A Whole Bunch of Kirby Games
A certain game that's further down this list got me in a very Kirby kind of mood right at the end of this year, so I've been barrelling through a bunch of Kirby games that I hadn't yet played. Let's run through them, in the slightly weird order I played them!
Kirby's Dream Land 2 (Game Boy)
The sequel to the original Kirby's Dream Land is a pretty hefty step-up, that I enjoyed a lot more than I expected to. Just the simple addition of copy abilities elevates the game considerably, but I also greatly appreciated Kirby's new animal friends. I know it can be argued that
they gain some of their significance by doing things that Kirby can do himself in other games, but taken as a sequel to the original Dream Land, I think they work really well as a means of expanding Kirby's moveset. Trying out different combinations felt pretty seamless,
and they're used to pretty good effect in hunting down the Rainbow Shards. For the most part, I found these new collectables to be a fun means of incentivising exploration and animal buddies, with maybe the biggest exception being that one that requires you to:
1) Bring Kine
2) Bring a specific ability
3) Drop the ability to eat some blocks
4) Grab the ability again in the tiny window you have to do so before it disappears, provided you haven't already accidentally blown it up with one of the blocks you just ate
5) Finally get the damn Rainbow Shard
Even the penultimate shard, that requires switching between all three friends throughout the level, felt less frustrating than this specific example. It sticks out as the most annoying moment, but other than that I very much enjoyed Dream Land 2. It even culminates in a challenging final boss, with some actual stakes! You're slowly drifting towards the ground, with Kirby burning up in the atmosphere if you take too long. It was cool in Sonic Adventure 2, and it's cool here too!
I'd probably rank Dream Land 2 as some of the most fun I've had on the Game Boy. I played it via the Super Game Boy, but it turns out there's also a Game Boy Colour DX patch for it now, which has some nice extras like being able to disable the Animal Friend themes.
1) Bring Kine
2) Bring a specific ability
3) Drop the ability to eat some blocks
4) Grab the ability again in the tiny window you have to do so before it disappears, provided you haven't already accidentally blown it up with one of the blocks you just ate
5) Finally get the damn Rainbow Shard
Even the penultimate shard, that requires switching between all three friends throughout the level, felt less frustrating than this specific example. It sticks out as the most annoying moment, but other than that I very much enjoyed Dream Land 2. It even culminates in a challenging final boss, with some actual stakes! You're slowly drifting towards the ground, with Kirby burning up in the atmosphere if you take too long. It was cool in Sonic Adventure 2, and it's cool here too!
I'd probably rank Dream Land 2 as some of the most fun I've had on the Game Boy. I played it via the Super Game Boy, but it turns out there's also a Game Boy Colour DX patch for it now, which has some nice extras like being able to disable the Animal Friend themes.
Kirby's Dream Land 3 (Super Nintendo)
I've started Dream Land 3 a few times and generally not made it beyond the first few levels. I thought, "it's boring! It's not got the 'pizzaz' of Super Star!" And while it's certainly a more laid back take on Kirby, I think having Dream Land 2 under my belt made me more open to
appreciate what a genuine sequel to that game would look like, and take it on those merits.
And doing so has greatly narrowed the gap, because Dream Land 3 is excellent. Another big difference to my approach this time was to actually engage with the Heart Stars, which you'd think would be obvious but alas. If you just treat this like an A-to-B platformer, a la Kirby's Adventure, you probably will be disappointed. That's how I used to try playing this, and it just felt lesser than the other Kirby games I'd tried. But once you start going for those extra objectives, it starts to become more akin to Dream Land 2 again, albeit obviously far more refined.
Experimenting with the Animal Friends is once again fun, and now there's even more of them. Nago in particular has some fun physics you can mess around with, which I can imagine would make him fun for speedrunning. But in addition, there's many levels where you simply don't get the full experience without engaging with the Heart Stars. The best example is probably the stage where you need to re-assemble R.O.B., the NES robot. If you just play the stage like a linear Kirby game, you can skip basically the entire stage. If you actually go out of your way to collect the pieces of R.O.B., your time in the stage quadruples - but not in a tedious, drawn out way, thankfully. Swapping between powers and animal friends to clear each area was really fun, and crucially each stage gives you what you need within the stage, keeping guesswork relatively low. The only big blemish I found was the sub-game related Heart Stars. They're not exactly taxing, but feel like they kill the pace a bit and I'd rather have had more puzzle or platform challenge based Stars in their place.
