What parents need to know
Kirby Air Riders is the sequel to Kirby Air Ride, Kirby’s racing game released for the GameCube in 2003.
There is a racing game with 3 main game modes, as well as an adventure mode to explore each of them a little. The entire Kirby universe is naturally included: friends, traditional enemies, environments, powers to absorb.
To participate in the races, Kirby Air Riders offers a slightly different concept. After choosing your character and star-shaped vehicle with various characteristics, you start your race against the opponents with your vehicle that constantly moves automatically. You can then point it to the left or right, tilt it forward or backward when in the air, and finally slow it down with one of the only 2 action buttons.
Boost Power OK!
The Boost Charge slows down your vehicle so you drift around corners and take them correctly. By slowing down, you accumulate a charge for a boost that allows you to accelerate suddenly at the end of the turn. Well, it’s hard to explain in writing, but imagine that you have activated Mario Kart’s auto-acceleration, and that the only way to brake and take turns is to drift, well, that’s it!
With such a system, you have to constantly anticipate the corners well to know where and when to use the Boost Charge.
Other possible actions are absorbing enemies present in the level and rejecting them or capturing their powers, the Special which is a kind of star in Mario Kart (you advance faster and attack your opponents automatically on the way), and the Quick Spin, an attack that makes your character spin on itself (like in F-Zero GX).
Everything is very well explained here in English in video and here in French.
The game modes are described below.
The game has been provided by the publisher for the purpose of criticism, it does not influence our opinion.
Details
Level of experience required
| Age | 3+ | 7+ | 12+ | 16+ | 18+ |
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Evaluation
The protagonists turn on themselves to hit each other, or launch magical attacks.
Nothing
Some descriptions, but no problem. The menus are filled with very different icons and buttons to find your way around without knowing how to read.
Uh, nothing. It’s just fantastical creatures that compete in fantasy worlds using fancy vehicles.
The game is difficult to read. Lots of visual effects.
It is also hard to understand.
It’s not difficult to handle, there are just the directions and 2 action buttons, it’s knowing how to use them to the maximum that is the biggest difficulty.
Everything is contained in the game, and there will be no DLC, or expansions.
Only Amiibo are available, and new models will be released later. More information below in “Extensions”.
Local game modes
Air Ride, the standard 3D racing game with 9 tracks available at the start and 9 more to unlock.
City Trial, a game where you walk through a city in 3D for 5 minutes in search of upgrades for your vehicle. At the end of the time, players compete in an additional event for 30 seconds to 1 minute using their upgraded vehicles. The winner of this event wins the game.
Top Ride, top-down races with 4 players.
Road Trip, an adventure mode that allows you to improve your character on many levels inspired by the above modes.
Beginning of the video showing Air Ride in French.
Online Game Modes
Air Ride, City Trial, and Top Ride are playable online, in ranked play or not.
There is also the Paddock, a lobby to meet up with friends and play with them, the aforementioned modes, as well as the mini-games. You can meet with 32 people in this lobby, and organize yourself to play games of 16 players in City Trial for example, and even make teams to compete against each other.
Nintendo of Canada invited me to discover GameChat and the Paddock. Here is the video in English.
Thank you Nintendo Canada for having me. Sorry for the sound, my microphone picked up the sound from the TV as well. I will remember it for next time.
Expansions/Add-ons (DLC)
There will be no DLC for this game according to the director himself.
However, Amiibo are sold separately for 54.96 CAD + tax each, which is more than half the price of the game. They include a figure of a character and a figure of a vehicle each, and are interchangeable with each other.
They allow you to train your Figure Player (FP) in the game, i.e. a character controlled by the computer that improves as you race according to your customization.
It’s the same as in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
Other Kirby amiibo or other franchises are not compatible with the game as far as I know.
Our opinion
I was looking forward to the game. Kirby is one of my favorite franchises. I really appreciate Masahiro Sakurai’s productions (Super Smash Bros, Kirby, Kid Icarus Uprising).
And for now, wow the game is hard to learn and tame. There are a lot of elements constantly at play, you don’t feel in control, you don’t know why you win or lose. There are too many visual effects, you don’t know when you’re attacking or when you’re being attacked.
I thought the game would be more precise, I don’t have any satisfaction in finishing first or last in an event because I don’t feel that I had a role in it.
I don’t know what to think of Kirby Air Riders. For casual players, the game is too confusing and difficult to pick up strangely. For persevering players, the learning curve seems to be high, and at the same time the game is unfair on purpose to keep a part of randomness and try to rebalance the differences in levels between players.
Rising stars
The Air Ride mode is the most interesting, which is where the juice of the game lies. The circuits are short and you have to stand out quickly from the competitors.
I don’t understand the City Trial mode, you spend 5 minutes collecting bonuses to upgrade your vehicle in a city, and then you stand out from the competitors in a mini-game that lasts between 30 seconds and 1 minute. It feels like you’ve wasted your time for 5 minutes, especially since handling the vehicles in the city is quite difficult. You try to break the bonus boxes, you miss it, you have to turn around, even though the vehicle is not designed for that. We try to aim at an opponent, but it’s difficult to follow him, we lose him, because we overtake him.
The Top Ride mode is entertaining during a few races with friends, but won’t keep you busy for long.
The Road Trip mode is fun for a few hours, you oscillate between the different events, you unlock the characters and vehicles by this means, but again there are flaws. When you get a vehicle, you can’t change it if you arrive in a new event directly afterwards. And if the vehicle is not suitable for the event, you have to spend parts to be allowed to try again with another vehicle
The Quick Spin is done by doing Left, Right quickly on the stick, and this is a mistake. There are so many unused buttons, this could have been an extra button, whereas it uses directions in a racing game. So to attack, or counter-attack in a corner, it doesn’t work, and you rub up against the walls and the opponents, whereas turning in a corner should be precise.
Notifications
If you complain about notifications on social networks, here you will be served: “Congratulations you started the game for the first time” “Congratulations you reached the top 3 in a race” “Bravo you killed this enemy for the first time in this way”.
With more than 300 achievements, the game constantly rewards you for all your actions, even the most trivial ones, in all game modes. After each game, the achievement board will be displayed and show your various achievements. During games this is also the case, as you see the notifications of achievements appear constantly.
So we do a little 2-minute race, success board, menu, small 2-minute race, success board, menu….
I know it was the same in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, as well as the interfaces and menus which are very similar, but the games were a little longer, and the gameplay is denser.
Shooting star
Kirby Air Riders is mainly intended for short sessions, and ideal for transport. But in the end the game tries to do a lot of things but I don’t see what audience it can satisfy, and I don’t see it staying for the long term. It’s then difficult to ask for 99.99 CAD + taxes for a game that you will try and discover for a few weeks and then give up because you have seen everything and friends have moved on.
If the games are very different, Mario Kart World is much more solid on this side and we come back with pleasure for its universe, its characters, its soundtrack, its game modes refined for more than 30 years.
