A generation of Nintendo fans grew up playing the Kirby Air Ride on GameCube at every sleepover. And now this slept on kart racer’s franchise is finally coming back. It’s kind of crazy that the Nintendo Switch 2 is only getting a small handful of exclusive titles this year and two of them are kart racers. I guess Mr. Sakurai—director of the Super Smash Bros. games and creator of Kirby—really just wanted to see his pink ball back in the driver’s seat of a warp store and Nintendo said “Fine.” Kirby Air Riders is now available for pre-order over at Amazon.
The first Kirby Air Ride had a limited roster, just letting you race as different colors of Kirby. You could unlock Meta Knight and King DeDeDe, but they did not allow the option to choose your machine. Kirby Air Riders is fixing that by giving you a huge new cast of racers — all of which have full access to the different machines to race on. Choose between Kirby, King Dedede, Meta Knight, Bandana Waddle Dee, Chef Kawasaki, and so many more characters. Each racer has their own unique special move they can unleash to give them the edge in a race.
The machine choices have greatly expanded, but lots of fan favorites are returning. the speedy Turbo Star, the slippery Slick Star, and the intimidating Rex Wheelie are all back. New machines such as the heavyweight Battle Chariot are looking to be a fun time as well.
City Trial Is Back
Real fans of Kirby Air Ride know that the heart of this game is not in the racing modes. No, sir. You play this game for one thing and one thing only — City Trial. This multiplayer free roam mode is back in Kirby Air Riders and it’s looking to be better than ever before. Zip around the floating city known as Skyah as you have minutes to find a good machine, collect power-ups and upgrades, then compete against up to 16 players online in a random field event. These could be standard races, battles to the death, darts but on karts, and so much more.
You can pre-order either the physical version or a digital code which you can enter into your Nintendo Switch 2 to install on release. The game is set to release later this Fall on November 20. Pre-order today for $70. Remember before pre-ordering that this title is exclusive to the Nintendo Switch 2 and will not run on your old, standard Nintendo Switch console