It goes without saying, but this game is absolutely gorgeous. It's easily the most beautiful looking Kirby game I've played. Hell, perhaps the most beautiful looking Super Nintendo game, period! It obviously benefits from being such an insanely late release for the system, but even with that in mind, the way it successfully creates the impression of hand-drawn graphics and transparency effects on Super Nintendo hardware is nothing short of incredible. It's got a lovely soundtrack too, with many pieces I recognised from Kirby 64 actually having their origins here. In fact in several ways, this game definitely feels like a first stab at what would become Kirby 64. Which is ironic, given what I'm about to say about that game.
It's also cool to see the continuity from Dream Land 2. Yes, you're up against Dark Matter again, but then things get kicked up a notch and you're really up against his overarching creator, the eerie Zero. He's a presence completely at odds with the rest of the game's vibe, and it's brilliantly done.
All in all, Kirby's Dream Land 3 was one of my biggest surprises of this year. A game I'd fully resigned myself to not really caring about, now firmly amongst my favourites in the Super Nintendo library - and that's some stiff competition! If you've only ever tried playing this game as a linear adventure, and not tried engaging with the Heart Stars, I seriously recommend giving it another look. It's a very sweet, very comfy game, but achieves that without feeling like it compromises any of its playability or game design.
And doing so has greatly narrowed the gap, because Dream Land 3 is excellent. Another big difference to my approach this time was to actually engage with the Heart Stars, which you'd think would be obvious but alas. If you just treat this like an A-to-B platformer, a la Kirby's Adventure, you probably will be disappointed. That's how I used to try playing this, and it just felt lesser than the other Kirby games I'd tried. But once you start going for those extra objectives, it starts to become more akin to Dream Land 2 again, albeit obviously far more refined.
Experimenting with the Animal Friends is once again fun, and now there's even more of them. Nago in particular has some fun physics you can mess around with, which I can imagine would make him fun for speedrunning. But in addition, there's many levels where you simply don't get the full experience without engaging with the Heart Stars. The best example is probably the stage where you need to re-assemble R.O.B., the NES robot. If you just play the stage like a linear Kirby game, you can skip basically the entire stage. If you actually go out of your way to collect the pieces of R.O.B., your time in the stage quadruples - but not in a tedious, drawn out way, thankfully. Swapping between powers and animal friends to clear each area was really fun, and crucially each stage gives you what you need within the stage, keeping guesswork relatively low. The only big blemish I found was the sub-game related Heart Stars. They're not exactly taxing, but feel like they kill the pace a bit and I'd rather have had more puzzle or platform challenge based Stars in their place.
It goes without saying, but this game is absolutely gorgeous. It's easily the most beautiful looking Kirby game I've played. Hell, perhaps the most beautiful looking Super Nintendo game, period! It obviously benefits from being such an insanely late release for the system, but even with that in mind, the way it successfully creates the impression of hand-drawn graphics and transparency effects on Super Nintendo hardware is nothing short of incredible. It's got a lovely soundtrack too, with many pieces I recognised from Kirby 64 actually having their origins here. In fact in several ways, this game definitely feels like a first stab at what would become Kirby 64. Which is ironic, given what I'm about to say about that game.
It's also cool to see the continuity from Dream Land 2. Yes, you're up against Dark Matter again, but then things get kicked up a notch and you're really up against his overarching creator, the eerie Zero. He's a presence completely at odds with the rest of the game's vibe, and it's brilliantly done.
All in all, Kirby's Dream Land 3 was one of my biggest surprises of this year. A game I'd fully resigned myself to not really caring about, now firmly amongst my favourites in the Super Nintendo library - and that's some stiff competition! If you've only ever tried playing this game as a linear adventure, and not tried engaging with the Heart Stars, I seriously recommend giving it another look. It's a very sweet, very comfy game, but achieves that without feeling like it compromises any of its playability or game design.
Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land (Game Boy Advance)
In a bit of out-of-order weirdness, I realised I should probably actually finish Kirby's Adventure as part of my impromptu Kirby marathon. I looked online to see which version people generally recommended, and Nightmare in Dream Land seemed to be the winner in most comment sections.
So, in I went.
And I wasn't really very impressed. Given it was closer in structure to something like my beloved Super Star than the Dream Land games, I was expecting to enjoy this more, but I didn't. It simply felt generic. Nothing wowed me, a Kirby who felt relatively restricted despite technically having more copy abilities available; I was even missing the animal friends. The graphic style also didn't really do anything for me. After the sheer magic of Dream Land 3's visuals, the realistic backgrounds and bog-standard foreground graphics felt too grounded, too plain. Once I was done, nothing really stood out to me beyond "that was another Kirby game". The screen crunch also didn't help, and made several vertical moments more frustrating than they needed to be. So obviously, the moment I posted about finishing the game on BlueSky, it was only then I was flooded with "no, you should've played the NES version!" And rather than just take the L and come back next year, I just went ahead and jumped straight into another version of the game I just beat. You'd think this would bode poorly for Kirby's Adventure, but...
And I wasn't really very impressed. Given it was closer in structure to something like my beloved Super Star than the Dream Land games, I was expecting to enjoy this more, but I didn't. It simply felt generic. Nothing wowed me, a Kirby who felt relatively restricted despite technically having more copy abilities available; I was even missing the animal friends. The graphic style also didn't really do anything for me. After the sheer magic of Dream Land 3's visuals, the realistic backgrounds and bog-standard foreground graphics felt too grounded, too plain. Once I was done, nothing really stood out to me beyond "that was another Kirby game". The screen crunch also didn't help, and made several vertical moments more frustrating than they needed to be. So obviously, the moment I posted about finishing the game on BlueSky, it was only then I was flooded with "no, you should've played the NES version!" And rather than just take the L and come back next year, I just went ahead and jumped straight into another version of the game I just beat. You'd think this would bode poorly for Kirby's Adventure, but...
3D Classics: Kirby's Adventure (Nintendo 3DS)
Bloody hell, it's like night and day. I opted to play ARIKA's 3DS port of Kirby's Adventure, as it's basically the NES game but with none of its infamous slowdown, a very nice implementation of the 3DS's hallmark 3D effects, and some tasteful graphical embellishments such
as gradient colours for the backgrounds that somehow fit right in with the 8-bit tilesets.
This feels like a step-up from NiDL in just about every way, which is bizarre given this is still fundamentally the version from hardware that came 20 years before it. The lack of screen crunch makes the level design feel far less cramped and more fun to explore. But most striking is the graphics. Whereas NiDL felt very by-the-numbers for a Kirby game in the 2000s, Kirby's Adventure might be the single most impressive looking NES title, period. The use of colour and detail crammed into every environment feels grandiose, and stages that were nothing special in the remake feel significant here. One particular thing that was pointed out to me was how much better Adventure is at contextualising its level design - platforms that are set on hills and mountains in Adventure are just represented by random floating platforms in NiDL, to the point that it looks unfinished. Someone described it to me as NiDL "feeling like an AI tried to remake Adventure" - and while I maybe wouldn't go that far, I can sort of see how they reached that conclusion, given how egregious stuff like that floating platform malarkey is.
Kirby himself also feels much snappier in this version, and given Nightmare in Dream Land really didn't do much to Kirby's actual controls - no extra moves for Super Star parity or the like - it genuinely doesn't feel like you lose out on anything by not playing Nightmare in Dream Land over this. Let me scream this as loud as I can from my specific corner of the internet: if you're interested in playing Kirby's Adventure and can't decide what version to go with, it's the 3D Classics version by ARIKA. That is the one you want. Maybe try Nightmare in Dream Land afterwards to compare, or for its playable Meta-Knight mode, but don't make it your first experience with Adventure, for goodness sake.
