It's been another strange, difficult, and yet somehow also brilliant year for video games in 2025. Triple-A releases have been sparse again, compared to the boom times of old, with a great big GTA 6-shaped hole left in the final few months of the year. And yet once again, every gap left by the established order has been filled twice over with something brilliantly new.
For those playing Kirby Air Riders, we’re going over the best characters in the game’s City Trial. In many ways, Kirby Air Riders is a racing game. But in just as many ways, it kind of isn’t – City Trial is arguably its premier game mode, and it’s more about combat and collecting than it is racing. If you’ve never...
The post The best characters in Kirby Air Riders’ City Trial appeared first on Nintendo Everything.
For those playing Kirby Air Riders, we’re going over the best characters in the game’s City Trial. In many ways, Kirby Air Riders is a racing game. But in just as many ways, it kind of isn’t – City Trial is arguably its premier game mode, and it’s more about combat and collecting than it is racing. If you’ve never...
The post The best characters in Kirby Air Riders’ City Trial appeared first on Nintendo Everything.
Two Nintendo properties are at two different restaurants in the US right now. If someone heads to Kung Fu Tea, they can get drinks and a straw cap based on Pokemon: Legends Z-A through January 31, 2026, while supplies last. Should people head to a Kura Sushi location until January 31, 2026, again while supplies last, they could get Kirby and Waddle Dee-themed sushi and merchandise.
In the case of Kung Fu Tea, there are three kinds of drinks, cups based on Chikorita, Tepig, and Totodile. It is also possible to get a straw cap that looks like Pikachu with your purchase. Each drink is inspired by locations and elements of the game, as well as characters So the Mega Evolution Matcha with brown sugar boba comes in a Chikorita cup, the Prism Tower Punch with aloe jelly, curacao, and lemonade is tied to Totodile, and the Z-A Royale Milk Tea features coconut, passionfruit, green tea, and honey boba. It is possible to order all of them from locations via the website.
Here’s the official art for that promotion:
With Kura Sushi, there are both Kirby and Waddle Dee types of sushi, giveaways for a cup set and blanket, and Bikkura Pon Prizes given away randomly for every 15 plates of sushi. Both the Kirby and Waddle Dee options have tamagoyaki (egg) as their base and seem to feature avocado, with one being the Kirby Dreamy Crunchy Roll and the other the Waddle Dee Feisty Feast Roll. You get the cups if you have the Kura Sushi Rewards app, a QR code, and a receipt showing you spent $85 to get the cups now. The blanket is the $85 reward available after January 14, 2026.
Here’s how those items look:
In 2025, Monster Hunter Wilds also appeared at Kung Fu Tea and One Piece was featured at Kura Sushi.
Pokemon is at Kung Fu Tea and Kirby is at Kura Sushi in the US until January 31, 2026, though some items may only be available while supplies last. Kirby Air Riders is on the Switch 2, and Pokemon Legends: Z-A is on the Switch and Switch 2.
The post Kirby Is at Kura Sushi, Pokemon Are at Kung Fu Tea appeared first on Siliconera.
November 19: Nintendo Switch Online has added in a new set of icons, which celebrates the release of Kirby Air Riders. They can be claimed on both Nintendo Switch 2 and Switch. Like most sets, there are characters, backgrounds, and frames available. If you’re going for a character, each one costs 10 Platinum Points on My Nintendo. The others are...
The post Kirby Air Riders icons come to Nintendo Switch Online appeared first on Nintendo Everything.
November 19: Nintendo Switch Online has added in a new set of icons, which celebrates the release of Kirby Air Riders. They can be claimed on both Nintendo Switch 2 and Switch. Like most sets, there are characters, backgrounds, and frames available. If you’re going for a character, each one costs 10 Platinum Points on My Nintendo. The others are...
The post Kirby Air Riders icons come to Nintendo Switch Online appeared first on Nintendo Everything.
Kirby Air Riders doesn’t hold back on any customization, offering different color variations for its characters. These can be unlocked by completing different challenges across the game modes. After completing the Checklist tasks of a character, a duplicate copy is unlocked, which includes their alternative color.
Today’s piece covers exactly that. What characters have different colors to offer, and how they can be unlocked.
While Kirby Air Riders doesn’t offer alternative colors for all of its characters, it still does for a good chunk of them. Completing Checklist Tasks of some characters will also unlock them as playable Characters upon first challenge completion.
