Level 5-1
Copy Abilities
About halfway through the first area of this stage, you come across a tiny door. To reach it, go back a little ways, and fly under the clouds and over the Shotzo. A 1-Up and a couple of Rockys wait inside.
You start the next area falling past a multitude of enemies. Stay in the center to avoid taking damage. When you hit the row of Star Blocks, destroy them to find a hidden lower area. A door there contains another Switch. To uncover the door, destroy the tallest row of Star Blocks.
The Switch unlocks the Yogurt Yard Crane Fever.
Level 5-2
Copy Abilities
When you come to this door, make a point to go through it. When you first enter the area, you’d be forgiven for assuming you came through that door, but really it’s just a clever way to hide a 1-Up. Head on through and claim it as your own!
Miniboss: Bonkers
Bonkers makes another appearance in this stage. Watch for those coconuts, and send them right back at him!
Museum
Here is a colorful display of enemies with special abilities. Eat the one you want! This time, your free Copy Abilities include Stone and Tornado.
Level 5-3
Copy Abilities
Shotzos positively load the first area of this stage. Be bold and charge through! If you fly straight up the middle, you’ll be fine. Just don’t pause, even for a moment, or you risk taking a hit!
Eventually you come across a Wheelie. If you don’t already have a Copy Ability, suck it up and use Wheel for this area. There’s a whole lot of road to cover here, and a whole lot of enemies that try to stop you. Wheel makes quick work of traversing this area.
Drop the Wheel power once you enter the next area. It doesn’t do you a lot of good here.
At the end of the Star Block bridge ahead, find two Star Blocks stacked on top of each other. Clear them out to find a door. Inside are two pegs, a Rocky, a Maxim Tomato, and a 1-Up. Use Stone to pound the pegs down, but be warned: the Maxim Tomato is perfectly safe, but the 1-Up will plummet into a hole the peg creates. Use Stone Kirby to drop rapidly, grab the 1-Up, then quickly break away from stone form. The timing here is extremely tight, so maybe practice midair transformations before trying the real thing.
Grab the parasol in this room. This whole area is just one long chamber of spikes and the parasol will make navigating this treacherous terrain.
Level 5-4
Copy Abilities
As you start this stage, you run into a Flamer enemy. Suck it up to get Fireball power. This area is full of narrow corridors layered with spikes; Fireball helps you get through these tunnels unscathed. If you can hang on to your Fireball power through most of this area, you eventually get the chance to grab a 1-Up.
Miniboss: Meta Knight’s Knights
If you manage to carry Fireball all the way to this point, you’re in luck! Fireball is particularly devastating against Meta Knight’s squad.
When you reach the waterfall area in this stage, look out for the small passage where water is pouring out (use the accompanying screenshot to point the way). That’s not just any ol’ water passage; it’s a door! And inside is another hidden Switch! Head through the door in the middle of the room and hit the Switch to unlock the Arena for the Yogurt Yard.
As a side note: if you’re wondering how to make that 1-Up yours, get to the left of it and suck it up through the platforms!
Arena
Two fighters go in, but only one leaves. Eat a Tomato and an ability for a win!
To unlock this Arena, hit the Switch hidden in Level 5-4.
You know him. You love him. Bonkers is back for another fight! Knock him out, and his Hammer Copy Ability is yours!
Level 5-5
Copy Abilities
Stay low in the first area of this stage. You eventually come to a door with a cannon, a Hot Head, and a Starman inside. This is clearly a puzzle, but how do you go about solving it? You might be tempted to grab the Hot Head for its Fire power, light the fuse, then grab the Starman to jump through the Star Blocks, but unfortunately that order doesn’t leave you with enough time to get to the cannon.
Instead, start with the Starman’s Hi-Jump ability and leap through the Star Blocks to clear the way.
Drop Hi-Jump with the Select Button, then absorb the Hot Head and light the fuse. Use your cleared route to reach the cannon quickly.
After all that work, you should get something nice, right? You aren’t wrong. All that effort pays off, and you gain access to another hidden Switch! Hit this one to unlock the Yogurt Yard Quick Draw Minigame.
Miniboss: Fire Lion
This Miniboss can be a real heel. He grabs you like Bugzzy and Rolling Turtle, charges at you faster than Bonkers and Grand Wheelie, and he likes jumping almost as much as the Poppy Bros. Nervous yet? Don’t be, but don’t underestimate this ferocious feline either. He tears Kirby into pink fluff if he’s allowed to.
One of his favorite strategies is to trick Kirby into flying while he charges toward our favorite creampuff. His aim here is to get Kirby in the air so he can leap and smack him. Be careful to avoid getting caught in this clever trap.
The time to strike is when he face-plants. He leaps into the air on occasion and comes down straight onto his face, producing a star in the process. Suck up that star and hit Fire Lion, then wait for your next opportunity.
Once you finally defeat him, absorb him for Fireball.
Watch out for Bounders climbing up and down the trees in this area. As you approach the trees, they attempt to fall on your head. A Laser Ball at the start of this area helps—shoot the slopes, and the beam bounces upward toward the Bounder—but what helps the most is patience. Approach a tree, wait for the Bounder to fall, defeat it, then move on.
Level 5-6
Copy Abilities
You find another hidden Switch, but to grab it, you need Hammer power. Thankfully the Arena has Bonkers, who gives Hammer power when absorbed. Head over, fight him, and grab his Hammer power before starting this stage.
Getting the Switch requires you to carry Hammer through most of the stage without losing it. By now you are likely acutely aware of how easy it is to lose a Copy Ability. The easiest way to avoid losing a power is to avoid taking damage, and the easiest way to do that is to avoid fighting altogether. This is a real challenge in this stage, especially in the first area. A ton of Wheelies ride up and down lots of slopes here. Rushing through this area is almost guaranteed to get you hit. Very slowly move through to see if a Wheelie appears from off the screen before transitioning to the next slope.
Enter the first door you encounter in the third area of this stage to find a strange arrangement of blocks surrounding six Star Blocks. This is what you need Hammer for. Swim up and destroy the green blocks at the top of this arrangement to reach the Star Blocks. Destroy those two to find a door that leads to the hidden Switch in this stage. Hitting that Switch unlocks the Star Station for Yogurt Yard.
Yogurt Yard Boss: Heavy Mole
Heavy Mole is a different Boss fight than you’ve seen up to this point. The entire time you fight it, it constantly digs to the right side of the screen. If you don’t constantly keep up with it, you can get left behind and potentially lose a life. When Heavy Mole digs upward, you lose a life if you fall to a point off the screen. Take special care to watch your footing.
Heavy Mole doesn’t really have any attacks aside from opening its back hatch and shooting projectiles at you on occasion. Its digging tools do damage if they touch you, but that’s only if you get too close.
To damage Heavy Mole, simply suck up its projectiles and spit them back at it. All in all, though this is a different kind of Boss fight, it’s mechanically simple. That doesn’t mean it’s not a challenge, but you know exactly what you’re up against once you get into the fight.