This feels like a step-up from NiDL in just about every way, which is bizarre given this is still fundamentally the version from hardware that came 20 years before it. The lack of screen crunch makes the level design feel far less cramped and more fun to explore. But most striking is the graphics. Whereas NiDL felt very by-the-numbers for a Kirby game in the 2000s, Kirby's Adventure might be the single most impressive looking NES title, period. The use of colour and detail crammed into every environment feels grandiose, and stages that were nothing special in the remake feel significant here. One particular thing that was pointed out to me was how much better Adventure is at contextualising its level design - platforms that are set on hills and mountains in Adventure are just represented by random floating platforms in NiDL, to the point that it looks unfinished. Someone described it to me as NiDL "feeling like an AI tried to remake Adventure" - and while I maybe wouldn't go that far, I can sort of see how they reached that conclusion, given how egregious stuff like that floating platform malarkey is.
Kirby himself also feels much snappier in this version, and given Nightmare in Dream Land really didn't do much to Kirby's actual controls - no extra moves for Super Star parity or the like - it genuinely doesn't feel like you lose out on anything by not playing Nightmare in Dream Land over this. Let me scream this as loud as I can from my specific corner of the internet: if you're interested in playing Kirby's Adventure and can't decide what version to go with, it's the 3D Classics version by ARIKA. That is the one you want. Maybe try Nightmare in Dream Land afterwards to compare, or for its playable Meta-Knight mode, but don't make it your first experience with Adventure, for goodness sake.
Kirby Super Star Ultra (Nintendo DS)
I feel like I can keep this short and sweet, because I've probably already rambled about how much I love Super Star elsewhere on the internet - and this is just Super Star, but better.
Some extra graphical polish, the subtle but clever use of the dual screens, and the fantastic extra content such as Revenge of the King and Meta Knightmare Ultra, make this the way to play Kirby Super Star nowadays. While I do generally prefer my Kirby games as one cohesive storyline, that's the only big knock I can give against Super Star. It's fun from beginning to end, with some of the best controls Kirby's had, a huge array of powers to use in tons of different ways, and several iconic moments of the series such as the introduction of Dyna Blade, the Halberd, and that little bastard Marx. I know it's not exactly a unique opinion to say this is some of the best Kirby ever, but that's because it's true!
Some extra graphical polish, the subtle but clever use of the dual screens, and the fantastic extra content such as Revenge of the King and Meta Knightmare Ultra, make this the way to play Kirby Super Star nowadays. While I do generally prefer my Kirby games as one cohesive storyline, that's the only big knock I can give against Super Star. It's fun from beginning to end, with some of the best controls Kirby's had, a huge array of powers to use in tons of different ways, and several iconic moments of the series such as the introduction of Dyna Blade, the Halberd, and that little bastard Marx. I know it's not exactly a unique opinion to say this is some of the best Kirby ever, but that's because it's true!
Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards (Nintendo 64)
Alright, so maybe playing this after Super Star Ultra was a bit harsh in some ways. But to be fair, I've tried playing Kirby 64 before - and while I always bounced off it for one reason or another, this time I very much went in with the mentality of "this is a Dream Land 3 sequel,
and that game actually kicked arse."
Alas, no similar turn-around here. While I did actually beat it this time, Kirby 64 is still not exactly what I'd consider a worthy successor to Dream Land 3 - rather, it often feels like Dream Land 3, but now it's in 3D and a little bit worse in most respects. The biggest offenders for me are the Crystal Shards, which are just the Rainbow Drops and Heart Stars from Dream Land 2 and 3 but done worse. A considerable number of these require specific copy abilities to obtain, often right at the end of a level. Which is fine, as this was the case for the other games too - but remember that big italic bit in the Dream Land 3 review above? How'd it go?
...and crucially each stage gives you what you need within the stage, keeping guesswork relatively low.
Ah, right. That. That thing that Kirby 64's pretty bad at.
It often feels like a crapshoot as to whether the stage is actually going to give you the power you need or not - and regardless, a lot of the time you'll need a power that's otherwise very finicky to use throughout the rest of the stage. Not helping things is that the power combination gimmick feels a lot more clumsily done than using the animal friends with different powers in the previous games, and a lot of them just aren't as fun to use. Kirby in general also feels a lot more sluggish in this game, which doesn't help matters. I should stress, there's not as much guesswork in terms of which power you need - if anything it's better about that, given the obvious colour-coding. But constantly backing out of levels and heading to Stage 1-2 since it has most of the enemy types - and doing this over and over again - gets old fast.