Kirby
King Dedede
Meta Knight
Bandana Waddle Dee
Waddle Doo
Chef Kawasaki
Knuckle Joe
Gooey
Cappy
Starman
Magalor
Susie
Waddle Dee
Rick
Rocky
Scarfy
Lololo Lalala
Marx
Daraoch
Taranza
Noir Dedede
The magic of Kirby Air Riders has always been its deceptive simplicity. With just a single button to control acceleration and flight, the game invites everyone to jump in and experience its unique brand of chaotic racing. The key to success involves good driving skills, sure, but it leans more toward your selection of rider-machine combos.
Every playable character, from Kirby to Taranza, has inherent strengths in areas such as attack, defense, and weight. The difference between a casual cruise and a dominant victory often hinges on pairing the right pilot with the perfect ride. We’re going to dive into the art of the rider-machine combo setup, analyzing the stats and interesting properties that create the most effective pairings and how they give you a slight edge in races.
Noir Dedede is a heavyweight rider with naturally high defense and a powerful Jet Hammer special attack. His unique ability, the Shadow Ride, is what makes him special. It grants a powerful temporary speed boost upon taking damage or successfully attacking, which cancels out the speed loss that comes with him being a heavyweight rider.
It’s the best combination for the City Trial, as it provides high top speed and boosts for racing challenges. This combo creates an unstoppable force designed for maximum impact. The machine’s brute force is enhanced by Dedede’s natural weight, and his special move really helps with the machine’s only weakness: poor acceleration and handling.
As mentioned above, it’s good for the City Trial as it excels at the Destruction Derby and Single Race stadiums, where the weight can be used to your advantage to ram and destroy opponents. If you’re looking to equip this combo, then you can unlock Noir Dedede through the Checklist. As for the Rex Wheelie machine, you can unlock that by defeating 100 or more enemies by exhaling stars, or just purchase it in the Miles shop.
Kirby is the all-rounder with perfectly balanced stats and no clear weaknesses. His greatest strength, however, is his ability to use Copy Abilities based on the enemy he inhales. This provides unmatched adaptability to any course or any situation. This combo is great for beginners and serves as a good base for players freshly entering the game, trying to find their perfect rider-machine combo setup.
Just like Kirby, the Warp Star is the most balanced machine, too. It has no major flaws or strengths. Pairing these two together creates the neutral setup that most players look to achieve. The combo is user-friendly, highly adaptable, and viable in every scenario, which allows players to focus purely on skill and Copy Ability usage.
Kirby + Warp Star serves as the best combo in Air Ride and Top Ride since it’s the ultimate beginner setup, so it’s capable of winning on any course. The machine also lets you benefit maximally from collected stat boosts.
Rocky is a small but incredibly sturdy heavyweight rider, and his key strength is in his Defense and Weight. As such, he’s extremely resistant to slipping, shaking, or being knocked out. His unique attack, Meteor Rocky, gives him an invincible crushing attack. This makes him a viable character both on defense and offense.
The Bull Tank, like its rider, is also a heavyweight machine with very high defense, HP, and offense stats. The unique ability of this machine is its capability to boost charge without instantly draining the gauge, which allows for quick, consecutive boosts. This combo is the ultimate defensive combo as it’s aggressive. Rocky’s stability ensures that you never lose control, and the machine’s bulk allows you to block and ram through obstacles and rivals with ease.
This combo fits well in City Trial, Field, and Big Battle. Rocky and Bull Tank dominate Destruction Derby and are excellent for surviving intense combat in the final minutes. That’s not it, though, as it’s also strong in Drag Races because of its high speed. You can unlock Rocky through the Checklist, and Bull Tank can be unlocked either via the Checklist or from the Miles Shop.
Meta Knight is a highly defensive rider whose special ability, Night Wing, allows him to slice rivals with his sword and gain temporary speed while gliding. This rider is one of the few who actively benefit from being airborne. This ability also gives him the name of the Glide Specialist.
This combo works well as the Winged Star is the game’s top Gliding machine. It can glide across vast distances at high speeds, having one of the longest glide distances available, so if you’re someone who prefers being airborne, this combo could be the one for you. This is a specialized pairing since Meta Knight’s sword offers offensive capability to the frail machine. His natural gliding proficiency fully exploits the Winged Stars’ full potential.
Meta Knight and Winged Star have an unrivaled dominance in the stadium mode, especially in the Air Glider Stadium. It does well on courses with many ramps and hazards, too, as it can completely bypass ground obstacles and traffic. Meta Knight has been available since the start of the game, and so is the Winged Star.
