‘Kirby Air Riders’: Frivolous, fleeting, and kind of a chore

One of the special joys of art is that sometimes you feel like you really understand something in a way other people don’t. This is the driving force behind “cultural classics”, those rare movies or games that receive a lukewarm reception upon release but flop. Gems may be misunderstood. It’s fun to realize that you were right all along, but it’s even more fun to realize that other people were wrong.

Take kirby air travelA vehicle-based action game starring Nintendo’s The circular pink icon of Kirby, originally released for the GameCube in 2003. a look Its Metacritic page Tells the whole story: Reviewers didn’t care much for it, but based on user scores a lot of gamers loved it.

As someone who played the original and found it forgettable, I went into nintendo switch 2 sequel Kirby Air Riders Hope to win. I desperately wanted to believe that the critics got it wrong, and that expanding the game with more characters, abilities, and modes would give Kirby a triumphant return that would prove the haters wrong.

It did not happen. Kirby Air Riders It may be that more effort is being put into it than its predecessor, but that’s not saying much. It’s still a thin racing action game with one decent mode and a lot of “bleh” surrounding it, including a poor single-player experience.

For Nintendo enthusiasts, this is cool air rider absolutely exists

Most racing tracks look fantastic.
Credit: Nintendo

Before I get to all the things that bother me air riderI want to make one thing clear: I’m glad this game exists, if for no other reason than that it’s the first major Kirby game directed by series creator Masahiro Sakurai in over 20 years. You may or may not know Sakurai as the public face of super smash bros series, but Kirby is his baby, and it makes me happy to know he got a chance to create a passion project for himself before possibly coming back thunder Mines.

air rider It also feels like a very well-deserved celebration of Kirby in general. It is full of playable characters, ranging from basic Kirby enemies to Kirby’s friends or even major villains from the entire series. The soundtrack mixes great original tracks with refreshing rearrangements of classic Kirby songs, and I’d say the music is probably the best thing. air rider en general. It’s also a visual feast for the young Switch 2 console, with an exceptionally vibrant color palette, great-looking setpieces and visuals including racetracks and (from what I can tell) a lossless 60 frames per second frame rate holding it all together.

air rider Looks and sounds great, but then you have to actually play it.

But ultimately there’s almost no meat on the bone here

Same thing, friends.
Credit: Nintendo

If you never played the original air Ride Or missed the marketing or public beta weekend air riderThe main thing to know about it mechanically is that it has no quick button. Unlike most racing or vehicle action games, acceleration occurs automatically. There are only two buttons, one that presses the brakes (while also charging a speed boost that activates as soon as you let go), and another that activates your chosen character’s special ability when the meter is full.

Add a spin attack that you can do by shaking the left stick back and forth, and that’s your entire moveset. air rider To its credit, it is very easy to learn due to its inherent simplicity, as well as a series of playable tutorials that ensure that none of the nuances (which mostly exist in the form of vehicles that all have different controls and behavior) don’t escape the player. It’s worth going through all of this simply because, unlike most driving games, most of the vehicles involved air rider Can fly, which is one of the easiest ways to increase speed and win races.

The problem is that there isn’t much to do after you finish the tutorial. You can compete against the CPU or friends in the racing-based Air Ride mode, Top-Down Top Ride mode, and the more open-ended action mode City Trial, or check out Road Trip, which technically counts as a single-player story mode. More on that later.

City Trial was the highlight of the GameCube original, and it’s still the main reason to play its sequel. This mode places 16 players on a large city map for exactly five minutes, during which they must find vehicles and collect items that generate various modes to power them up. You can destroy boxes to energize your car, but random challenges like short races or even boss battles will pop up from time to time, each of which will come with the opportunity to collect lots of power-ups simply by participating.

