Kirby Air Riders is a cute, chaotic racing sport

Kirby is a uniquely healthful Nintendo character, but his video games typically have a unusual imply streak to them. They’re all about letting gamers take in enemies and tackle some wild powers to tear via vibrant levels with reckless abandon. That is very true with Kirby Air Riders, the long-awaited sequel to the GameCube traditional racing sport, Kirby Air Trip. Very similar to the unique, it is a fast-paced racing sport starring Kirby and associates as they race via visually placing locales – it additionally occurs to be probably the most chaotic racing video games I’ve performed in fairly some time.

At PAX West 2025 in Seattle, I spent an hour enjoying Kirby Air Riders, reacquainting myself with the approachable but surprisingly deep mechanics from the cult-favorite 2003 racing sport. It is actually fascinating to see sport director Masuhiro Sakurai observe up Tremendous Smash Bros. Final with a Kirby racing sport. Nonetheless, after enjoying Air Riders, this racer carries that comparable ‘go-for-broke’ power that runs deep in his earlier video games.

Like the unique sport, you race via a wide range of levels impressed by the Kirby sequence. The sequel takes issues additional with an expanded roster of Kirby characters, reminiscent of Meta Knight and King Dedede, every with their very own distinctive expertise and stats as racers. Whilst you race via conventional tracks, Air Riders – very similar to the unique – additionally opens up free-for-all motion levels and mini-games that check your expertise in drifting, gliding, and the traditional capacity of sucking as much as achieve new powers.

Kirby Air Riders completely doubles down on what made the unique so distinctive, and that is what makes it such an extremely weird tackle a racing sport. In some ways, Air Riders does to racing video games what Smash Bros did for the preventing style – injecting non-genre-conforming techniques and ideas that will appear misplaced for the kind of sport it desires to be.

Nonetheless, enjoying Kirby Air Riders can take some getting used to, particularly contemplating its pretty restricted management scheme. Very similar to the unique, acceleration occurs robotically, and the sport as a substitute has you give attention to managing motion and momentum with the management stick and a single button to interact boosts – and that is all you want for controlling your chosen racer’s automobile. However therein lies the nuance of enjoying; by managing momentum and velocity, you may interact drifts and energy spin assaults to beat rivals on the observe.

It pays to be aggressive in Kirby Air Riders, as you may achieve velocity by efficiently touchdown assaults on enemies. A specific racer I used typically was Return to Dream Land’s Magolor, who may sprout floor spikes after touchdown from jumps. The sequel even expands upon the offensive nature of Air Riders with a brand new particular capacity button, which prompts character-specific assaults after filling a meter.

I used to be actually stunned by how briskly and chaotic races can get, and I discovered myself getting caught off guard by how diabolical the opposite rivals can get, unleashing assaults and snatching victory in a pinch. In reality, I closed two races in 2nd place back-to-back within the closing second as a result of King Dedede partaking their automobile’s boosts on the proper time. In that sense, it took me a while to return to grips with the sport’s fast tempo and the way rapidly issues can flip towards you.

This was very true with the returning Metropolis Trial mode, which is actually Kirby Air Riders‘ tackle the traditional kart-racer battle mode within the vein of Mario Kart 64 or Twisted Metallic. In Metropolis Trial, gamers and CPU characters enter a mad sprint to gather power-ups and improve their autos in a big open space, which culminates in themed mini-games to resolve the ultimate winner.

It took me a while to know the bigger aim of Metropolis Trial, because it felt like getting swept up in a colourful mosh pit – one the place different gamers can snatch your autos. This battle mode rapidly turns into extraordinarily hectic and the dynamic occasions result in some actually weird eventualities, reminiscent of bombs raining down on the sector, which may ship gamers scrambling. Metropolis Trial is a enjoyable, mini-open-world to discover that includes a set of secrets and techniques to seek out, and I actually took a liking to simply how a lot is packed into these occasions.

It took me a while to essentially get into the groove of Kirby Air Riders and its fairly ruthless strategy to action-racing – and this was after spending 20 minutes working the beneficiant tutorials that defined the techniques at work. I nonetheless preferred the sheer spectacle of all of it.

As soon as I discovered my circulation inside the chaos, it actually helped to carry Kirby Air Riders into focus for me, and I actually appreciated the over-the-top spectacle that it’s as a racing sport. It is a very totally different sort of racing that units itself other than Mario Kart World and different video games of its type. In reality, there are facets of Kirby Air Riders that I nonetheless do not fairly perceive. OK with that as a result of I simply had a lot enjoyable making an attempt to glide.

Kirby Air Riders will likely be launched on November 20, 2025 on the Nintendo Swap 2.