Knuckle Joe is a fierce fighter who has a special ability called Knuckle Rush. This allows him to speed up while throwing a flurry of punches. He excels at mid-range combat and can charge his boost to unleash a powerful Rising Break attack, allowing him to be an attack-heavy rider.
His machine fits well with him, being a durable, heavyweight vehicle known for its reliable agility in sharp corners despite its size and weight. It has high defense and is classified as an offensive machine. The connection of the two is self-explanatory here: the machine provides the durability and smooth handling, while Knuckle Joe’s speed and attack power are utilized in traffic. These two work well in aggressive pursuit and melee combat in congested areas.
This combo is great in City Trial, exceptional for actively seeking out and destroying rivals to steal Copy Abilities or stat boosts. They also dominate stadiums like Kirby Melee and Destruction Derby with Knuckle Joe’s special move. This combo can be equipped by unlocking Knuckle Joe through the Checklist and by unlocking Battle Chariot by completing a lap within a set time on Airtopia Ruins, or simply purchased with Miles.
Nearly twenty years after Kirby Air Ride introduced its goofy, one-button racing to GameCube owners, the sequel, Kirby Air Riders, is finally landing on November 20th for the Nintendo Switch 2. It’s the sort of comeback that feels overdue; anyone who loved the chaos of City Trial will probably be quietly thrilled: this isn’t a…
The post Kirby Air Riders Soars Onto Nintendo Switch 2 This November appeared first on VGamerz.
What is Kirby Air Riders? That’s the question I’ve found myself wrestling with throughout my time with it in the past couple of weeks. Is it a kart racer? Well… kind of. Is it a vehicular combat game? Sure, you could say that. Is it a multiplayer platform, designed almost completely to be played with others? Yes. Definitely. Yet there’s still a nagging feeling that Kirby Air Riders is one of those games that exists purely for its own reasons. As the first non-Smash Bros game to be directed by Masahiro Sakurai in over a decade, it carries an odd weight of expectation, only adding to the strange and slightly off-kilter vibes you’ll find when you check in for Kirby Air Riders.
Air Ride is the first pillar of Air Riders. This is racing, by way of Kirby and friends’ idiosyncratic flying, floating and grinding. It’s all largely controlled by the left analogue stick and a single button, with boosting and vacuuming up enemies forming your key abilities. Holding the button down starts a boost, with your racer slowing to a crawl before being unleashed when you release the button. Similarly, holding the button while turning initiates a drift, letting you angle your way around the corner, before launching yourself forward at the perfect moment. There is a sense of familiarity to this, part Mario Kart, part Sonic Racing, and as a basis for the game’s mechanics, it’s a good start.
You can then hoover up enemies and abilities from the track. This is your main offence, and there’s a real sense of fun to be had in sucking something up and spitting it at your nearest rival, letting you whizz past them. You can suck up fire, ice, poison or sleep abilities, as well as a host of others, aiming to use them to maximise your advantage. Aiming can be a little tricky at times, mostly because of the speed you and your target are usually moving at, and there’s not quite the surety you have in Mario Kart about how your attacks are going to pan out.
Still, the racing is fast, fun and frenetic, with a decent balance between the chaos of a kart racer and the fairness that you need to keep returning to it time and time again. It feels very different to its main rivals, and that uniqueness is probably its biggest selling point.
The second main mode is Top Ride. This takes the action and turns it into a top-down isometric experience, reminiscent of old-school racers like Super Offroad or its modern brethren Super Woden GP. This, of course, is all very Kirby though, and the small-scale courses look every bit as lovely as you’d expect with candy-coloured scenery and cute incidentals to careen around.
Top Ride is my favourite mode in Kirby Air Riders. It feels incredibly nostalgic, retaining that retro flavour of top-down racers of yesteryear, while boasting dazzling modern visuals. You can choose how many racers take part, though I’d recommend the maximum of eight, which gives you all of the competitive action you could want. Any less than that feels like a sidenote.
Playing in single player presents you with a cavalcade of task and rewards to make your time with Air Riders that bit more individual. There’s a large number of tasks to fulfil on each track – such as landing perfectly three times in one race, or being in the lead for longer than ten seconds – and you’ll unlock decals, machines, and riders as well as a host of other customisation options that let you tailor your vehicles and racer license to your own tastes.
Setting decals and messing with colour schemes and patterns is suitably user-friendly, and I can see people honing in on this mode to come up with some really unique and interesting designs.
City Trial is where things come a bit unstuck. Battle modes can be hit and miss in kart racers, and while City Trial presents some interesting ideas, it pumps the chaos up to 11. The camera also can’t quite keep up with the constantly accelerating action, and I found myself repeatedly dazzled by the hyperactive motion, often blinking sensation back into my eyes.
