Considering the many games that Nintendo could have chosen to make a sequel for in 2025, Kirby Air Ride is one of the most unlikely picks. It was a one-off, Mario Kart-like racer for the Nintendo GameCube that applied an offbeat twist to the fun formula. The result? A cult classic. Still, Nintendo is nothing if not playful, and Kirby is one of its cheeriest mascots. So, 22 years later, Kirby Air Riders ($69.99) hits the Nintendo Switch 2. It takes everything beloved about Kirby Air Ride and adds more tracks, vehicles, and riders, along with a lengthy single-player campaign, online play, and numerous cosmetic options. It’s a fun, party-style game, but like its predecessor, Kirby Air Riders lacks many conventional, competitive racing modes. That said, if you want a more mainstream kart racing game, check out the Editors' Choice award-winning Mario Kart World and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.

Story: Cartoon Racing and Eldritch Horror

Narratively, Kirby Air Riders is a traditional Kirby title, meaning it has a colorful, cheery premise with just a hint of an underlying apocalyptic nightmare. The story details how several cool vehicles landed on the planet Popstar, and its inhabitants, including Kirby, decided to ride them for fun. So, you have cute Kirby characters, cool vehicles, and entertaining races. All that is pretty chipper.

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The single-player campaign mode, Road Trip, takes the Mario Kart premise and mixes in some of H.P. Lovecraft's The Colour Out of Space. If anything, dealing with an unknowable force threatening reality is more of a typical Tuesday for Kirby than racing on scooters. I won't go into details beyond that, except to say that a particular popular character is warped into one of the coolest designs the series has had since Meta Knight.

Controls: Now There Are 2 Buttons!

Kirby Air Riders features a control scheme that will be familiar to anyone who has played the original GameCube game. As in Kirby Air Ride, you steer with the analog stick, and brake, drift, and charge the speed boost with the B button. The latter is similar to Mario Kart's boost, except you charge it by slowing down, whether or not you're actually drifting. I constantly keep my thumb on the accelerator while playing Mario Kart (when I'm not drifting around a corner to get a boost, that is), so applying that idea to Kirby Air Riders' pedal feels surprisingly natural.

Tapping or holding the button for a moment lets you inhale nearby, non-racer enemies on the track; releasing the button spits them out for a forward-shooting projectile attack that also increases your speed. Alternatively, you can swallow certain enemies and temporarily gain their Copy Ability. Those are powers that let you automatically attack nearby racers and creatures (Needle, Sword), launch projectiles (Cutter, Fire), or transform into a different form that's faster, more maneuverable, and more dangerous (Steel Ball, Wheel).

If you want to attack a nearby racer and there isn't a creature to use as a weapon, flick the analog stick left and then right to unleash a Quick Spin that damages opponents. However, the Quick Spin is a bit awkward to execute, as the flicking gesture isn't as precise as a dedicated button. I didn't miss any Quick Spins while playing, but I can envision people blowing the motion during heated competition.

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Kirby Air Riders' control scheme is slightly more complicated than the original game's. Now, you use the Y button to activate a special move unique to your character after you've charged a meter that fills as you race. For example, standard Kirby swings a powered-up sword that's much larger than the Sword Copy Ability, Meta Knight leaps into the air and flies forward, and Bandana Waddle Dee spins his spear in a tornado attack. Additionally, in City Trial mode, the Y button lets you switch vehicles. The controls work well, and I never felt constrained by the simplicity while playing.

Racers and Vehicles: Mix-and-Match to Victory

You race using a racer paired with a vehicle, with over a dozen different choices for each. The combinations have stats in 10 categories, including Boost, Charge, Top Speed, and Turn. They're pretty self-explanatory, with a few exceptions. Lift and Flight Speed determine how far you can glide after a jump and how well you can control the vehicle in the air, respectively. Offense, Defense, and Max HP dictate how effective you are in combat. Depending on the match type, losing all your health and wearing down your opponents' health can result in temporary advantages or setbacks, ultimately leading to victory or defeat. 

