In the world of cartoonish racing games, it’s clear who is top dog. As Nintendo’s moustachioed plumber lords it up from his gilded go-kart, everyone from Crash Bandicoot to Sonic and Garfield has tried – and failed – to skid their way on to the podium. Now with no one left to challenge its karting dominance, Nintendo is attempting to beat itself at its own game.
The unexpected sequel to a critically panned 2003 GameCube game, Kirby Air Riders has the pink squishball and friends hanging on for dear life to floating race machines. With no Grand Prix to compete in, in the game’s titular mode you choose a track and compete to be the first of six players to cross the finish line, spin-attacking each other and unleashing weapons and special abilities to create cutesy, colourful chaos.
You accelerate automatically at all times, commanding the analogue stick to boost around corners, aiming the direction of your drift with a well-timed flick. Air Riders has a surprisingly steep learning curve: it took me an hour to stop hurtling into walls. But once you’ve learned to let go (of the stick) and start drifting like a pro, it reveals a satisfyingly zen, minimalist approach to competitive racing.
Where Sonic’s 2025 kart outing saw him recruit Minecraft’s Steve, VTuber Hatsune Miku and Yakuza’s Kiryu to its ranks, Air Riders has you competing against such legendary characters as a sentient rock, a slime with googly eyes and someone called Chef Kawasaki. Remember Lolo and Lala? … No? Well, they’re here! But where the roster is lacking, the machines give Air Riders surprising variety and depth, letting you swap between enemy-destroying tanks and glide-happy paper aeroplanes.
Each track has personality and spectacle, and there’s a strong sense of visual cohesion that was sorely lacking in Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds earlier this year. The art style really shines in Air Riders’ story mode, Road Trip. It’s the best single player mode that director Masahiro Sakurai (who also leads Smash Bros) has ever concocted, packed with surreal boss fights, cleverly modified races and oddly high-budget cutscenes, like a dream you might have after gobbling some too much cheese before bedtime.
The big multiplayer mode, City Trials, however, is a let-down. A chaotic collision of Battle Royale-esque resource gathering followed by a Mario party-esque mini game showdown, it feels bafflingly pointless: you spend five minutes powering up for a mini game that ends in seconds. The final mode – Top Ride – offers up a simplified version of the main event, in which you race from a bird’s eye view in a Micro Machines-inspired melee. It’s fun, if shallow.
What Air Riders lacks in modes, it makes up for in charm. There are a heap of customisation options, allowing you to pimp your ride with unlockable stickers and alternative colour schemes – you can even hang a plushie from your machine like a Kirby-branded Labubu.
This is a tightly focused game that reminds me of Nintendo’s fun-first NES-era game design – for better and for worse. It has a sprinkling of Sakurai magic and oodles of visual panache, but at full price it is – like Kirby – a little puffed-up.
• Kirby Air Riders is out now; £59.99
