ReviewPaul RobertsDecember 05, 2025Maxi Geek Review, Kirby Air Riders, Switch 2, NintendoComment

Kirby Air Riders - Review

ReviewPaul RobertsDecember 05, 2025Maxi Geek Review, Kirby Air Riders, Switch 2, NintendoComment

Who would have expected a follow up to 2003’s Kirby Air Ride? Not only having it show up over 20 years later, but as an early Switch 2 game. While Mario Kart saw some changes in the new game, it left an opening for more traditional style racing games. Let's see if Kirby Air Riders has the star power this time around!

Kirby Air Riders needed multiple Nintendo Directs specifically to cover all that Director Masahiro Sakurai and his studio Sora Ltd have packed into this game. While on initial look it could deceive you, that it is another Mario Kart-esque racing game with Kirby slapped on it, it is much more than that.

The bog standard mode is Air Ride. This is where Kirby and pals race on machines to drive and glide around colourful bombastic race tracks. Air Riders controls are simple at first glance. Your machine automatically accelerates, while you have a button for braking/drifting. The same button also handles inhaling opponents. There’s a button for unleashing a special attack when your meter is filled, while steering is handled by the left stick. You can also wiggle it for a useful spin attack.

Where it gets more nuanced is that most machines handle differently. While there’s some all-rounders, there’s also machines like the Vampire Star. It has the unique power to run into/bite your opponents, instead of the usual riding in their slip stream and inhaling copy abilities. There’s ground based cycles, chariots, tanks, a wide variety of different machines that all work in different ways. The mechanics of these vehicles is easy to understand, but it can take some practice to really get the most out of them. The most basic way that the boost/drift works is that when your Rider approaches a bend in the track, you hold down the brake/drift button. Then your machine slows down, giving you more accuracy over where your machine is heading out of the turn, boosting off at a higher speed. Not only are there the stats for your machine, but each Rider comes with their own stats too, allowing you to work out combinations that works to your preferences. Once you actually start racing around picking up power ups, boosting your stats it can fast become immaterial. On top of all this you have Copy Abilities. Similar to the main Kirby games, you gain new offensive moves as you aim for first place and utilise your powerful Special Attack to help you gain ground. All that said, the game’s difficulty is not generally the most punishing, and the game has no qualms about being completely unbalanced in some wild ways.

Along with the more general Air Ride mode, another mode returning from the original Air Ride is Top Ride. It provides more condensed top down view race tracks, based on the Air Ride versions. It can feel like Micro Machines or RC Pro-Am, while still retaining the same brake/drift mechanics from the main title. It’s a quick and easy mode to jump into and enjoy with friends.

The other two more involved modes are Road Trip and City Trial. Road Trip is the single player mode, with multiple areas to travel through as a surprisingly dark story unfolds. In each area you’ll be speeding down a road, and along the way you’ll get the option to take on a choice of multiple challenges. For example, do you want to do a normal race, or do you want to take on the equivalent of Air Rider darts on a giant score board, or do you just want a power up? The strategy behind this is having some control over what power ups you collect. As you get further into your Road Trip you’ll want to make sure your Air Rider is leveled up, with a decent spread across the different stats. Having an option also means you can also pick a race or activity that you know your stats are best suited for. For example, if your Rider isn’t leveled well for gliding then you might not want to choose an activity where you need to keep airborne. During each of the areas you also get to choose different items. These are used at a branching point, with each item sending your Rider on a different path. Adding to the play time, you can go back and see all the different paths. Road Trip is easily a mode that can keep you busy for a few hours, especially with the branching paths and to see through to the true ending. Not everyone will likely see this through but there is plenty here, especially for Kirby fans.

If single player mode isn’t your thing, there is also the returning City Trial. This mode has yourself and a bunch of other Air Riders plonked onto a big City map called Skyah, with power ups dotted across the landscape. The standard time is five minutes, where your Rider can find new more powerful machines, collect as many stat boosts as possible before the timer runs out. Once it does then there’s a big event can be selected as a culmination of the Skyah portion. This mode is often chaotic, it’s not hard to wind up collecting enough power ups that the machine becomes untamable as you speed through the area. The strategy is that ideally you will have your stats boosted to a point where you can take on the other players and fight for first place. There is a risk of winding up with wildly useless stats for the challenge, but there is an opportunity to vote for one that you’re suited to. If you like a frantic multiplayer focus, City Trial could keep you busy for hours as you see out all the big boss encounters, and continue to chip away at the many achievements across all of the modes.

To encourage you to come back regularly there are also daily events, and longer running events to give you a quick extra challenge. If you’re a sucker for unlocking achievements, Kirby Air Riders is riddled with them. Each mode has achievements attached to them, and you don’t usually need to be playing too long until the achievements and rewards start rolling in. The rewards allow you to customise your Rider and your license, and with everything in Kirby so cute, it’s one of the few occasions I enjoyed customising my Rider license. You can also customise your machine as well, with an online store where uploaded designs can be purchased. Since launch, the more raunchy (by Nintendo standards) have been removed. But there are plenty of cool designs out there, on top of whatever you create.

Being a Switch 2 exclusive the game feels made for the new hardware. It runs smoothly and looks good. The Kirby world lends itself to cutesy and varied environments for tracks to occur, along with the tracks from the original Air Ride returning. For Kirby fans it shouldn’t be a surprise that the music also happens to be fun too, with plenty of tracks to drift, spin and glide along to.

There are plenty of features that harken back to the Super Smash Bros series, which isn’t a surprise given the games share the same studio. Amiibo functionality is also present here, and in a way that is very similar to how the Smash Bros games have handled it. You can buy Kirby (and friends) amiibos that come with a machine, which you can swap around for a combination you’re happy with. As with Smash Bros, you then essentially train up your amiibo character for racing, potentially training them into an expert racer. At the moment there are only the two amiibo+machines out, so it’s only Kirby and Bandana Waddle Dee for now. I’m not going to turn up my nose at having the feature here, but I can’t say it’s one I will be making use of long term. The bonus is that the Amiibo are pretty cool.

Kirby Air Riders brings this 20 year old series back into the spotlight, giving this new entry a much better chance at being fondly remembered and easy to access. While it won’t compete with Mario Kart, it exists as it’s own enjoyable entity, with the added bonus of more Kirby and the wild universe those characters inhabit. There is enough variety to keep potential Air Riders busy and entertained for hours, especially if you want to unlock as many achievements as possible. Kirby Air Riders shows that there is space in the racing genre for something a little bit different.