kirby is able to exhale again, Kirby will be losing speed for the next 12 frames until Kirby is back at his walking speed. If you exhale within those 12 frames, Kirby will maintain the speed from slope state for another 24 frames, with the earlier Kirby exhales, the higher the speed Kirby will be locked into. These speed boosts are commonly called "Hill boosts" or "Slope boosts".

Full slope boost speed (1-2)

You can also combine these techniques while storing Kirby's slope state for a larger speed boost reward for the frame perfect inputs this requires. Unfortunately, this is once again only applicable in 1-1 and also creates a little bit of RNG.

Boosting while storing Kirby's slope state

Exhaling while walking right...

Since walking right is constantly fluctuating every single frame and exhaling locks your speed, this unfortunately means when you are solo Kirby and are walking to the right and have to exhale something it pretty much makes it to where every time you need to exhale something its a 50/50 on whether or not you will lock your speed to the higher fluctuating value or the lower one, meaning a 50/50 on if you will gain or lose time. This loss in speed is not very noticeable, especially if you didn't know about this mechanics existence. If you look at the 100% TAS you might notice that it will basically inhale and spit out anything whenever its possible when Kirby doesn't have an ability and is walking to the right, this is because it is choosing to spit out enemies when Kirby is at the higher fluctuating value of Kirby's walk speed.

Slope cancelling Burning

With the ability fire (sometimes called burning), if you use the ability into a slope, Kirby will instantly start walking on the slope and your burning attack and animation will be cancelled. If used well enough, this means you can start stringing together another Burning even faster as you can potentially end the Burning at the very end and cancel its (albeit small) slowdown period where you are inactionable.

Frame by frame slope cancel

Coo/Kine mashing

With Coo in the air and Kine underwater, these two animal friends can move way faster if you are mashing the A button repeatedly.

Coo+cutter in upwards drafts

Most applicable in 6-6 in all main categories and can only occur with the Coo and cutter combo. If you use cutter in one of these upward drafts, Coo will move upwards faster than he normally is supposed to. Ideally for upwards drafts, you want to let go of up on the dpad and stop mashing the A button as those will slow you down in comparison to just throwing out as many cutters as you can by mashing the B button.

Projectile abilities

Timing hits

With projectile abilities, you will need to time most hits with them when damaging bosses and mid bosses as bosses invincibility frames become way more prevalent with these abilities in particular.

Multiplying damage

Currently only known to be possible with Kirby/cutter, Coo/cutter, and knocking projectiles back in both phases of the Dark Matter fight, if you land multiple projectiles on a boss or mid-boss on the same frame, instead of doing that abilities normal damage it will multiply by however many projectiles hit that boss at once. This mechanic is also why Coo/cutter is such a powerful combo in the run as you are able to consistently hit all 3 of his cutter blades at once by simply being very close to a boss.

Coo cutter

If you use this attack, you cannot use it again until all the cutter blades have collided with something (including the edge of the screen).

Wind rooms

Coo's hitbox

Enemy spawns offscreen (I.e influenced by your position)

Animal bag knockback

If you run into an animal bag before the animal friend is ready to be grabbed, the bag will knock Kirby back like he takes damage, however he doesn't take damage and just gets knocked back. After defeating a mid boss/enemy that will free an animal friend, you can crouch directly under an animal bag while the bag is falling and potentially grab it really quickly. Note: Unfinished!

Crouching animal bag grab

Animal bag knockback invincibility

KDL2:Mechanics and Tech