I love this man.
Credit: Nintendo

Once those five minutes are up, players are surrounded in the stadium for what are basically just mini-games. Some of them prioritize speed, others prioritize flight or combat ability. City Trial is all about adopting whatever machine you have and whatever stats it has at the end of the match, and doing your best in whatever stadium you play. Technically there are winners and losers, but really, the fun here is in zooming in on the map for five minutes and collecting floating icons that add up to numbers.

air rider City Trials is at its best when it’s at its most intense, with meteors raining down from the sky or some crazy boss destroying the place while everyone is just trying to make their ride better. I get some pleasure from getting to the point where my vehicle is so fast that it can barely be controlled, but sometimes completing specific challenges isn’t particularly fun. Nevertheless, city trials (especially online, and especially With people you know) Have a good time.

I wish I felt the same way about Air Ride, the racing mode. These races are not terrible by any means, but they are generally very small and insignificant. City Trial works largely because it’s full of random nonsense that can throw you off your game or work to your advantage. Meanwhile, the air ride races are pretty much the same every time, unless you really want to try out different combinations of characters and vehicles. I appreciate that each character can kill enemies on the street and copy their powers like Kirby, but even those abilities add only a little variety to the proceedings.

The top ride is also barely worth talking about. These mechanics don’t translate very well to a top-down perspective, and making turns can be a more difficult task than I’d like. feels like mario party Mini games.

City trials and (to a lesser extent) air travel are where you’ll spend most of your time air riderBecause they support both local and online multiplayer. Speaking of online, you can host a group of friends in a paddock, which acts as a social lobby where you can show off your characters or rides, which can be customized using unlockable parts and decals. City Trail It’s fun to jump around and express silly emotions for a while before a match.

road trip is a hustle

Imagine doing this for 90 minutes.
Credit: Nintendo

Unfortunately, it also has a single-player side air riderRoad Trip is an approximation of a solo adventure mode in which you choose a rider and spend between 60 and 90 minutes completing challenges, collecting machines, powering up said machines, and occasionally fighting bosses, Most of the challenges are taken from other mediums; Short races on Air Ride tracks or stadium sessions against the CPU make up the bulk of Road Trip’s runtime, From time to time, you even watch an unpleasant cutscene as a reward for your efforts,

In theory, I’m kind of into roguelike mode, where by the end, you have a big roster of souped-up machines. Sadly, the road trip is extremely boring. The challenges quickly become repetitive, as you might find yourself doing the same race on the same piece of Air Ride track a half-dozen times during a road trip. I also found that the level of challenge remained largely the same. The challenges became more difficult for me towards the end of the race, and only because my machines became so powerful that they became more difficult to control. I actively disliked late-game boss fights that required even a little bit of precision, which isn’t really the case. air rider I am good.

For the purposes of writing this review I personally can’t see myself playing more than Road Trip. At best, it’s somewhat pleasant and boring. At worst, it’s actively frustrating and, again, feels like a chore. Sometimes, I would get a little dopamine rush from completing in-game achievements to fill out a larger checklist, which would sometimes reward me with new characters to play as or new machines to use. The problem with this is that a Huge Most of those achievements reward you with stickers or other cosmetic items.

Kirby Air RidersIn this sense, there is simultaneously a lot to do and nothing to do. Theoretically you could put hours and hours into this game to unlock everything, but the process of doing so isn’t particularly enjoyable beyond the satisfaction of completing something. air rider Full of stuff, but most of it is really just “stuff” if you get my point.

The critics were right in 2003

I haven’t been reviewing video games since I was nine years old in 2003. play Kirby Air Riders In this capacity I feel some solidarity with reviewers of the time, however, as I think the game is almost as good in the context of 2025 as it was in the context of 2003. Unfortunately, the 2025 version costs $69, and it’s not that much value.

Yes, the sequel has more playable characters, machines, ways to customize both of those things, and lots of other crap to unlock. The new and improved City Trial mode is actually pretty fun at times air rider A gorgeous game both visually and aurally. Longtime Kirby fans will also definitely enjoy the fan service at work here.

But air rider I still feel very thin. If you are not playing City Trial online, you can play something else as well. The Air Ride mode wears out its welcome very quickly and the road trip is little more fun than driving in Kansas in real life.

I don’t think there’s enough hidden depth here to keep even City Trial interesting for more than a few weeks. All I wanted from this game was to reassure me of the real air Ride Secretly was great, and just needed a second chance to really shine. Needless to say, I am unconvinced.