This is one of the games I got for Christmas, so here is my review of the game after a few days of playing.

So some context. I am a big fan of Kirby, but I never played the original Kirby Air Ride on Gamecube. When it was revealed it peaked my curiosity because it looked so fun. I was wondering what made it different from Mario Kart because certainly Nintendo wouldn't release two similar games so close together? Well in short, Kirby Air Riders introduces combat and it just plays differently. It's like if Smash & MK had a baby. (If you didn't know it's actually developed by Sakurai, you can deff tell in the UI because the vibe is very smash ultimate)

At first I didn't understand how to play. In MK you old "A" for gas, but in Kirby Air Riders you don't have to hold anything, you just go. You literally steer and press B to boost and use attacks. (You can use Y too for your special move) but the entire game is controlled with these 3 buttons. (The original game was just the two!)

I got pretty good at the game once I fooled around with it enough and understood how it worked.

One of my favorite modes is "road trip" which is the story mode. It never gets boring because what you're doing is constantly changing. Sometimes you're racing, sometimes it's a time trial, soemtimes its a boss battle, or it's totally different. There's a few boss races mixed in too. I haven't fooled around with many of the other modes, but the game is very addicting & the art style is VERY cute.

I have also enjoyed unlocking the characters and discovering the different machines. I hear you can highly customise them, but I haven't dug into that yet.

I am having a lot of fun and highly recommend the game. I need to brush up my skills some before i try to play online. Happy to answer any questions if anyone has any!

Now that he's free maybe sakurais next game is Smash? ;)

Ooh, so jealous! Sounds like a lot of fun!

Definitely picking this up at some point -- I'm most curious to see how it plays compared to the Gamecube title that I spent so much time playing during childhood haha

This game really intrigues me! I thought it was just a kind of Mario Kart, but knowing that it's much more than that makes me even more eager to get my hands on it soon 🤩

Unfortunately, I don't have a Switch 2 yet, but it will definitely be one of the first titles I buy as soon as I get one!

Thanks so much for the review, @Zachery! Keep us posted! 💫