Masahiro Sakurai’s bizarre, deceptively complex Nintendo Switch 2 racer recalls Mario Kart, Mario Party, and Super Smash Bros. I got to take it for a test drive ahead of its November 20 release.
Nintendo doesn’t like to talk about who makes its games. The company would rather turn Mario and Link into celebrities, not the developers who make their titles. There’s one exception: Masahiro Sakurai. Thanks to the massive success of the Super Smash Bros. series, Sakurai is a household name among Nintendo fans. Before Smash, however, Sakurai created the pink puffball Kirby, and he’s returning to the series with Kirby Air Riders. I spent an hour with the peculiar kart racer, coming to Nintendo Switch 2 on November 20. It has Sakurai’s design philosophy all over it, and I can’t wait to play more.Air Riders Is Kirby Meets Mario Kart
It might seem strange that the Switch 2 is getting another big mascot kart racer so soon after launching with Mario Kart World. Maybe Nintendo is trying to cash in as much as possible after Mario Kart 8 Deluxe’s gargantuan sales. In Kirby Air Riders, you control cute characters racing across elaborate tracks using speed and power-ups to cross the finish line.
The racing genre is big enough to contain multitudes, and in many ways, Kirby Air Riders is so crazy it makes Mario Kart World look like a restrained and realistic Forza Motorsport title. Instead of two dozen players speeding across a relaxing open world, Kirby Air Riders has just six combatants duking it out on tight, frantic courses. The game looks beautiful, with rolling fields and rushing waves, but it moves so fast and with so much energy that you barely have time to take it all in.
