Kirby Air Riders Direct #2: Every Announcement – How Would You Rate it?

What’s that? You thought we had already heard everything there was to know about Kirby Air Riders? Think again!

Sakurai returned with another 60-minute Direct on the upcoming Kirby racer, going into detail on just about every feature that the game has to offer.

Honestly, it was a lot. So, to help digest it all, we’ve assembled the following breakdown of everything that was showcased. You know, just in case you don’t want to watch the full hour again.

Kirby Air Riders Direct #2 – The Full Presentation

Just so you know what we’re talking about in the following breakdown, here’s the Direct in full. Feel free to dive in again and make notes this time!

Kirby Air Riders Direct #2 Round Up

Okay, now let’s get to the announcements, starting off with the return of a familiar game mode…

Top Ride

Top Ride returns in Kirby Air Riders! This “Nice and easy” game mode (Sakurai’s words, not ours) takes the standard Air Riders gameplay and turns things top-side, for a birds-eye view race.

Four players can play this one locally, and eight can play online, with everyone given the chance to play on a single screen for that classic GameCube experience (though 60fps split screen is available for City Trial and Air Ride races).

Sakurai revealed six Top Ride courses — Flower, Flow, Air, Crystal, Steam and Mountain — and you’ll be able to find all the following exclusive items in the game mode too:

• Kaboomb
• Drift Flames
• Drill Driver
• Seeker Missile
• Course Quaker
• Chickie

Road Trip

This new game mode will see you take to the open-ish road, tackling races and challenges from Air Ride, City Trial, Top Ride, Stadiums and more.

There are shops and rest stops along the way, where you can level up your racer’s abilities, pick up new parts, or collect some familiar series faces to help with your journey.

Online Play

Those who want to partake in online play will have the chance to make a virtual driver’s license and decorate it with all kinds of stamps, colours and nicknames.

Once it’s shaped to your liking, you’ll be able to explore the ‘Paddock’ — a new lobby zone where you’re free to wander around while you wait for a game to start. Here, you can emote, cough up some stock phrases, switch up the music and… stand on top of the cake? Hey, whatever you recommend, Sakurai-san.

Copy Abilities

Remember the list of Copy Abilities that we got in the last Air Riders Direct? Well, there’s more. Here are all the ones that were revealed this time:

• Needle
• Freeze
• Sleep
• Fighter
• Drill
• Flash
• Missile

Class

The player ability that you come up against in online matches will be determined by your Class. You’ll rack up Global Win Power points based on your performance in each game mode, which will, in turn, move you up a colour rank. These ranks will then determine your online competitors, so things shouldn’t feel too imbalanced.

Air Ride Courses

Thought we were done with the list of Air Ride courses from the last Direct? Nope! All of the following will arrive as new tracks in Air Riders:

• Airtopia Ruins
• Crystalline Fissure
• Steamgust Forge

What’s more, all previous tracks from the GC release will also be in the game as unlocks for a grand total of 18 courses. Here’s a reminder of what they were called:

• Fantasy Meadows
• Celestial Valley
• Sky Sands
• Frozen Hillside
• Magma Flows
• Beanstalk Park
• Machine Passage
• Checker Knights
• Nebula Belt

Swap Relay

This race mode will have you completing a standard three-lap circuit, but your vehicle will swap out with each loop. You get to choose the vehicle line-up, so you’ll have to plan ahead.

City Trial Items

We got a look at another batch of City Trial items. Here’s a list of all the newbies:

• Speed Up
• Dizzy Beam
• Special Up
• Item Catcher
• Fireworks
• Laser Swiper
• Multi-Missile
• Size Up
• Mega Cannon

On top of that, Sakurai revealed that Legendary machines will be making a return, so you’ll have to keep an eye out for Dragoon and Hydra parts around the Skyah too.

Team Battles

If City Trial sounds a bit too much to take on alone, you’ll be able to tackle the mode in a Team Battle. As you might expect, this splits the competitors into two eight-player teams, with the final stadium dividing everyone into two identical groups to ensure things remain equal on the home straight.