City Trial unleashes you in an arena where you spend your time whizzing around collecting power-ups, while trying not to lose them to your rivals. Once the timer runs out, you’re shown the number and type of power-ups you’ve acquired before then choosing a Stadium finale. You then take part in a minigame that, ideally, plays to your vehicles’ strengths.
Unfortunately, the balance between collecting power-ups and the Stadium finales feels badly paced. I often enjoyed just tootling around, nabbing power-ups while occasionally hitting other players, but it does feel like it goes on for too long, while some of the Stadium events then take all of 30 seconds to complete. It’s not without its charms – unlocking a bunch of new things each time you play definitely helps with that – and there’s the regular events that draw players toward a certain part of the map, but it’s just a bit too drawn out.
Road Trip pulls all of these things together into a journey mode. Along the way, you’ll take part in races, Stadium challenges, or fight bosses in the arena, with a story mode running through that gives you a glimpse into the lore behind Kirby Air Riders, continuing the perpetually perplexing decision to give Kirby a worryingly deep and dark backstory. The cutscenes look fantastic though, and Road Trip does a good job of feeding you events, unlocking rewards and keeping things moving along at a decent lick. I’d recommend playing on Hard, though; otherwise, it’s a little too friction-free.
Kirby Air Riders’ presentation is all very Smash Bros. The chunky menus are clear and easy to understand, and the upbeat soundtrack is head-boppingly cheerful, before it all gives way to chaos. However, just like Smash, in the right hands, Kirby Air Riders becomes more tactical, more skill-based, and the more time you spend with it, the more likely you are to be swept up by its unique charms. It doesn’t have the immediacy of Mario Kart, or the growing collection of recognisable characters from Sonic Racing: Crossworlds, but it’s undeniably charming.
Kirby Air Riders is the type of game that shouldn't exist.
In the original Kirby Air Ride, Kirby was the only playable character who could swap between Machines. Dedede and Meta Knight were unlockable, but they could only ride a Wheelie Bike and fly, respectively. In Air Riders, however, that restriction has been lifted with a vengeance. Not only do we have all of these new Machines, we also have a bunch of new characters, all of whom can ride whatever they want.
The machine you’re driving in Kirby Air Raiders plays a big part in determining how successful you can be as a racer because the different stats and abilities of different machines have a big impact in your performance on the course.
The Vampire Star machine is a strong racer that is well-suited to participating in each of the game’s various racing modes, making it a potential target for players looking for a better machine to get better results. Its most notable feature is the high Lift rating it carries and the unique way it allows you to, as the name implies, sap your opponents with your attacks. This makes it a fun and functional option for players with an offensive, pestering style.
If you’re looking to add the Vampire Star to your repertoire there are two ways to accomplish this and get racing on this machine.
When you first begin playing Kirby Air Riders, you begin with a default set of courses and machines you can race with and on, but you can begin unlocking new options as you play the game. There are two ways you can unlock a new machine in Kirby Air Riders for use: either through miles or accomplishments. With miles unlocks you simply pay the associated miles cost for the vehicle. Alternatively, you can unlock the machine by meeting its accomplishment checklist requirements. Either method allows you to use the machine going forward.
There are two approaches to unlocking the Vampire Star. The first option is to pay for your Vampire Star with miles. It is a pricier option, costing 8,400. If you want help farming miles to spend on a Vampire Star, you can check out our guide on how to farm miles in Kirby Air Riders for help. Finding a quick way to gain miles for your account may make the Vampire Star a more attainable option through this method.
Alternatively, you can opt to unlock the Vampire Star by completing the required checklist mission. To do so, you need to be taking part in Road Trip mode. After you have defeated 15 enemies in Road Trip mode, you will complete the challenge and unlock the Vampire Star for use in the game’s various racing modes.
The Vampire Star and its unique perks can be yours if you follow this guide, so go unlock it and take it to the races today!
There’s no shortage of hit multiplayer games I could be playing right now. I could be tearing up the streets of Brooklyn in Battlefield 6, taking down Nightlords in Elden Ring: Nightreign, or diving into any number of hit co-op games currently tearing up Steam charts. I probably should be playingArc Raiders,considering that it’s the talk of the gaming world right now. And yet, I can’t stop skidding around city streets as a runaway hamster instead.
