Kirby Air Riders - Star Player (Review)
- James Stephanie Sterling
- 6 minutes ago
- 10 min read
Kirby Air Riders
Released: November 20th, 2025
Developer: Bandai Namco Studios, Sora Ltd.,
Publisher: Nintendo
Systems: Switch 2
Kirby Air Riders isn’t a racing game, it’s a racing-adjacent activity center. Part playpen, part kitchen sink, it reminds me of a series classic like Kirby Super Star, an anthology of distinct titles as opposed to a singular experience. This unlikely sequel to Kirby Air Ride takes what the GameCube original did and fills it to bursting with pure chicanery, which I approve of with great enthusiasm.
It says something both good and not so good that the weakest part of Air Riders is the mode for which it’s literally named. Straightforward races are imbalanced and messy frustrations. Advantageous items are placed ahead of the pack and don’t quickly respawn, allowing those already winning to get first dibs at everyone else's expense. A bunch of vehicles aren’t suitable for racing at all. The CPU’s AI is so ridiculously random that setting their difficulty level is legitimately meaningless. Vehicular physics are all over the place, literally, making every course a very bumpy ride.
Some of the design choices on display are truly fucking baffling if viewed through the lens of typical racing game sensibilities. In all honesty, I’m not all that fond of Air Ride, it’s just not tuned well at all.
Fortunately (and funnily), Air Ride isn’t the actual selling point of Air Riders - that would be City Trial, a frantic free-for-all where the chaotic gameplay works fully in its favor and the diverse vehicles are so much more functional. There is plenty else on offer besides, and while I won’t focus too much on how this game puts the $80 Mario Kart World to shame, boy does it do exactly that!
There’s a lot to play with in Air Riders. Some of it is substantial, some of it is nonsense, but it’s all thrown in with the kind of giddy enthusiasm you rarely see in mainstream games anymore. The whole thing’s brimming with love and indulgent fun, as well as plenty of celebration for Kirby as a series.
To give you an idea of just how extra it is, there's an online marketplace tucked among the options where you can “sell” your customized vehicles to other players. You don’t receive any cash if it sells, even though prices can reach extreme levels. According to fey-like designer Sakurai, it’s just fun to watch price tags inflate. I see enough of that shit in post-Brexit Britain, but I nonetheless admire such commitment to sheer whimsy.
Hell, there’s an entire “mode” where you throw gummies around. You're just playing with gummy representations of your in-game accomplishments, scooping them up, tossing them everywhere, and generally wasting time with physics. There’s no point to it, and that’s just fine. Gummies are indicative of this game’s entire philosophy of “why not?”
Anyway, there’s actual gameplay to discuss in this smorgasbord of impulsive ideas. Like its GameCube predecessor, Air Riders strips controls to a minimum, doing away with the need for manual acceleration so that players need only to steer and boost. Machines slow to a halt when the boost button’s held and surge forward upon release, a mechanic they use to approximate drifting when taking corners. The same button also handles sucking up enemies and triggering non-automatic abilities or weapons. The only other controls to think about are wiggly spin attacks and a secondary button that activates a rider’s unique Special move once it’s charged.
Air Riders is zealously devoted to the notion of minimal input, with Sakurai even apologizing for having added that second button for the sequel. This loyalty to limitation is something I’ve mixed feelings about - while I really admire the creative adamance and I’m impressed at how much has been streamlined, it honestly would be better to have more buttons for some of this stuff.
Simpler controller layouts do not automatically equate to more intuitive or immediate gameplay, that’s a pure myth. This is evident when you’re wiggling movement sticks to attack, your gyroscope alternatives are really twitchy, and you need two inputs to do something as rudimentary as braking because those aforementioned sticks are working contextual overtime.
Ironically, I’ve had to tweak these “simple” controls much more than I do with more complex layouts, and I still can’t stop the game from occasionally confusing boosts with spin attacks for some weird reason. None of this is to say Air Riders is a bad time - I’ve gotten comfortable enough with how things work and I’ve been having tons of fun, but I’m resolute in saying less is far from more when it comes to giving a player options.
