Oh Kirby, the adorable pink puffball Nintendo character. And then you get to the late game where cosmic horror stuff happens and the adorable pink ball with endless hunger still wins. His first entry on the Switch 2 is here, not counting the bonus content released for Kirby and the Forgotten Land.

The original Kirby Air Ride was released in 2003 for the Nintendo Game Cube. There is not much I can say about it as I have not played it. From what I learned certain elements like the City Trial mode were much beloved and would go on to inspire elements in Smash Brothers and other games that involved Sakurai.

Kirby Air Riders is the much looked forward to sequel for the Switch 2. The reason for the ‘s’ in the name over a 2 or the like is that while in the original game only Kirby was playable (but with different colours) save unlockables for Dedede and Metaknight, now the game features many characters from the Kirby franchise as playable and many different air machines to fly with.

The game is simple to learn. There are only 2 buttons you need to use. One is the control stick to point your direction while the rest is all done with the B button. You accelerate and move forward without pressing anything so that B button is for breaking, drifting, sucking up enemies and so on. Admittedly there is one other button used. Each character has a special ability that charges up throughout the race and pressing Y when the bar is full, will activate it.

There are several game modes. The classic Air Ride that is your standard race over a track as normal. Top Ride which is a race in a top down form a bit like how you would view a slot car game. City Trial where you move about on a City with many other players, while doing it you pick up stat increasing items and other Air Rides as well as take part in numerous special events to gain more stat increases. At the end of that you are thrown into a special stage and hope your stat increase lets you come first.

Finally is Road Trip which contains the story. You ride along a long road getting options on different power ups by completing challenges and also additional Air Rides. The options you make during Road Trip will affect the path you go on your journey to reach the mysterious end location your machine wants to get to. As you play through it you will begin to uncover more of the story leading to the dramatic conclusion.

Road Trip and City Trial are your main time syncs in the game. Road Trip for completing the story and game, while City Trial more casual time burning. Not including the large murals of challenges to clear for more unlockables a good number you will get done playing through Road Trips. Anyone who has played the most recent Smash Brothers game, you know what this is.

There’s lots of other things in there, like customizing the appearance of your machines, or getting fancy hats for your rider.

So how did I find the game? Yeah it’s good fun, trying to complete the checklists will get frustrating with some of them, but playing through Road Trip and getting to its ending is a very memorable experience. City Trial also has a lot of fun to it and you can see how what was once just a side mode became the go to game mode for people as the original game went on, so now it’s proudly presented as a key part of the game.

Come sit down, and enjoy the cute flying races of the Kirby cast.

Rating: 🎮🎮🎮🎮