I never played the original Kirby Air Ride on Nintendo GameCube. Despite having a vast catalog of GameCube games as a kid, Kirby Air Ride is one that always evaded me, despite hearing so much positive praise from friends. As such, when I found out that this long-dormant racer would be getting a sequel on Nintendo Switch 2 in the form of Kirby Air Riders, I was thrilled to finally be able to see what the buzz was all about with a new installment.
After having played Kirby Air Riders for myself, though, I’ve come to realize that I don’t think I missed very much from this series. While it features stellar presentation, gorgeous maps, and a simplistic control scheme that just about anyone can pick up and play, Air Riders often feels shallow and gets stale after playing for only a few hours.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Kirby Air Riders Would Make You Think It’s a New Super Smash Bros. Game at a Glance
Play video
As the latest game from famed director Masahiro Sakurai, Kirby Air Riders (perhaps unsurprisingly) has a lot in common with the creator’s beloved Super Smash Bros. series. Upon booting Air Riders up for the first time, you’ll quickly find that it’s almost identical to that of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate in its presentation. A song with lyrics and an intro video precedes the menu, which is laid out almost identically to that of Smash Ultimate.
It’s this overall presentation that is one of the strongest components of Kirby Air Riders. The game’s soundtrack, in particular, is excellent and contains a number of bops that you’ll find yourself humming even when you’re not playing. Air Riders is dripping with charm and was a constant joy for me to boot up.
Gameplay Is Simple to a Fault
As for the act of playing Kirby Air Riders, well, that can be a bit of a different story. The biggest selling point of this Kirby racer is that it’s meant to be far more simplistic when compared to a series like Mario Kart. The vehicles that Kirby, King Dedede, Meta Knight, and every other character on the roster can all ride upon move automatically. All other inputs are largely done with a single button and allow you to boost, brake, and absorb enemies to steal their abilities.
While I appreciate this straightforward approach to racing gameplay, the more I played Kirby Air Riders, the more I found that it needed more mechanical depth. There are certainly some intricacies to the gameplay in Air Riders, and I by no means mastered everything. Gliding, in particular, can be difficult and getting a good grasp on it can open up entirely new avenues in certain levels. Still, the most strategic aspect of playing Air Riders comes more with the vehicle and character you select, more so than what you do once you’re actually racing.
The main mode of Kirby Air Riders, simply known as Air Ride, was my least favorite of the bunch. Each of the 18 stages in Air Ride is gorgeous, with each showcasing a different part of the Kirby universe. Races themselves can end up being a snoozefest, though, especially if one racer pulls ahead too early. Kirby Air Riders doesn’t have as much rubberbanding when compared to other kart racers, which can result in less action and competition throughout the course of a race.
Top Ride is the secondary racing mode and, as its name implies, takes place from a top-down perspective. It’s even simpler in some regards than that of Air Ride, but it also has a more arcadey feel that I enjoyed quite a bit. Top Ride also has a lot of customization options, which help make it far more varied and fun to jump into. If you want to have a race with 8 players that lasts 99 laps and features items and environmental hazards scattered everywhere, you can do that. This gives Top Ride more replayability and makes it the game type that is easiest to jump in and out of.
City Trial Is Chaotic Fun With a Lackluster Endgame
City Trial is likely the biggest selling point for Kirby Air Riders purely because of how chaotic it can become. This returning mode from Kirby Air Ride puts all players loose within a single stage, where they then have five minutes to earn power-ups that improve the various aspects of their vehicle. These five minutes can become a mess in a hurry, which isn’t a bad thing.
The process of zooming and zipping across the stage and blasting into opposing players is one of the biggest highlights of Kirby Air Riders as a whole. Duking it out to grab vehicle upgrades while taking on various CPU enemies and trying to access new areas of the map is a fun, fast-paced frenzy.
The biggest drawback of City Trial is that every match ultimately boils down to playing a single mini-game to determine the winner. These mini-games range from simple drag races to combat-focused encounters where players have to beat up the most enemies within a certain time span to get first place.
While it’s this mini-game that decides the true winner of City Trial, it often feels like an afterthought. Everything that is memorable about City Trial instead comes from its frenetic first half, with the final challenge being the mode’s most boring element. These games don’t diminish the entirety of the City Trial experience, but they definitely dampen it, especially if you happen to be competing in one that you particularly dislike.
Kirby Air Riders Isn’t Bad, But It Won’t Be for Everyone
Despite having my fair share of grievances with Kirby Air Riders, I still wouldn’t say that the game itself is bad. In fact, in the same vein as Super Smash Bros., I think this is an excellent party game to play with friends and family, whether it be on the same couch or online. This wasn’t something that I was able to test out for myself during the review period, but if you have friends that you know you’ll play with, then this could end up being one of the best multiplayer games for Switch 2 in the console’s early life.
Those playing Kirby Air Riders by themselves, however, might find that there’s not much here. Even though there is a single-player mode called Road Trip, this mode largely just recycles the same content from the other game types in a bite-sized fashion. Its narrative, if you can even call it that, is also one that only the most hardcore of Kirby fans would likely appreciate.
Even with a ton of collectibles to unlock and challenges to take on, I can’t see myself returning to Kirby Air Riders much in the future. This is a racer that tries to buck many of the genre’s most traditional conventions, which, at the very least, makes it quite memorable. Ultimately, though, the content on hand in Air Riders wears thin in no time, which leads to it being a game that you’ll put down sooner than you might anticipate.
Kirby Air Riders releases for Nintendo Switch 2 on November 20th. A copy of the game was provided by Nintendo in advance for the purpose of this review.
