Thoughts on Kirby Air Riders Direct

Published on 20 Aug 2025

Just to let it be known: I am someone who 100% completed Kirby Air Ride, and pretty recently as well, so my memory of the original game is pretty darn clear.

I played Kirby Air Ride pretty much way after most people, I played it in what was probably the past 10 years or something, I actually do not remember when I started it. It is a game that was deeply misunderstood by the press and most people, but there are honestly good reasons why: The gameplay was remade in 3.5 months, the polish wasn’t there, there wasn’t a lot of content to go for, and because the game is very atypical from other racing titles, the mechanics range from understandable to straight up obscure, even if the game actually tells you about them in tutorial videos.

It was a very unusual game that was more about to make different ways to play with vehicle action, as Nintendo likes to put it, but it still gained a foothold on people who started to understand the game, and became a real cult classic over time, mainly for the City Trial mode, but I do seriously think the other modes are still fun and are put too much to the side, as their real faces shows when you attempt to 100% complete the Checklist for it.

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So it has been a while since I became a fan of the game, and obviously, in light of all the unpolished aspects, I was sometimes vocal for a sequel that attempts to deal with the imperfections of the original, and pretty much looked for any sort of hint of any semblance of such projects. And then Nintendo announced Kirby Air Riders, with freaking Masahiro Sakurai as director??? For the first time in more than 20 years, there is going to be a new Kirby game by him and it’s a sequel to Kirby Air Ride? Sign me the fuck in!

I became seriously insane and even more when suddenly one day, a Kirby Air Riders Direct was announced for the next day, and here’s my simple thoughts: This game is awesome and instantly sold me in as I watched the Direct. Somehow, I am very surprised Nintendo and HAL were the origins of this.

For people who are unaware of how the original was like, to me, this Direct was crystal clear on the changes, and seeing some people summing up the new game as simply more Air Ride doesn’t quite cut it to me, because Sakurai has absolutely looked over the criticisms of the original, and solved a lot of problems, making the Air Ride mode, usually dismissed, as a serious contender for a very fun quickie kind of mode.

I’m not going to sum up the direct, I’ll leave that up to you, reader, but many of the original’s mechanics were pretty much obscure, and he made extra sure those mechanics now have clear feedback, in some cases changes too, as Star Slide is more of a trail of stars that actually stays for what seems like forever. There was slipstreaming in the original, but this is a clear replacement that also acts a general comeback mechanic, I have no idea if the player would get a better top speed if they’re really behind like the original, but the game clearly found its goal now, and it is even more oriented on speed than even Mario Kart does. There’s now even a Lessons menu for it, but even without it, I feel the game is so much clearer in how it works and what it aims to be.

The Direct clearly spoke to us fans, but it also tried to speak to people who have no idea what this game is, which I think in some aspects might have kind of failed, or rather, took too long to look over the basics that it made the controls potentially feel daunting despite the fact that it is just one stick and one button that does most things, alongside now a new special button. I totally think some of the mechanics were explained a bit too late like Star Slide, as I feel is one of the main differenciators from Mario Kart at this point, but all in all, what I’m seeing is that we’re in a farcry from the old days. People have all the means to finally understand the game’s potential.

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I do seriously think if you weren’t into the original that this sequel should at least get your attention better. I swear it’s not that complicated to play, just give it a chance, because I think it’s better than Mario Kart World already and there’s a whole lot more we still don’t know about lol

If you’re still not seeing the difference between Kirby Air Riders and Mario Kart World, I want to try to sum it up in a different way:

• Mario Kart is more of a game where you still mostly leave it up to chance, skill is still very much a thing of course, but it would be very dishonest to say that semi-random items don’t play a role. Speed has never ever been Mario Kart’s strongest suit, and it’s certainly not what I think of when I think of Mario Kart.
• Kirby Air Ride has never been this much about chance, you still have to play right, because items (copy abilities, enemies, buffs) are not a comeback mechanic, they’re a fighting mechanic, and that’s a huge difference because no one truly slows down in this game. You are fighting for speed, which is definitely not as much of a casual kind of game, but rather a very fast-paced arcade experience that isn’t quite like F-Zero. Just the fact that machines can have huge differences in gameplay that aren’t just stats, shows the game is putting a lot more of its shoulders to the players, and not to chance.