Flibbees are enemies which resemble bees. They are only found in Mario and Luigi: Dream Team, and they are located in the Mushrise Park area.
Flibbees are assisted by Thorbs but can sometimes be seen fighting with only their own kind.
Appearance
Flibbees are enemies that look like oversized bees, with one black stripe around the middle of their body. The enemy has wings on its torso which it can use to fly, and eyes that look like goggles. Flibbees have a spike on their head (which parallels a real bee's stinger) and feet below, but can turn upside down in their flying form. Their stronger variant, the Flibbee R, has the same overall appearance except with a blue body and yellow eyes when it is "angry".
Flibbees are often seen in their grounded form, but will enter their flying form whenever the Mario brothers make their way into the creatures' territory.
Battle
The way Flibbees attack differs depending on their position, which can change if a Mario brother strikes one.
Airborne Flibbees will be able to dodge ground-based attacks like Hammers, the 3D Shell Attacks, and Mario's Jet-Board Bash due to their ability to just simply fly over them. To attack, the Flibbee will come flying at a bro on its side after it possibly rolls its eyes in circles up to three times, to fake out the attack and mess up the bros's timing. The Flibbee will proceed to do the same amount of loops as the number of times it rolled its eyes, before flying into its target, who must jump to dodge. The fake-outs can be averted by simply jumping when the Flibbee reaches the bottom of its loop; if it charges, then it is going to get stomped by the would-be target.
If on the ground, the spike will be upright and will hurt the bros if they attempt to jump on it. To attack, the Flibbee will fly at Mario or Luigi and aim its spike at him as it flies back and forth, itching closer to its target. That target must smack it with his hammer when it comes into range in order to knock it into another enemy (or if there are no more remaining, into the ground). Even if this kills the Flibbee, the Flibbee's body does not burst to release stars until it hits something.
Flibbees R share their attacks with the normal Flibbee, but can also reduce your attack power.
Etymology
The name Flibbee comes from the words "flip" and "bee", referring to how these enemies flip their attack patterns in battle.
Nomenclature
In Japanese, Flibbees is referred to as a Sakabachi (written サカバチ), from sakasa ("inverted"; written 逆さ in Kanji, さかさ in Hiragana, and サカサ in Katakana) and hachi/bachi ("bee"; written 蜂 in Kanji, はち/ばち in Hiragana, and ハチ/バチ in Katakana). Their Spanish name, Abejabajo, comes from abeja ("bee") and abasjo ("downwards"). Portuguese refers to them as Invertibelha, from inverter ("to flip," "to invert") and abelha ("bee"). Their Italian name, Verticape, comes from Verticale ("vertical") and Ape ("bee"). They are called Bavette in French, despite that word coming from baver ("to slobber," something that Flibbees are not even remotely associated with). In German, they are called Reversiene, from revers ("reverse") and biene ("bee"). Russian translates their name as Zhalokrut (written Жалокрут), from zhalo ("stinger"; written жало) and krutit ("to spin"; written крутить).
Flibbees R have identical names to their weaker counterparts, but with the letter R tacked on in most languages. In Japanese, this R is replaced with Āru, written アアル in the Katakana script. Russian adds an asterisk to the name.
Trivia
- Magmads are similar to Flibbees due to their attack patterns changing when struck. However, Magmads only have upgrades in their fiery form, while their icy form does not have any upgrades, whereas ground-based attacks directed at Flibbees will fail to hit them if the creature is in mid-air.
- Flibbees are the first enemies in the game to receive a harder variant later in the game (Flibbee R).