Kirby Air Riders - Flying Under The Radar

Kirby Air Riders. Neither a sequel nor a remake. It sits between these two things that is rarely possible in gaming. Is this a “re-imagining”? Perhaps. It’s reveal and subsequent release in 2025 led to much confusion among Nintendo fans. Why release two “kart racers” so close to one another with the release of the Switch 2? Was Nintendo trying to compete with themselves?

As game director Masahiro Sakurai’s newest outing—expectations were high. Thanks to Nintendo’s aggressive pricing and the existence of Mario Kart World, this is even more true. But how does Kirby Air Riders fare against its competition? Should it be compared? Why did no one in the West buy the dang game? Well, sit down and get yourself a drink; I have all these answers and more!

Let’s talk about Kirby Air Rider’s on its own merits, without the existence of silly things like other games, market trends, expectations and game reviews. The first thing I want to discuss is the menu. For those who haven’t played the game, you may think my highlighting of the menu is a bit left-field. But those in the know are aware of who designed this work of art; none other than Masahiro Sakurai’s wife herself!

And I have to say, this is probably her best work yet. Just look at it! God, it looks so nice. You cannot see it from the image, but trust me, when you select something there’s cute little transitions on the table with the Kirby figurine (that changes depending on if you’re using an amiibo, by the way). Anyway, anyway, anyway, enough gushing about boring things like menu’s—let us get onto the meat of the game itself.

The biggest part of the game at a glance would be the Road Trip mode. For those who have played Classic Mode in Super Smash Brothers, you’ll understand what to expect completely. It’s pretty much the exact same concept, but unfortunately, far less interesting. The story mode is presented in beautifully rendered cutscenes, top quality music and fun minigames. But the biggest drawback is its length; it’s far too long. You’ll find yourself repeating countless minigames with only small differences back-to-back-to-back. And the worst part of all, is that if you want to unlock every character—you have to go through it all twice!

I really wanted to enjoy this mode, as I enjoyed the Classic Mode in Smash Bros—but that’s just it. In those games, the concept is short, snappy and done within 10-20 minutes. Here, it’s 2-3 hours for a full run. And that’s just too much.

Next, I’m going to cover Top Ride as, frankly, I want to get the “meh” stuff out of the way as soon as possible. Top Ride is just a chaotic top-down racer. Fast. Frantic. Furious! There’s not much to this mode. Some people love it. Some people hate it. Sakurai said he knew most people don’t care about it but put it in the game nevertheless—and I respect that. For me? It’s a mode I don’t really care for, but it does its job.

Finally, we get to the good stuff. Air Ride. This is the mode that is most comparable to a kart racer—and is what begs the question, “Why does this game exist when Mario Kart World exists?” And for full disclosure—I thought the same. But after playing many, many games of Air Ride, I must say they are absolutely nothing alike. Air Ride is like no other “kart racer” I have ever played. It is an entirely different flavour of racing I’ve never seen before. I never played the original, so this is all fresh and new to me.  And unlike most kart racers (in my experience), it is not as simple as pick up and play.

The game may boast about its simplicity, the first game having “one button” and the second now doubling that to two (wow!)—but simple, this game is not. On the surface? Sure! But every track, racer, vehicle, item, and character have their own little (or big) quirks and mechanics. Is that bad? No! Once it clicks, it clicks—causing Kirby Air Riders to offer a racing experience like no other game. But what it does do, is hamper its “pick up and play” appeal that games like Mario Kart World offer. You’re not going to hand your 80-year-old grandma a controller to play Kirby Air Riders. Sure, that inheritance money may come a little quicker due to a Kirby-fuelled stroke—but I think she’d have far more fun playing Mario Kart World with the auto-steering and auto-acceleration turned on. Sure, she’s not really “playing” the game—but she’s having fun. You know what I mean? Plus, you don’t need that money anyway.

But wait, this is about Kirby Air Riders, not Mario Kart! So let us continue on to the final game mode. And my possible favourite.

