Welp,
here's my 3rd attempt. To my surprise, no power Kirby is actually pretty strong. They balanced him well. I also discovered during this that doing the slow-mo perfect dodge actually gives Kirby a much bigger frame advantage. I thought it was just slowed down to give the player more time to react, but no. In some cases it would appear doing a perfect dodge is the only way to make use of stars produced from some attacks.
As a side-note, I mentioned a few pages back about my minor gripe with the game being that it doesn't have any indication that 2 of the figures are locked behind
making multiple purchases at the cafe and stat buff shop. I've since stumbled upon that it actually does! Some of the '?' spaces in the figures list are a bolder gray; pressing A on these ones actually tells you their requirement. Now I just feel silly.