Kirby And The Forgotten Land: How To Beat Phantom King Dedede

Welcome to Nintendo Life's Kirby and the Forgotten Land boss guides. Here we'll be running you through each and every one of the main bosses for the game and how we went about defeating them.

Now that you've beaten the main campaign you can get stuck into collecting Leon's Soul fragments across the Isolated Isles, where you'll have to take on harder, stronger versions of the game's end of world bosses in order to receive your final fragments for each area.

The fourth of these remixed boss encounters takes place in Forgo Horns where you'll face off against Phantom King Dedede!

Let's take a look!

Kirby and the Forgotten Land - Phantom King Dedede Boss Guide

Phase One

This first phase has got quite a few new moves to get your head around. For starters King Dedede starts out with five dogs here, instead of the original fight's two, although these are still very easy to do away with by simply hoovering them all up and blasting them at their master.

King Dedede is faster overall this time out, and he's gonna come after you with a basic hammer attack that now comprises a ground smash followed by a side swipe, both easily avoided by just hovering out of the way, then get in for a few attacks before he goes again.

His trip move, where he runs and falls over against you, now happens three times in quick succession when he pulls it off so make sure to dodge all three times then pick up the stars and blast him or get in behind him and give him a good spanking while he's down on the ground. That's what we like to see!

King Dedede will also produce a bunch of spiked enemies in this first phase which he'll use his hammer to bat at you, these are easily avoided, but he'll then follow this move with his ground pound, jumping high into the air and crashing to the arena floor three times in a row. Hover over the damage waves and then drop down to batter him when he's recovering from his third smash.

Besides these differences he's just gonna come at you quicker and swing his hammer around a bunch more, so watch out, get your hits in where you can when he's recovering from all of the above and you'll soon have him down, where he drops his hammer and moves onto phase two.

Phase Two

King Dedede will once again head up to the side of the arena now and grab a pillar to fight you with. However, this time he'll thrown down three spike barrier before returning, these are slow-moving and easy to navigate so don't fret too much when you see this happening. He'll now get into smashing the ground to perform his huge electrical ground attack. This looks intense but is, once again, very easy to avoid by simply hovering over the area affected. Wait for him to stop this and get in close for some smacks with your weapon or hoover up the stars to shoot at him.

Something to look out for with this ground-shattering move now, however, is that it leaves an icy patch on the arena floor every time he does it, so expect to fight on a mostly icy surface for most of this phase. His horizontal pillar attack, which came in reps of two in the original fight now happens five times when he performs it and he throws in vertical swipes randomly, so watch out for these and get in for your attacks when he stops for a breath.

The only other thing to look out for here is a super-charged set of horizontal pillar attacks that you can see coming a mile off, he'll take his time winding this up and then bash around in a clockwise direction, you'll need to hover and move to avoid these as they come around. The good news is he leaves a ton of stars on the ground as he does this power move so when he stops hoover a bunch up and smash him for big damage.

Look out for all the new moves we've detailed here, pick your spots to get in to attack, and you should have him defeated once again in pretty short order and pick up your final five soul pieces for Fargo Horns. Good job!

This guide is part of our Kirby and the Forgotten Land Walkthrough Guide, which covers every world in the game (Natural Plains, Everbay Coast, Wondaria Remains, Winter Horns, Originull Wasteland, and Redgar Forbidden Lands, plus the post-game areas — SPOILERS!! — where you'll find all Leon Soul pieces throughout The Isolated Isles in Forgo Plains, Forgo Bay, Forgo Park, Forgo Horns, Forgo Wasteland, and Forgo Zone).

We also detail Every Waddle Dee Location, every Copy Ability Blueprint Location, and how to beat every boss in the game (so that's Gorimondo, Tropic Woods, Clawroline, King Dedede, Sillydillo, Forgo Dedede, Leongar, Fecto Forgo, and finally Fecto Elfilis, plus the post-game bosses — SPOILERS!! — Phantom Gorimondo, Phantom Tropic Woods, Phantom Clawroline, Phantom King Dedede, Phantom Sillydillo, Forgo Dedede, Forgo Leongar, and Morpho Knight).

There's also our full list of Kirby And The Forgotten Land Present Codes which will get you bonus in-game goodies if you input them at Waddle Dee-liveries.

And finally if you're looking to pick up the game, you'll want to check Where To Buy Kirby And The Forgotten Land On Switch.