When the game was announced, I kept hearing two words: City Trial. Everyone loved it in the original game, apparently. Me? I thought it sounded lame. City… Trial? It’s just battling in the middle of a city? Why would I want to play that in a racing game? The battle mode in Mario Kart sucks! So, the public playtest came around and I got to see what the fuss was about… and I didn’t enjoy it. I just didn’t “get it”. Explosions are going off everywhere. People are flying about at breakneck speed. Cars are blowing up. People are dying. The baby is crying. “This isn’t fun!”, I cried. Yet, despite this—I pressed on. There had to be something I simply wasn’t getting that everyone else was. I could feel something underneath the surface of City Trial. A greatness to be uncovered—like sand to be blown off a golden ancient tablet. But alas, the playtest ended, and I stopped playing.

I didn’t revisit it until well after release, after getting the full game for Christmas. This was it. I was determined to go back and play City Trial and I would get it. And get it, I did. Since I got the game, I’ve played 30 hours of Kirby Air Riders and I can safely say most it has been spent on City Trial. All those things I ragged on earlier? Yeah, turns out that’s actually fun as fuck. Apart from the baby bit—I don’t have a kid.

It’s just so much fun to drive (or fly) around, collect power ups, attack and be attacked by other players, all with crazy-good music and exhilarating speeds and chaos. To just embrace the anarchy of it all is to truly appreciate City Trial. If I had to compare it to Smash, I would say it’s like having items set to high but times ten.

What stops Kirby Air Riders going sky high?

Kirby Air Riders sold poorly in the West. In Japan, it’s selling insanely well. You can tell, as most online lobbies are filled with Japanese names, with countless private rooms filled with Japanese players. They love Kirby! The West? Not so much. Why? Well, firstly, the reviews of the game were not great. IGN scored the game a 7/10—which is a dire score in a saturated market with such a high price. A seven from IGN is the equivalent to “meh” in the eyes of the mainstream; not worth picking up. Even more so because of the easy comparison to Mario Kart—a game most people bought as a bundle with their Switch 2.

But James, I hear you cry; you said the game is nothing like Mario Kart! Well, it isn’t. But even I thought it was similar at first glance. You’re not going to be able to convince a casual gamer of the differences in a few short, snappy and marketable sentences to sell them on how it’s actually completely different from Mario Kart—even it’s 100% true! Maybe that’s why Sakurai did not one, but two Directs for the game? He tried to hammer home to Nintendo fans that this isn’t Mario Kart, and shouldn’t be treated as such. But unfortunately, it wasn’t enough. The game did not sell well. So, what went wrong?

At least Sakurai is self aware

The game itself is solid, as I said. In a bubble, I would give it a 9/10 maybe—but unfortunately, we don’t live in a bubble. We live in a world of pricing and endless options, as I alluded to before. So, can you blame the casual gamer for not wanting to take the risk on a Kirby “racing” game? Not really. And it certainly didn’t help that Sakurai announced in one of his directs that the game would not be getting updates or paid DLC. On paper, this is good news. The game is feature complete and has had nothing held back during production to be sold to you at a later date. Unfortunately, though, in this world of live-service games that thrive on constant, never-ending free updates—this could easily make the game appear abandoned or “dead” on release.

I personally do not hold that view, as the game actually has events (basically “updates”) programmed into the game that rotate all-year round. But I would be lying if I didn’t feel a little deflated at zero prospects for any future updates.

The game isn’t flawless. Not even close. It has its own small issues that would only need minor tweaks to fix—however, Sakurai’s prior statement makes these an impossibility, as he himself has announced the team that worked on the game is going to be disbanding after some small bug fixes. They won’t even give us a third button! I joke, but not giving the players the option to rebind some actions to separate (available) buttons is a tad frustrating.

So that’s everything I have to say about Kirby Air Riders. An amazing game—held back by its lack of a clear elevator pitch and the West’s seemingly strong distaste for a certain pink blob.

But as a final note, I must ask you this:

If this game were renamed and re-skinned to Super Smash Riders, would you have bought it?