Kirby 64 isn't bad by any means - credit where it's due, it looks and sounds lovely, with some wonderful character designs in particular. But compared to Dream Land 3 - and in some ways even Dream Land 2 - it feels like a step backwards, which is a shame for the end of the Dark Matter trilogy. It does seem like the game had a bumpy development cycle, so I can understand why certain things are the way they are; but even so, it was definitely a weak spot in this impromptu marathon.
Alas, no similar turn-around here. While I did actually beat it this time, Kirby 64 is still not exactly what I'd consider a worthy successor to Dream Land 3 - rather, it often feels like Dream Land 3, but now it's in 3D and a little bit worse in most respects. The biggest offenders for me are the Crystal Shards, which are just the Rainbow Drops and Heart Stars from Dream Land 2 and 3 but done worse. A considerable number of these require specific copy abilities to obtain, often right at the end of a level. Which is fine, as this was the case for the other games too - but remember that big italic bit in the Dream Land 3 review above? How'd it go?
...and crucially each stage gives you what you need within the stage, keeping guesswork relatively low.
Ah, right. That. That thing that Kirby 64's pretty bad at.
It often feels like a crapshoot as to whether the stage is actually going to give you the power you need or not - and regardless, a lot of the time you'll need a power that's otherwise very finicky to use throughout the rest of the stage. Not helping things is that the power combination gimmick feels a lot more clumsily done than using the animal friends with different powers in the previous games, and a lot of them just aren't as fun to use. Kirby in general also feels a lot more sluggish in this game, which doesn't help matters. I should stress, there's not as much guesswork in terms of which power you need - if anything it's better about that, given the obvious colour-coding. But constantly backing out of levels and heading to Stage 1-2 since it has most of the enemy types - and doing this over and over again - gets old fast.
Kirby 64 isn't bad by any means - credit where it's due, it looks and sounds lovely, with some wonderful character designs in particular. But compared to Dream Land 3 - and in some ways even Dream Land 2 - it feels like a step backwards, which is a shame for the end of the Dark Matter trilogy. It does seem like the game had a bumpy development cycle, so I can understand why certain things are the way they are; but even so, it was definitely a weak spot in this impromptu marathon.
Kirby Air Riders (Nintendo Switch 2)
I don't like Kirby Air Ride. I'm very sorry, everyone.
It's totally understandable to me why Air Ride is the way it is. The game's development sounded catastrophic, and the fact it was technically assembled within 3 months is impressive! But the game itself just kinda sucks? Air Ride feels like a clumsy racing game with the one-button constraint fighting against itself constantly. City Trial is obviously the highlight; with friends. But I don't have any Air Ride enjoying friends local to me, and Dolphin netplay is a bit of a crapshoot. And Top Ride... who the hell cares about Top Ride?
When it was announced Namco Bandai were working on an Air Ride sequel, I was not exactly happy. A sequel to a racing game I thought was crap, being made by the team who could've been making a sequel to my favourite racing game series of all time instead? Call it petty, but I was not exactly thrilled. At launch, FOMO got me and I wound up with Air Riders anyway. Anyway, fair play to Namco Bandai and Masahiro Sakurai, because if this was an actually ordered Game of the Year list, Air Riders might've had a very good claim to the top of it.
Bloody hell, this game is incredible.
Just about every lesson that could've been learned from the previous game's mistakes has been taken on board. The one-button frustrations don't apply here, as the game makes it easy to find a means of getting back up to speed even if you do misinput - but generally speaking, control is much tighter to where that isn't an issue. The minute-to-minute racing has been vastly improved, with a constant sense of reward for engaging with the level design, with enemies, with stage gimmicks. Trying to do anything in the original Air Ride felt like you were just penalising yourself, and while you can still screw up here it feels more like you screwed up rather than the game just having a real sense of jank. It also made me more open to experimenting with different machines, and I've even become a fan of the Slick Star - something I couldn't abide by in the Gamecube game. The fact there's an actual character roster this time lends a game far more personality, and while some of the choices are a bit peculiar, I'd say there's something here for everyone; be it a scrimblo like Scarfy, or Susie, who's apparently here for the people that really like robots that little bit too much. The inclusion of the entire roster of original Air Ride tracks is appreciated, although at the same time I think I'd have sacrificed half of them for another couple of brand new tracks - the honest truth is that some of these old tracks just aren't that good, and even less so when juxtaposed against how absolutely incredible the brand new stuff is. Still, as extras they get the job done.
