Sometimes it may seem that games the industry has lost its purity. The modern landscape is infested with pests in the form of platforms that do not work unless you're always online, unfinished games full price, discs and cartridges that have no real content, games available for a limited time that remain unsaved and unplayable, and the encroaching specter of AI – all for the sake of an experience that wants to be the next Fortnite instead of something original and fun. Kirby Air Riders free of all these problems and instead focused on making the game truly enjoyable.
For better or for worse Kirby Air Riders it feels like since the early 2000ssimilar to its 2003 predecessor. Kirby Air Ride on GameCube. It's simple so the player won't have to search for the next one cinematic, narrative action-adventure, but will be catnip for those who appreciate a game whose mechanics are enjoyable. run indefinitelyregardless of graphics or plot.
Simplicity Air Racers compared to his director's previous game, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. In 2018 Masahiro Sakurai made the biggest Destroy however, as the name suggests, it took years of post-launch development and appeasing fans who had high expectations, and we ended up with the third best-selling game on Nintendo Switch. After this, Sakurai seemed to have a blank check. Finaland he spent it on a sequel to the poorly reviewed racing game Kirby.
The uninitiated can view Air Racers like copying Mario Karthomework, especially with World of Mario Kart, the latest in the series, released just a few months ago. However, a few hours from Air Racers reveals the nuance and depth of gameplay, the distinctiveness of a racing game and its sensual, chaotic and strategic appeal. Mario Kart should work as an entry point into gaming, something slow and understandable enough for your grandma to pick up. Air Racers Unencumbered by this, it's capable of breaking the conventions of racing games and unleashing all sorts of madness onto the screen.
Perfecting the Air Ride Formula
In its most basic state Kirby Air Riders capable of trapping you in satisfying muscle memory. The Air Ride mode, in which the player drives along the track from a third person, is done perfectly. The user interface is nice but unobtrusive, with speed lines appearing at just the right moments. Tactile sensations Switch 2 Joy Cons and Pro Controller add reality to every acceleration and impact. Most importantly, the combination of racers and cars (this game's version of karts) provides incredibly deep gameplay.
Kirby Air Riders Plays like a game from the early 2000s, and that's its greatest strength.
Nintendo
Instead of some cars being simply lighter or having better acceleration, cars in Kirby Air Riders have their own personality, their own strengths and weaknesses, so different that sometimes they are only applicable in certain situations. Plus, each course plays to each machine's strengths if you put in enough effort to understand them. If the player chooses the Winged Star, he will spend the entire race looking for opportunities to take to the skies, but if he has the Vampire Star, he will look to stalk and attack other racers and enemies, even if it means taking a small detour to get a nice speed boost.
The Riders themselves add another layer of strategy with their special abilities, a mechanic not found in the GameCube version. Some special abilities are destructive, such as Pink Kirby's frantic sword; others are about speed, such as Rick's ability to jump off his car and run on his little legs at 100 miles per hour. There are so many ways to play in Air Ride mode alone that it will take players hours to choose a configuration they can reliably return to.
The many modes leave room for variety, but they all rely on some kind of chaos.
Nintendo
The game's courses and visuals generally range from good to excellent. Like many other games, Air Riders' first level is a boring grassy field, and reintroducing the original game's first level means Air Riders has a couple of duds. However, there are other courses that simply sing. Checker Knights, Crystalline Fissure and Cavernous Corners are highlights of both Air Riders and the Switch 2's graphical capabilities. The latter in particular has a gorgeous overworld section combined with the hellish underworld space, mixing the two to create some of the Nintendothe best graphic work, complemented by a masterpiece soundtrack.
More than just racing
As awesome as Air Ride mode is, players will likely spend more time in the City Trial and Road Trip modes, the former being a chaotic roguelike and the latter being the game's story mode. City Trial is the biggest departure from the racing game formula, giving the player access to a city (called Skaia) full of power-ups that can turn a slow-moving Car into an offensive beast or a lightning-fast glider, depending on which power-ups they manage to pick up. What City Trail does cleverly is give the player a little control over their build by creating random apocalyptic events to hit Skaia that can either sink their car or give the player a chance to catch a Legendary Car.
The list of adorable Dreamland characters is amazing.
Nintendo
City Trial requires the player to submit to it, give up the desire to control the character and embrace chaos. Skaia is also full of secrets and Easter eggs that players may only notice the first time around. After five minutes of wandering around Skaia, the player enters a stadium where races or battles begin, which may or may not match the strengths of the car they have created. This gives the player enough control that they can think, “I know I can do better next time.” City Ride is the biggest way Air Riders breaks the formula of racing games. How many other exploration-focused roguelikes are there?
Road Trip, another first for Air Riders, was less successful. This time, the player builds the vehicle more methodically, completing short missions corresponding to other game modes to gain certain bonuses. Even though the gameplay itself is no different from other Air Riders modes, Road Trip's difficulty curve starts at a shockingly low level and stays there for a while, even on Hard mode. If it weren't for the process of creating a Machine, the player might gravitate towards online modes as more challenging. However, the compelling story, presented through random cutscenes, is fun for those interested in the new additions to Kirby's lore, with the backstories of the Machines and their connection to the Godlike Presence, Galactic Nova series. This means that Road Trip is far from a complete failure.
It may seem Mario Kart at first glance, but its gameplay couldn't be more different.
Nintendo's long-standing philosophy of putting gameplay first has earned it a reputation for being committed to purity in gaming. This reputation has suffered damage in recent years, but Kirby Air Riders reminiscent of a time when the idea of a “friendly gaming corporation” was easier to buy. Sakurai also stated that the game will not receive any DLC – and why? There's no need to create replayability through additional content because after one race the player is determined to take that corner better, take advantage of that ramp, use more power-ups, or land better for an extra boost in speed. You keep coming back to it not because they added Sora to the game, but because it's actually fun.
Air Racers doesn't push the boundaries of gaming and works best as a piece of comfortable nostalgia for a simpler era, but it's also further proof that a celebrated director's passion project is worth pursuing, even if it's a borderline remake of a game he made 22 years ago. Games need people willing to pander to the creator, not the investor. After Break Ultimatein the first year of Switch 2's release, among many hero shooters, Kirby Air Riders feels like a reset button for Sakurai, for Nintendo, for the industry.
Kirby Air Riders will be released on November 20 for Nintendo Switch 2.
