Distributor provided a review copy
Kirby Air Riders is the result of throwing Mario Kart, Mario Party, Super Smash Brothers, and Kirby's Adventures into a blender and hoping for the best. It isn't always palatable and there are multiple occasions where you'll go "what the hell was that?", but the overall result is so wild and wacky it just works.
On the surface, Kirby Air Riders is a racing game. That's certainly the impression I got when I first tested it at Gamescom early this fall, and it's still a part of the big picture just as it was in previous Kirby racing titles. But it's the City Trial mode where Kirby Air Riders stands out, presenting players with an open battlefield full of power-ups, ships, and secrets that you have to scavenge in the allotted time.
Another thing that jumps out is that your machines (be that cars, planes, or stars) propel forward on their own; players only control steering and braking, and occasionally the much-needed boosts and drifts around corners. It's a change that for someone like me, who grew up with Mario Kart, took a while to get used to. Even now, over a month with the game, I still hold down the A button instinctively.
The City Trial is chaotic and takes quite a bit of getting used to depending on your familiarity with the franchise. For someone like myself, who expected a traditional racing experience, it took at least a couple of days to really wrap my head around the concepts how each element of the trials affected the other.
For example: The City Trial begins with a free-for-all brawl where you power up your machine and character. But it also serves as a major opportunity for mindgames. The next leg of the journey is a selection of mini-games, which all emphasize different strengths for different machines. A flying set-piece won't work at all with a tank, and so forth. Even if you get lose out on the big fight at the start, you can get back in the action by voting for a mini-game where others can't compete at all because of the machine they chose in the previous round.
This can lead to a mad scramble at the last minute to create a more balanced loadout for the next phase, which leads to a Smash Brothers -styled melee in the final seconds of the first round. Playing online, I found some of this a little tedious and predictable, as more experienced players kept repeating the same antics round after round of bullying other players into a format that favored them. After a couple of sessions, it felt like there was no other alternative than to play one or two meta-builds that worked for all occasions simply because of how others pushed for one route every time.
The Road Trip mode is a single-player experience that quickly turned out to be my favorite of the bunch. It's very reminiscent of Mario Kart World's tour mode, where you pick different routes between races and enjoy a simple but heartwarming story that feels like a storybook of your favorite Kirby characters. It's very sweet and chill to play with only minor frustrations towards the final levels against computer opponents. It works best as a starting point for new players and should be the first destination to get a feel for things.
The Air Ride mode is the most traditional of the modes and is probably familiar to anyone who has played a Kirby Riders game before. It's also the easiest to pick up and play with friends, especially as it drops the mini-game aspect entirely out of the equation. If you want a competitive racing experience that serves as an alternative to Mario Kart, this is the one for you.
There are a total of 18 tracks to choose from, some new and others familiar favorites from the prior titles. Sadly, it looks as if the Kirby Air Riders development team has been shut down, which means new courses aren't on the horizon like with Mario Kart. It's not a dealbreaker, as the current selection is solid, but it is something to consider as after a while even 18 tracks can become a little too familiar.
Luckily the racing experience itself is as polished and whimsical as you'd expect. Once you get used to the control scheme, Kirby Air Riders reveals itself as a surprisingly deep experience that rewards quick thinking and smart timing around corners. You don't need to necessarily be the fastest rider around if you know how to apply boosts and brakes at the right times, which makes learning the tracks a rewarding and fun experience.
The online experience is reasonably robust too, even if it's not as populated as Mario Kart World. Most of the time I had no issues finding other racers, though I did notice a couple of instances of weird rubber banding and stuttering that I hadn't seen in other online titles on the Switch 2.
On top of that, there's an absolutely garantuan amount of things to unlock in the game itself. At the time of writing Kirby Air Riders boasts a whopping 750 in-game goals to uncover, including characters and machines. For fans, it's enough to keep you engaged for months, if not years to come depending on your skill level.
But most of all, Kirby Air Riders is fun. It's a visually pleasing experience that is aimed at the younger members of the family, or those who still get a warm and fuzzy feeling of Kirby's delightful adventures. As a party game, it's reasonably easy to pick up and learn, but just difficult enough to master that it will provide amusement for a long time afterwards.
At first it felt a little weird to get another big racing title alongside Mario just months after the launch of the Switch 2. After spending a good month with Kirby Air Riders, I think I get why Nintendo felt safe in releasing them this close to each other. While they're in the same genre, they don't compete with one another. They occupy a different corner entirely, both offering a unique take on the material, though equally charming thanks to Nintendo's innate ability to make the most out of simple ideas.
If you're a fan of racing, party games, Kirby, or all combined, Kirby Air Riders is an easy recommendation.