Speaking of those new tracks, this game looks phenomenal. It's a real showpiece for the Switch 2, with a silky smooth framerate and stunning visuals. Waveflow Waters is how an ocean stage should be done, and the way Kirby's world is portrayed here is simply a sight to behold. It's got some killer music too, with Skyah's alternate theme being a particular highlight.
I was tepid about City Trial's return pre-release, as having a single map seemed like a wasted opportunity. While I do still think the original map should've been included, the new one is fantastic and even has randomised elements. Not just in terms of the random events that take place either; one game you might spawn in to find an entire mountain basically levelled, another go you might find the city's skyscrapers are now much taller than usual. This sort of stuff keeps things feeling fresh, and caught me off guard. And remember when I dunked on Top Ride a minute ago? Well never mind, because Top Ride's actually really good this time! It's still destined to be the 'other' mode, but it's a very chaotic take on the top-down racing mode and feels a lot more engaging than its previous incarnation.
We're also presented with a new 'Road Trip' mode, that I initially assumed would just be a quick 'Classic Mode' style thing from Smash Bros. It actually winds up closer to something like World of Light from Smash Ultimate, as each run can easily take a couple of hours and there's a surprisingly rad story backing it up. It was also fun running into reimagined Kirby bosses, including a couple I really didn't expect. I'll admit that Sakurai's probably not beating the reputation he's got from most Modern Kirby fans that he's got some Super Star favouritism going on, but to that I say... yeah, man. Super Star is awesome, let him be. He gave me Daroach from my beloved Kirby: Squeak Squad as a playable character (even over fan-favourites such as Ado from the Dark Matter Trilogy), he can do what he wants.
Online play is a huge addition for any racing game, and I feel like Kirby does an alright job here. It does falter in some ways; there's no option to jump into global online matches alongside friends, which is a glaring omission. And I'm already seeing reports that the online's either having population issues, or a little too eager to fill lobbies with bots, which might present a problem. But the bulk of my time online so far has been spent with friends in the rather charming paddock lobbies, where you can run around and goof off, show off your custom vehicles, and the like. The vehicle customisation really caught me off guard, as you're given a shocking amount of freedom with decals. The online marketplace for custom vehicles has already demonstrated why a certain other racing game of the moment may have been more restrictive with this, but either way it's a huge plus and lets you create some really cool stuff. I generally roll with the Transform Star, customised to resemble Rocket Metal from Sonic the Fighters!
Air Riders is probably my biggest surprise of 2025. When this was announced, I wasn't even planning to give it the time of day, given my distaste for the original game, to the point that my good pal Cola made a $20 bet with me that I'd be calling the game a masterpiece by the end of the year. My wallet is now $20 lighter. I'm very glad I was wrong, at any rate - if I'm loving it this much, I can only imagine how much of a victory this is for fans of the original Air Ride. But hey, Namco - now that you're done with this, can we get Ridge Racer 8 now? Please?
(This was the game that was responsible for the ensuing Kirby marathon above, if it wasn't obvious.)
It's totally understandable to me why Air Ride is the way it is. The game's development sounded catastrophic, and the fact it was technically assembled within 3 months is impressive! But the game itself just kinda sucks? Air Ride feels like a clumsy racing game with the one-button constraint fighting against itself constantly. City Trial is obviously the highlight; with friends. But I don't have any Air Ride enjoying friends local to me, and Dolphin netplay is a bit of a crapshoot. And Top Ride... who the hell cares about Top Ride?
When it was announced Namco Bandai were working on an Air Ride sequel, I was not exactly happy. A sequel to a racing game I thought was crap, being made by the team who could've been making a sequel to my favourite racing game series of all time instead? Call it petty, but I was not exactly thrilled. At launch, FOMO got me and I wound up with Air Riders anyway. Anyway, fair play to Namco Bandai and Masahiro Sakurai, because if this was an actually ordered Game of the Year list, Air Riders might've had a very good claim to the top of it.
Bloody hell, this game is incredible.
