'Kirby Air Riders' Is Mario Kart's Weird, But Kind of Cool, Uncle

"Mario Kart is stability - it's that aunt and uncle who live down the street. You have dinner at their house every week, and know you can call them for anything you might need. But Kirby Air Riders is that bizarre uncle that you only see at holidays, who's always got some crazy story about when he went to Burning Man, or a souvenir from his trip to Australia. You don't know him very well, but you always have a good time seeing him."

"At the same time, it's been more than two decades since Masahiro Sakurai, the creator of Kirby, has actually made a Kirby game - as he's been locked in on Super Smash Bros. duty. Kirby Air Riders marks a grand revival of both those things, and it's a wild and eclectic racer that only Sakurai can make - ridiculously dense and complex, but undeniably engrossing."

Kirby Air Riders revives the Air Ride concept from 2003 and returns Kirby to a full racing experience after a long hiatus. The game emphasizes high speed and intense, dense mechanics while simplifying input by removing a gas button; machines move automatically and players focus on steering, drifting, and combat. The design creates a different feel from typical kart racers, blending accessibility with deep, hardcore-level complexity across many modes. The game leans toward niche appeal rather than broad mass-market popularity, delivering a distinctive, eclectic racing experience that feels like a complete realization of the original vision.

Read at Inverse