Despite such relative simplicity, the action feels plenty hectic. It definitely doesn’t play itself, especially as the lack of controllable acceleration means you need to constantly use enemies, slipstreams, and terrain to keep your speed up. Most Machines also stay true to the “air” part of riding, able to glide whenever coming off a ramp, with some vehicles specifically built to take advantage of this.
Machine variety is a huge part of the amusement. While you have balanced rides that perform well both on and above the road, some place an emphasis on single elements. The Jet Star gets a free boost whenever it leaves the ground and consequently makes ramps your best friend, whereas the Wheelie Bike has zero flight capability at all and relies purely on its superior road maneuverability. The Transform Star switches between flight and bike modes when it spins, while the Paper Star is fragile as hell but glides with excellent speed.
Even weirder Machines exist. The Slick Star is fast yet cannot brake, the Formula Star enjoys extreme speed at the cost of being able to turn worth a damn, and the Swerve Star disables steering completely but can instantly stop and reorient when charging a boost. You’ll need boosts for the Bulk Star too, because it can’t accelerate and only moves forward in manually activated spurts. It’s clear that the developers had a ton of fun coming up with Machines and threw them all in even if some are hilariously unfit for purpose.
Well, I say they’re unfit, but while that may be true for most scenarios, the sheer volume of game types waiting in the wings means even the strangest, stupidest vehicle can excel in specific use cases. City Trial is their time to shine, and like I said, it’s the main event.
This wonderful mode is a game of two halves, the first taking place in a city-themed arena where 16 players ride around to acquire a vacant Machine and gather items that boost their base stats. After five minutes of that, the second stage presents four possible game types and players choose which one to compete in. This choice isn’t a voting process - players will get whichever game they want, splitting up the group based on whatever finale best suits their Machine, stats, and taste.
Yes, this means you can potentially end the game in a match with only two players or even one. I’ve not been privy to the latter, but I have had the former occur. Air Riders truly embraces random imbalance as a concept, and in this particular setting it totally works.
City Trial is brilliant and I love it. Players are stealing items, hijacking rides, screwing each other over, all in a mad rush to power up. The “crabs in a bucket” free-for-all mayhem is a proper laugh, and there’s something really cool about getting to hedge your bets for the second stage. If you were able to maximize your speed but not your steering, then you’ll cross your fingers that something like a rail-grind or drag race is offered. If you grabbed a lot of offense and defense upgrades, then combat events will likely be your best shot.
Occasionally, City Trial flips the script, declaring beforehand that all players will take part in a single ordained event. This alters your approach in the arena as you’ll want to specifically hunt for a Machine and stat items specifically suited to the event you know is coming.
Events have something for everyone. You’ve got cooperative boss fights, flight-focused darts contests, various battle stages, and even proper races if you can believe it. I’m best at the Gourmet Race and Button Rush events, so I try to raise my top speed and steering so I can collect food or hit switches with ease. Of course, if neither event is offered I’ll have to pick something else, but the game does recommend your best option based on whatever you left the city with.
The city arena is itself packed with surprises. Copy Abilities and weapons continually spawn, allowing players to batter and steal from one another. Random events keep things spicy, adding meteor showers, big ol' bosses, rare item boxes, and tons of other occurrences that can help or hinder. Mini contests like short races and quick brawls also show up, heaping bonuses on players who do well in them.
The ceiling on your upgrades is astronomical. Before the five minutes are up, you may have gained so much speed that you can barely tell what’s going on anymore, or collected enough glide bonuses that you can fly around for extended periods of time. You don’t always get so fortunate, but it’s hilarious when it occurs. As well as that, you can also piece together parts of a “legendary” Machine that’ll give you an exclusively cool ride. Must be fucking nice.
City Trial is a treasure trove of quirky fun. I absolutely love it… and it’s still just one of many other toys in the box.