Just about every lesson that could've been learned from the previous game's mistakes has been taken on board. The one-button frustrations don't apply here, as the game makes it easy to find a means of getting back up to speed even if you do misinput - but generally speaking, control is much tighter to where that isn't an issue. The minute-to-minute racing has been vastly improved, with a constant sense of reward for engaging with the level design, with enemies, with stage gimmicks. Trying to do anything in the original Air Ride felt like you were just penalising yourself, and while you can still screw up here it feels more like you screwed up rather than the game just having a real sense of jank. It also made me more open to experimenting with different machines, and I've even become a fan of the Slick Star - something I couldn't abide by in the Gamecube game. The fact there's an actual character roster this time lends a game far more personality, and while some of the choices are a bit peculiar, I'd say there's something here for everyone; be it a scrimblo like Scarfy, or Susie, who's apparently here for the people that really like robots that little bit too much. The inclusion of the entire roster of original Air Ride tracks is appreciated, although at the same time I think I'd have sacrificed half of them for another couple of brand new tracks - the honest truth is that some of these old tracks just aren't that good, and even less so when juxtaposed against how absolutely incredible the brand new stuff is. Still, as extras they get the job done.
Speaking of those new tracks, this game looks phenomenal. It's a real showpiece for the Switch 2, with a silky smooth framerate and stunning visuals. Waveflow Waters is how an ocean stage should be done, and the way Kirby's world is portrayed here is simply a sight to behold. It's got some killer music too, with Skyah's alternate theme being a particular highlight.
I was tepid about City Trial's return pre-release, as having a single map seemed like a wasted opportunity. While I do still think the original map should've been included, the new one is fantastic and even has randomised elements. Not just in terms of the random events that take place either; one game you might spawn in to find an entire mountain basically levelled, another go you might find the city's skyscrapers are now much taller than usual. This sort of stuff keeps things feeling fresh, and caught me off guard. And remember when I dunked on Top Ride a minute ago? Well never mind, because Top Ride's actually really good this time! It's still destined to be the 'other' mode, but it's a very chaotic take on the top-down racing mode and feels a lot more engaging than its previous incarnation.
We're also presented with a new 'Road Trip' mode, that I initially assumed would just be a quick 'Classic Mode' style thing from Smash Bros. It actually winds up closer to something like World of Light from Smash Ultimate, as each run can easily take a couple of hours and there's a surprisingly rad story backing it up. It was also fun running into reimagined Kirby bosses, including a couple I really didn't expect. I'll admit that Sakurai's probably not beating the reputation he's got from most Modern Kirby fans that he's got some Super Star favouritism going on, but to that I say... yeah, man. Super Star is awesome, let him be. He gave me Daroach from my beloved Kirby: Squeak Squad as a playable character (even over fan-favourites such as Ado from the Dark Matter Trilogy), he can do what he wants.
Online play is a huge addition for any racing game, and I feel like Kirby does an alright job here. It does falter in some ways; there's no option to jump into global online matches alongside friends, which is a glaring omission. And I'm already seeing reports that the online's either having population issues, or a little too eager to fill lobbies with bots, which might present a problem. But the bulk of my time online so far has been spent with friends in the rather charming paddock lobbies, where you can run around and goof off, show off your custom vehicles, and the like. The vehicle customisation really caught me off guard, as you're given a shocking amount of freedom with decals. The online marketplace for custom vehicles has already demonstrated why a certain other racing game of the moment may have been more restrictive with this, but either way it's a huge plus and lets you create some really cool stuff. I generally roll with the Transform Star, customised to resemble Rocket Metal from Sonic the Fighters!
Air Riders is probably my biggest surprise of 2025. When this was announced, I wasn't even planning to give it the time of day, given my distaste for the original game, to the point that my good pal Cola made a $20 bet with me that I'd be calling the game a masterpiece by the end of the year. My wallet is now $20 lighter. I'm very glad I was wrong, at any rate - if I'm loving it this much, I can only imagine how much of a victory this is for fans of the original Air Ride. But hey, Namco - now that you're done with this, can we get Ridge Racer 8 now? Please?
(This was the game that was responsible for the ensuing Kirby marathon above, if it wasn't obvious.)
Click here to head to Page 3, for more of 2025's big hitters.