I now sort of understand why Kirby Air Riders was deemed worthy of a pair of Nintendo Directs that add up to a feature-length running time. Part of that is obviously the verbose design-nerd predilections of its director, Masahiro Sakurai, sure. But another reason is quite simple: this is a rather difficult game to describe.
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Super Smash Bros. creator Masahiro Sakurai prefers to live a "modest, unassuming life" and believes players should focus on games themselves rather than the people who made them.
You can really feel the Super Smash Bros. coming through in Kirby Air Riders. The distinctive tone of a Masahiro Sakurai game is clear to see, from the menu UI, to the iconography of the collectables, and the general gameplay ethos. With the first Global Test Ride demo event kicking off this weekend, and ahead of a release later this month, I had a fresh opportunity to play this game.
Having already gone hands-on back at Gamescom in August, I was much better prepared for what Kirby Air Riders actually is. At first glance, it appears to be a follow cam racer in the vein of Mario Kart, but from the style of the racing to all the other modes that are featured in the game, it’s really nothing like Nintendo’s main kart racer.
For one thing, your vehicle just starts driving with no input from yourself, and the game will even (as I remembered from August) tell you off if you push forward on the analogue stick. Thankfully, I had far fewer visual slaps on the wrist this time around, and I quickly got back into the groove of this one-button racer. You really just have to concentrate on turning and pressing the context-sensitive B button, which will cause you to slow down and drift, gobble up incidental enemies, and batter any nearby rival racers with a Copy Ability that you’ve picked up.
There’s a few exceptions to this simplicity, with a spin attack needing you to waggle the left stick, and pulling back and forward to fly and glide from any ramps. Oh, and your character’s special ability is unleashed by hitting Y. And that’s basically it, though there are some more advanced techniques to learn, such as pumping the brakes to drift through corners without losing speed.
I got to put this to the test once more through the standard Air Ride mode, racing through three courses – the grassy meadows of Floria Fields, the almost biblical sea-splitting of Waveflow Waters, and the charming sunset ride of Mount Amberfalls. The racing is pretty rapid, with plenty of tight corners, the odd side route, and the three tracks having different numbers of laps depending on their length. Waveflow Waters felt particularly manic, as you could easily crash through the water walls of some sections and end up in the wet stuff for a few moments, and there’s some cinematic grind rails and jumps that pull some unexpected moves with the camera.
Revealed during the jam-packed Kirby Air Riders Direct a couple weeks ago, there’s also top-down racing with the Top Ride mode, but I feel that the real heart of this game is in the City Trial and the vehicular combat party game vibes that it gives off.
This was something I was utterly unprepared for during my first hands on – I didn’t play the GameCube original and hadn’t seen the first Direct for this game – but knowing more of what to expect, I could get into the swing of things a fair bit more. There’s tons of characters to choose from, each with their own special ability, and they can be combined with a bunch of vehicles that all have distinctive characteristics, but you have to go and find the vehicle you want when starting off in City Ride.
You’re basically just racing around and running into as many pick ups as possible. No need to be too discerning about what you grab, as they all go to boost your vehicle’s stats… unless they’re greyed out debuffs that you need to try and avoid instead. Skyah is a deceptively compact-feeling map with a ton of secretive feeling paths between the various locations and layers to explore, and the action is constantly mixed up by having portals to drive through, and then the big Field Events to try and draw players together. These can be things like a mini race, a huge pillar to collectively try and destroy, gigantification, or teleporting you all to a dustup derby arena for a knockout battle.
What’s startling is just how much the speed and action ramps up through the few minutes that you’re racing around in Skyah. If you’re sat a bit too close to the screen (as we were), it can be genuinely a bit disorienting just how quick you end up going.
And then, as time is up, you have the other pretty unique distinction of being able to choose the final challenge that you face in the Stadium. Four of these final modes are presented to you, and instead of voting and everyone being lumped together from that, you can actually just go and do the thing you want. If you’ve ended up with a machine that has been built for combat instead of speed, you probably want that Dustup Derby instead of a straight up race, while your more agile vehicle might help with dodging lasers, a better flier will be better suited to Air Glider or High Jump, and there’s some 90s game show classics like trying to hit scores markers on a big wall.
I feel that Kirby Air Riders, much like its forebear, is destined to gain a cult following. There’s a deceptive simplicity to the game that can make it accessible, and that can enable the more chaotic side of the game in City Trial. It’s also clear just how much passion Masahiro Sakurai and the team have for this game. It might not be for everyone in quite the same way as Smash Bros. is, but it’s certainly worth finding out if it is for you with the online tests over the coming weekends.
