
The Animal Friends from Kirby's Dream Land 3 would have returned in this game as well, most likely through Adeleine painting them to assist Kirby, but the idea seems to have never gone past the concept art stage. In the final game, only King Dedede remained as a playable character, albeit in certain levels and with Kirby riding on his back. Ribbon, originally named "Kawashima", was intended to be the way the player would switch between these playable characters.

This concept made it all the way to the E3 1999 build of Kirby 64, before being removed sometime before the game was shown off at Spaceworld 1999. Originally, all three of Kirby's friends - Waddle Dee, Adeleine, and King Dedede - would've been playable characters outside of the minigames.