Characters

Of course, there were some more racers thrown in for good measure. Here are all the ones we were introduced to this time around, accompanied by their special abilities, where revealed:

• Taranza
• Lololo & Lalala
• Daroach
• Rocky (Meteor Rocky)
• Rick (Rip-Roaring Rick)
• Scarfy
• Marx (True-Form Marx)
• Waddle Dee (Golden Waddle Dee)

You can unlock the same character multiple times via the checklist. Doing so will unlock a different colourway, so you can ride in style.

Machines

Yep, even more machines were showcased as well. Here they are:

• Transform Star
• Formula Star
• Hop Star
• Jet Star
• Wheelie Scooter
• Bull Tank

Announcers

In true Smash Bros. style, you’ll hear announcers everywhere in Kirby Air Riders. They proudly declare game modes, the start of races, power-ups and more. Fortunately, there’s a bunch of them, with two different voices available in the following languages:

• English
• Japanese
• French
• German
• Spanish (Spain)
• Spanish (Latin America)
• Italian
• Dutch
• Portuguese
• Chinese (Traditional)
• Chinese (Simplified)
• Korean

You can turn them on and off as you please, don’t worry.

Time Attack & Free Run

In both Air Ride and Top Run modes, you’ll be able to play ‘Time Attack’ and ‘Free Run’. These don’t have any online rankings, so you only have yourself to compete against.

Time Attack is all about getting the best time across a set number of laps, using enemies and items to boost your speed. The goal of Free Run, on the flip side, is to get the best time around one lap, free of enemies and items.

Times are stored based on the machine.

The Free Run mode in City Trial lets you freely explore Skyah. You’ll find all the vehicles stored in a garage, so you can freely swap between them, and there’s even an exclusive machine, the Flight Warp Star, which lets you draw contrails.

And yes, there’s a Photo Mode for all of the above, because of course there is!

Stadiums

We learnt about a bunch more Stadiums this time around. Here are all the newcomers:

• Button Rush – Ride over buttons and battle for control of the area
• High Jump – Tilt the left stick and jump as high as you can
• Big Battle – Grow huge and do your best to dominate the battle
• Oval Circuit – Race around a closed circuit
• Rail Panic – Navigate the grind rails to take the lead
• Bean Gauntlet – Slip past the harmful lasers and make it to the end

Vs. Boss

Boss battles return in Kirby Air Riders, and this Direct introduced us to Robo Dedede, a transforming Dedede that can swap between fighter and car. You’ll have to work as a team to take this boss down by running into him and using abilities scattered around the arena.

Checklist

Completing goals will flip over a tab on the checklist page, revealing a small part of a bigger picture. You can select specific checklist boxes to immediately try it out.

My Machine

There’s full Machine customisation available in this one, letting you add patterns, decals, accessories and effects to your ride.

You can even head to the Machine Market to buy and sell user-designed machines using the in-game currency.

Headwear

Ah yes, the biggest reveal of them all: all racers can wear a silly little hat! These headwear items don’t have any effect on the racer’s stats, but they look adorable. Here are all the ones that we’ve seen so far:

• Red Cap
• Crown
• Silk Hat
• Ribbon Hat
• Onigiri
• Sunglasses
• Bull Horns
• Floral Pin
• Topknot

Gummies

This is a new collectible, shaped like the various in-game Machines, that you can pick up by beating other challengers in races.

They have very little use, but you can muck around with them using a Kirby-shaped pointer in Mouse Mode, so that’s… something.

My Music

Shogo Sakai and Noriyuki Iwadare have composed the soundtrack for this game, and in My Music, you can adjust how likely each track is to play in City Trial mode.

Naturally, there’s a Music Player option too, and a bunch of tracks will be added to Nintendo Music soon.

Accessibility Options

It looks like Air Riders is packed with accessibility options. Here are all the ones we’ve seen so far:

• Control stick inverts
• Button remapping
• Colour filters
• Remove screen shake
• Change screen field-of-view

For those who don’t want to change things up individually, there are pre-set options in the Accessibility menu.

amiibo

Three (yes, three) new Air Riders amiibo were also revealed. Much like the previously announced pair, Meta Knight and Shadow Star, King Dedede and Tank Star, and Chef Kawasaki and Hop Star can all be swapped between vehicles, so you can scan in and race against whichever pairing you please.