A whole-ass other mode is thrown in too, also returning from the original game. Top Ride takes a classic Micro Machines approach, looking down on a course and using tweaked physics as well as reworked items. There’s a series of cute little courses and, in all honesty, it’s a much more pleasant time than Air Ride mode. I really like it.
What’s super cool is that online activity is currently sustained across every type of game. Top Ride takes a little more time than the others, but I was surprised to find consistent matches to a mode that would be desolate in any other title. Even more surprising is that Paddocks are notably populated. These online "social" lobbies are barely promoted, yet you’ll still find people filling them up, just hanging out and emoting while setting up games together. Paddocks are adorable and it’s a testament to this game’s appealing variety that they’re being used as much as they are.
I’d say part of the reason for this diverse activity is that Air Riders rewards its players for doing almost anything. Every available interaction is full of little achievements that will give you characters and cosmetics. There are even multiple methods to unlock the important stuff so nobody gets stuck trying to get to their favorite riders. You’re always being given new things, and it makes you want to stick around.
The amount of paints, decals, accessories, hats, and rider skins pleases me greatly. This isn’t like a certain kart game that thinks shitty little “stickers” alone constitute a meaningful amount of personalization. I’ve been tremendously happy making my favorite Machines look adorable/gay, and I quickly bought every piece of headwear available. Air Riders is generous with its coins, meaning you never really have to grind for the shop’s cosmetics.
That said... I'd like some more hats to be added. I need more hats. Send more hats.
Road Trip is yet another mode. It’s a single-player campaign of sorts where you choose between sets of challenges while journeying along a big highway. The challenges are hit and miss - regular races can be even more annoying here because they’re "in medias res" and make you catch up to rivals already ahead of you. Overall it’s a fine enough mode and it’s as robust as everything else, filled with unlockables and going so far as to feature a New Game Plus.
It’s also a fucked up cosmic horror story, because Kirby’s like that.
Backing up the game’s hefty content is a decently sized roster of characters pulled from across the whole series. My love of playable mooks in spin-offs has been sufficiently catered to with the likes of Scarfy and Waddle Doo, and I’m thrilled at my boy Marx making an appearance. There are some oldies like Lololo & Lalala, as well as lesser spotted antagonists such as Planet Robobot’s Suzie. Most importantly, Cappy is a rider. Cappy, the dumb ol’ mushroom. I love Cappy.
Graphically, Air Riders is not all that impressive, especially for a Switch 2 game, but it’s nonetheless colorful and the characters are wonderfully expressive. The animations are lovely, the Machines have great designs, and you get to color them in however you want, which is all more important to me than cutting edge visuals. There are some nice accessibility options, a terrific soundtrack, and even multiple choices for the game’s voice announcer because why not?
Compared to the original’s meager roster and less stuffed toybox, the expansion seen here is immense. All the old courses are back as well, allowing this to be as much of a definitive version of Kirby Air Ride as a sequel in its own right. For all my nitpicks - and even my bigger complaints - there’s so much to love here, with an emphasis on the “much” part.
If I judged Kirby Air Riders purely as a racing game, I’d have to be somewhat unkind. It’s terribly balanced and it’s not the fun kind of chaotic. This is a fair trade for how the rest of the production takes those flaws and turns them into massive positives, using imbalance and chaos for totally compelling shenanigans. When you throw in all the other shit, there is more than enough going on that I really don’t need the Air Rides to be thoroughly entertained by Air Riders.
Look, no game should cost $70, but this is the closest I’ve ever seen one come to offering value for that kind of money. Compared to Mario Kart World and its ludicrous $80 price tag, you’re getting so much more bang for your buck. So much, in fact, that Mario Kart looks disgraceful in hindsight. Not that it matters, because this game stands on its own as something really quite special - that I can be so critical of the racing portion of an ostensible racer and still come away absolutely loving it says a lot in its favor.
When it comes down what truly matters, I can be a dingus mushroom and wear an eggshell for a hat. That alone makes Kirby Air Riders one of the best spin-off games a platformer’s ever had.
9/10