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There are 20 racers, including favorites like Kirby, King Dedede, Meta Knight, Waddle Dee, and Bandana Waddle Dee. Similarly, the 22 vehicles vary significantly in terms of general performance and control mechanics. Their stats swing massively between them, more than the differences between riders, and they also often have their own unique control quirks.

For example, the Warp Star is the default vehicle, offering well-rounded performance that covers all the bases. Paper Star and Winged Star are lighter vehicles that glide well, but they are flimsier and have lower top speeds. Wheeled vehicles like Chariot, Wheelie Bike, and Wheelie Scooter run great on the ground but have absolutely no Lift and can't glide at all.

There are many vehicle options to choose from, depending on how you want to play. Outside of the basic Air Ride and Top Ride races, those choices can be either huge advantages or totally useless, depending on the activity.

Gameplay: Courses and City Trials

Air Ride is the basic race mode, and the closest to a Mario Kart experience. With it, you race on a 3D course with a behind-the-back view of your racer. You steer, boost, pick up Copy Abilities, attack other racers, and get to the finish after the chosen number of laps. Simple.

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Top Ride is another basic mode, but with a zoomed-out overhead view closer to Rare's RC Pro-Am for the NES and Blizzard's Rock and Roll Racing for the SNES. It's the same concept, but the courses are shorter and flatter. Although there are some fun little gimmicks, such as traps and switching pathways, there aren't any big set pieces with vertical options. As a result, your racer’s flying capabilities mean little.

Both Air Ride and Top Ride modes have Race, Time Attack, and Free Run modes. Race is a standard race; Time Attack lets you challenge your best time; and Free Run is a practice mode. The one thing they have in common? You pick a single course from the 18 Air Ride tracks (which includes all of the tracks from the original Kirby Air Ride) and nine Top Ride tracks. The game lacks Cup and Grand Prix modes, which would task you with completing a series of tracks. It's always one and done for Air Ride and Top Ride. This is disappointing but not surprising if you played the original Air Ride, which had the same sparse race modes.

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City Trial is the more varied party mode and the multiplayer showpiece. In this mode, you and your opponents explore the floating island city of Skyrah for a few minutes (five by default, but you can also choose from three to seven). It's an open area with a modest number of environs, including tall buildings, caves, a plateau, a colosseum, and a pirate ship. It's well-sized for the game mode, big enough that you probably won't visit every location during a match, but small enough that you'll regularly run into opponents. 

While in Skyrah, you must hunt for a better vehicle than the tiny, default Compact Star ride, and pick up stat bonuses scattered around the area to improve your performance. You can attack other players to steal their vehicles or some of their stats. Periodically, a classic Kirby boss monster, such as Dyna-Blade or Kracko, shows up, giving you the opportunity to fight for a pile of upgrades. These fights are usually pretty quick, especially if you have a combat-oriented ride and can grab a good Copy Ability to pelt it with attacks. Kracko is a more frustrating battle than the other boss fights, since the foe floats high enough to be challenging to hit with Quick Spins and melee attacks. That said, there are always enough ramps and weapon pickups for you to have a shot at defeating it.

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After the time is up in City Trial, you take part in a final mission to determine the winner, chosen either randomly or by player vote. It could be as simple as a short race, a free-for-all brawl in a stadium, or a more specific goal, such as hitting point targets while gliding or falling. This is where your vehicle choice and how you've built your stats can make or break you. City Trial is easily the most entertaining competitive mode due to its variety. It's simply a blast to play, and no other kart racer besides the original Kirby Air Ride has done anything like it.

Solo Mode: Road Trip's Single-Player Action

Road Trip is Kirby Air Riders’ single-player campaign, something that makes up for the lack of a Cup or Grand Prix mode. It’s a lengthy challenge gauntlet that packs City Trial's feel into a much more linear, hours-long quest.

In Road Trip, you select a racer, hop on the standard Warp Star, and drive through the game's different zones, all thematically based on courses. Each zone is a straight line punctuated by roughly a dozen stages or events, most of which present three choices that provide different challenges and rewards. You can also choose a specific route to take in most zones, which determines the next zone you'll move to on a branching map. Like in City Trial, Road Trip builds your racer's stats in anticipation of what awaits at the end of the trip (which I won’t spoil). You also pick up new vehicles along the way.

