Listen to me: Kirby Air Riders This is not a racing game, it is an art tool that incorporates racing games.
The game, now available for the Nintendo Switch 2, is a follow-up to the quirky Kirby-flavored kart racer released in 2003 on the GameCube. it features smash bros Creator Masahiro Sakurai’s round, pink, totally adorable baby is taking part in miniature races where the main feature is not how fast you go, but how well you can manage winding courses while fighting off the cutest rogues’ gallery ever committed to the polygons.
Unlike other kart racers, air rider There is no acceleration button. Instead you are automatically propelled forward, requiring you to interact with the track with a brake button that you can use to drift around corners. You can also use the brakes to charge your kart (known as “the machine”) for an extra boost of speed at the expense of stopping all forward motion while charging.
To add another interesting wrinkle, air rider Full of different types of machines with different qualities. Those qualities are not the kind of acceleration, braking and handling statistics that are common in, say, Mario KartBut fundamentally change the way the machine operates. For example, Swerve Star is very fast but can only change its direction while charging. As a result, it cannot slide slowly along twists and turns, but instead ricochets across a course like a pinball. Meanwhile, if the Bulk Star is not charged it will not speed up, but it compensates for the constant starting and stopping by being super fast and super tanky. In air riderThe machines have just as much personality as the racers, which brings me to my strange little epiphany.
I haven’t done much racing Kirby Air Riders Because I don’t want to leave the vehicle customization screen. I wasn’t expecting this cute little mashup of Sakurai’s favorite projects – smash bros And Kirby – Having such strong customization options, and it has completely taken over my time. In addition to changing the color of the machine and adding funny stickers, you can add different patterns and textures to both the body and boosters of your machine. There are various visual effects that you can add to the marks left by your machine. You can customize your rider card with titles, backgrounds, images, borders and more that you show during online races. Even the act of applying cosmetics has an unexpected level of detail, allowing you to rotate, transform and flip patterns and decals with fine precision to get exactly what you want in the right place.
And if that wasn’t enough, there is also an online shop where players can upload their creations which can be purchased by other players. Even better, this is all done with currency earned in the game, which is refreshing when this kind of cosmetic expression is usually locked behind microtransactions and gacha-game-like opportunities. Naturally, there have been some issues, but the level of creativity on display there shows just how incredible these customization features are.
After a few introductory races, I blew my entire pile of currency buying stuff to play with with the customization tools. In fact, the only reason I run is to earn enough currency to go back, buy more items, and play with them some more. i know i’m playing Kirby Air Riders Wrong – but I’m having too much fun to care.