I got to try Kirby Air Riders this morning at a Nintendo holiday showcase, and I wasn’t prepared for how difficult it was — and how bad I am at it. The Switch 2-exclusive racer launches November 20th, and it’s full of modes, collectibles, and new characters to play as. To be clear, there’s absolutely nothing chill about Kirby Air Riders. It’s the sequel to Kirby Air Ride, a cult classic GameCube game, and a passion project for Masahiro Sakurai, the game’s director who was previously at the helm of the Super Smash Bros. franchise (it’s easy to spot the shared DNA).
The demo had us play through some tutorials, which were easy to grasp, yet it was eventually clear that this game has a lot more in common with F-Zero than Mario Kart. It’s fast and chaotic, words I never expected to ascribe to a Kirby game. While most Kirby games are generally easy — too easy for some — Air Riders gives you very little time to react to incoming obstacles, and aggressive vehicular combat is all but necessary to gain boosts to stay ahead.
Then, the team let us loose in City Trial, the open-world-esque environment where players battle each other (as well as CPU opponents) to compete for power-ups to gain the upper-hand in a challenge once the timer runs out. I had on a confident face, but truthfully, it’s been a while since I’ve felt this in over my head while playing a game.
The controls are simple, but take some getting used to (you go forward automatically, but you hold the B button when going around a corner to drift and get a boost out of it). On the audio/visual front, it’s like playing a high-intensity minigame that lasts for several minutes. It’s overwhelmingly fast. I’m still trying to figure out if I had fun while playing it, or if I just needed more caffeine first. However, I can tell from a small taste that this game offers more depth than I anticipated, and I owe it another try at launch.
Kirby Air Riders is among the few new first-party games filling out Nintendo’s holiday lineup for the Switch 2, arriving on November 20th, just ahead of the busy Black Friday shopping rush. Outside of that, both Switch and Switch 2 owners have a lot to look forward to: a two-game collection featuring Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Galaxy 2 is arriving on October 2nd (they’ll be available individually, as well), followed by the launch of Pokémon Legends: Z-A on October 16th. Lastly, Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, Nintendo’s long-awaited FPS sequel, drops on December 4th.