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The challenges include multiple flavors of Air Ride and Top Ride races, plus new versions of City Trial's boss fights and end-of-match minigames. The standard matches are shorter than those in their dedicated modes, typically covering just one or two laps. Timed races declare the winner based on who's in first place after a set period, and tourney races that drop the last-place racer at each checkpoint. The City Trial-like challenges include tasks such as eating the most food items on a track, hitting the most buttons in a stadium, hunting around Skyrah for a key to open a treasure chest, and achieving the highest score by gliding or falling ("skydiving") at numbered targets. In pure combat challenges, you'll need to knock out all other racers or a specific rival racer on a track or in a stadium before the time runs out, or survive their attacks until then.

Because there's only so much variety to wring out of a racing game, the same challenges appear many times across the 100-plus Road Trip stops. It doesn't get dull, since you can usually choose the challenges you enjoy and ignore challenges you find tedious. The tracks also get a fresh look in each new level, and the difficulty increases the further you go. Even the feel of your racer changes as you build stats and collect new vehicles to match your play style. At Road Trip's start, you’re a modest little go-kart racer, but you might be a supercharged speed machine or a rolling tank by the end.

I enjoyed playing through Road Trip twice. In fact, the second time was in the New Game + mode, which carried over the vehicles I collected (but not my stats) to face a higher difficulty challenge. Multiple playthroughs come with cool benefits, too. For example, vehicles are located in specific levels, so you can't collect them all in a single run. And, in true Kirby fashion, you get bonuses and fresh boss fights for playing through multiple times. The game rewards your dedication.

Multiplayer Mode: More a Party Than a Tourney

Like most kart racers, Kirby Air Riders' longevity is in its multiplayer modes. Locally, you can play against up to three of your friends on one Switch 2. Air Ride and City Trial have split-screen views, while Top Ride maintains a full-screen view of the entire track, allowing everyone to see their positions. 

You can also play online against others. The three competitive modes have Quick Match and Ranked Match options, which pit you against randomly selected players. Air Ride can have up to six players, Top Ride up to eight, and City Trial up to 16, with City Trial also letting you choose between a free-for-all battle or two teams of eight. The test matches I tried out were quick to load and provided a lag-free online experience.

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Alternately, you can open or join a paddock, a multiplayer lobby that supports up to 32 players. There, they can communicate with each other with emotes, show off their custom vehicles, and even invite other players into their garage spaces to display even more designs. A terminal in the paddock lets you set up matches of all three different game types. These have the same player limits as Quick Match and Ranked Match, but the paddock allows multiple matches to be played simultaneously.

The paddock is a fun party mode to keep everyone together and play with different game types, but it primarily serves as a gateway to the one-and-done races in those game types without any real score tracking outside of them. There's no tournament mode, and you can't spectate other people's matches—a bummer.

Customization Options: Many Ways to Pimp a Ride

Hundreds of achievements spread across five checklists (one each for Air Ride, Top Ride, City Trial, Road Trip, and online) also give you a reason to keep playing, with many meaningful rewards. Achievements unlock new riders, vehicles, tracks, hats, and cool customization choices for your license and vehicles. The license is your ID card for online matches, and you can decorate it with different backgrounds, frames, stickers, and two-part word combinations for your nickname (mine is Otherworldly Nova). I like the customization freedom.

Then there's the vehicle customization, where you can really get wild. Choose your favorite vehicle and start by changing its skin. Would you like it to be a different color? Camouflage? Wood grain? Leopard spots? Go for it. You then add decals and stickers you can move, rotate, and resize, and layer any way you want. Slap Kirby on the hood, add flames to the sides, or arrange different shapes into your own custom logo. You can also attach accessories, such as spoilers, wings, and dangling lights, to three preset slots (left, right, and rear). None of these tweaks affect how the ride performs, but they can look cool. You can save multiple designs for each vehicle, and choose them instead of the default look in any mode.

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Some cosmetic options become available after completing the checklists. You also earn in-game currency, Miles, as you play through the different game modes that you can spend in the shop. This is where you can find all the vehicle accessories and music tracks, as well as most of the license names and vehicle skins, along with half of the decals and stickers.