Six of the strongest Nintendo characters, according to canon

Today, we’re going over an age-old question: who are the strongest Nintendo characters according to canon? The answer to that is usually Kirby, but it’s not quite that simple when you lay things out. With that said, it’s impossible to talk about strong Nintendo characters without going over spoilers. This post contains hefty spoilers for Kirby, Bayonetta, Zelda, Metroid, and Xenoblade – so if you’re trying to avoid story details for any of those games, you might want to come back later.

Honorable mentions

Before we get started with our six winners, there are a few honorable mentions here. First up, you could argue that Shulk is the strongest Nintendo character at the very end of Xenoblade Chronicles. In this game, he defeats Zanza and temporarily gains access to his power to create a new world. He’s only got that power for a moment, however, because he gives it up in the end. By the time Shulk next appears in Xenoblade Chronicles: Future Connected, he no longer has the power of a god and is pretty much on par with some of Nintendo’s other swordfighters. He’s even weaker in Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Future Redeemed after losing his dominant arm.

There’s a notable absence of Zelda characters on the list. Ganondorf, while incredibly powerful, is always handily defeated by Link by the end of each game. His Tears of the Kingdom incarnation is almost certainly the most powerful, especially in dragon form. Majora is another extremely powerful final boss, and honestly I considered putting either it or Fierce Deity Link on the list. We don’t know much about the Fierce Deity Mask according to canon, but it’s clear that it contains someone else’s spirit which Link is using to draw power. It’s not really his own power, which is why I chose not to include him here.

We could also include any number of Kirby final bosses here – Star Dream and Fecto Elfilis could probably handily defeat most Nintendo characters. But for the sake of variety, we’ve made sure all six of our picks are from different franchises. Otherwise, we’d have a full list of Kirby or Xenoblade characters, and that’s not very interesting from a reader’s perspective! We could add additional Pokemon here too, including Eternatus, Mewtwo, Mega Rayquaza, and Ultra Necrozma. They’re all solid picks! And if you have any candidates we didn’t list here, feel free to let us know in the comments down below.

Samus Aran

First up here is Samus – specifically, the iteration of her that you play as at the end of Metroid Dread. In this game, Raven Beak puts Samus through several harsh challenges with the goal of awakening her hidden Metroid DNA. In the end, he’s successful – but ultimately stood no chance against Samus with her true power awakened. This strength comes in the form of the Metroid Suit, which grants Samus super-powerful lasers in addition to everything she can already do. In fact, Metroid Suit Samus blasts Raven Beak in his ultimate X Parasite-infused form to smithereens in just a few seconds. Not to mention Samus’ retaliation against Raven Beak causes the entire planet she’s on to self-destruct and explode, which is a massive feat. In theory, Samus still has an ice weakness with the Metroid Suit equipped, so she might not actually be invincible here. But by the end of Metroid Dread, she’s certainly one of the most powerful Nintendo characters out there. You could argue she’s higher on the list than this, and that’s fair!

Galeem

It’s pretty clear why Galeem makes this list: he single-handedly destroys almost every fighter in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate in just a few seconds. He fails to take out Kirby, however, which eventually leads to his own defeat after all of the fighters are rescued. Sephiroth also ends Galeem in one shot during his reveal trailer for the game, but this probably isn’t canon – if it were, we probably wouldn’t have included Galeem on this list. Another note is that Super Smash Bros. isn’t really canon to each Nintendo character’s true abilities. He was able to take down Sonic, Bayonetta, and Palutena, who probably shouldn’t have been defeated according to their strength in their own respective universes. Speaking of Smash Bros., we chose Galeem and not Tabuu because Sonic easily shatters Tabuu’s wings – no single character winds up dealing that much damage to Galeem other than Sephiroth, and that cutscene may not even be canon to World of Light. Smash Bros. power scaling is very confusing!

Arceus

Arceus is another shoo-in as far as powerful Nintendo characters go. It created the entire world of Pokemon along with Dialga, Palkia, and Giratina, who themselves are extremely powerful and can control time, space, and antimatter, respectively. In the Pokemon movie, Arceus is also seen having control over time and space, which alone gives it more strength than just about every other Nintendo character there is. Arceus winds up doing battle with the player in Pokemon Legends: Arceus, and it’s very possible to win against it – but this is likely because Arceus saw it as a test of skill rather than an all-out brawl. At full power, there aren’t many (if any) characters Arceus could lose to. And it certainly couldn’t lose to any Pokemon, at least in terms of canonical power. In Pokemon Legends: Arceus, it’s implied that the Arceus we see is only a small piece of it. Maybe we’ve never even seen its true, full-powered form.

Bayonetta

You could argue Bayonetta is the strongest Nintendo character – she has many impressive accomplishments under her belt, including taking out two gods. Unfortunately, Bayonetta 3 came around and nerfed her terribly. She’s ultimately killed by her own demon, which ultimately knocks down her power levels by quite a bit. Still, her achievements can’t be understated – Jubileus and Aesir are two extremely powerful antagonists who most other Nintendo characters wouldn’t be able to do a thing against. And technically, Bayonetta is owned by PlatinumGames, but her strong association with Nintendo has led us to consider her a Nintendo character for the purposes of this list.

Kirby

Kirby is certainly one of the strongest Nintendo characters, but he’s not necessarily the invincible god slayer some players make him out to be. Kirby has taken down many god-like entities, but always with outside help. He defeated Magolor with Super Abilities, Void Termina with the Star Allies Sparkler, Fecto Elfilis with Mouthful Mode, and Star Dream with Robobot Armor and the Halberd. That’s Kirby’s strength, though – the ability to adapt when situations call for it. Notably, he did defeat Genwel Meteonelfilis in Star-Crossed World with no outside help, which marks the first time Kirby has defeated a main series final boss all on his own since before Kirby’s Return to Dream Land. That said, Kirby almost lost his battle against Queen Sectonia in Kirby Triple Deluxe, where he required the help of King Dedede and Taranza to win. It’s very possible that future Kirby games push him to limits more – that’s actually something we’d really like to see. It’s difficult to compare Kirby’s power to other Nintendo characters, to be honest, and seeing him in action even more often might make that conversation easier.

Alpha

This is one of the few characters that I truly don’t know if Kirby could defeat. After the events of Xenoblade Chronicles 1 and 2, the two worlds begin to recombine, which would result in both of their destruction. To prevent this from happening, characters from both worlds constructed Origin, a giant ark built on the framework of Alvis’s Core Crystal (and he’s already an incredibly powerful character by Nintendo standards). Alvis is eventually split into two beings, A and Alpha. As Alpha, he has near-complete control over the fabric of reality. As the main administrator of Origin, he has the power to create a completely new world at his own whim, held back only by the fact that he’s a heartless machine. This is ultimately what prevents him from achieving his goal: he needed all of the people of the City to be on board with his new world, and presumably he had to either kill or recruit Matthew before he could continue with his plans. That’s just a theory, anyway. At any rate, it took Shulk, Rex, Matthew, N, A, and plenty of others to take down Alpha – and Pyra, Mythra, and Malos were all technically present there as well (in a very roundabout way), and were instrumental in overcoming Alpha’s incredible power. If you’ve never played Xenoblade before and have no idea what I’m talking about, I apologize for all the complicated lore!

And those are our six strongest Nintendo characters! Do you have any candidates that weren’t included on the list? There are a ton of really strong Nintendo characters you could argue for inclusion on this list, and the obvious ones are all lumped together in the honorable mentions section. In any case, feel free to leave your suggestions, agreements, or disagreements in the comments down below.