The battle for racer of the year is heating up and no longer a two horse race.

As we know, the brilliant Mario Kart World dropped with Nintendo Switch 2 earlier this year which we loved and adored. We’ve also been spending a lot of time with Sonic Racing Crossworlds which we’ll have a review for very soon, and it’s equally magnificent.

But clearly Nintendo were not done and surprisingly chose this year to bring back a beloved property – Kirby Air Ride. From Super Smash Bros legend himself, Masahiro Sakurai, on the surface it seems like it might just be Kirby but Mario Kart, but the more I played the Global Test Ride, the more this really started to take a form of its own.

This game is fast. Lightning quick. And actually, after first touching, I found the Smash Bros vibes to be stronger than anything else. Surprise! Kirby Air Riders is chaotic, energetic, and definitely not for the weak at heart.

The way you take corners, spin around the course and propel forward also gives off a feeling a bit like classic Super Monkey Ball. The acceleration here goes at a breakneck pace and it really doesn’t let up until you cross the finish line.

Where Mario Kart often sticks to the long and smooth, here you’ll be grinding on rails, sailing through the air and even knocking other riders off their machines if you get close enough. Yep, there’s a little bit of a Road Rash jibe here too – if you remember that one?

But yes, unlike in Mario Kart you can actually get off your machine, hop on another and start zipping around courses with handling, speed and power that befits the different types you’ll find in the game. It’s a super unique mechanic and immediately keeps the seperation clear between it and Mario Kart World.

Another big change is the fact the machines are automatically moving! So unlike in Mario Kart where you’re constantly holding down that button to keep moving, here your most important trait is staying on your vehicle and keeping it moving left to right.

And then there’s the Copy Abilities. So just like in the Kirby games, you can swallow up your enemies on the tracks and gain their abilities to reuse out in the field, like good old Meta Knight and his sword, but he can also turn into a wheel or a big ball of fire. It’s a clever spin on the powerups you’ll find in all of Mario Kart but presenting them in a very Kirby way.

The feel and handling of everything is also super smooth but also really leans into that fast-paced, meme energy and the pulse-pounding soundtrack really just creates this essence of speed. For me, that’s what makes Kirby Air Riders very much a distinct game in its own right and why again I think it’ll appeal to Smash fans as much as anyone else.

Put it this way, if there was ever a game to show you just how excited Nintendo are to make games that are silky smooth 60 to 120fps and really show off the performance of the Switch 2, you’ll be surprised to learn Kirby Air Riders is that game. It just wouldn’t have been possible on Switch 1 and likely would have lacked what fundamentally makes this one so enjoyable.

Don’t get me wrong, Mario Kart players are also going to feel right at home here too. The courses themselves are truly Nintendo beautiful with stunning waterfall soaked environments that take up your entire peripheral, as well as tracks with lots of hidden secrets to uncover along the way.

But it’s City Trials that I’m most interested in and to see how that progresses into the main game. There’s definitely a good flavour of this in the Trial but it’s definitely more of a morsel, showing you playing in the various maps of 16 players, like racing between the portals and getting to the finish line or the flight trial.

Some of these harken back a bit to that classic Monkey Ball multiplayer, especially the absolute crazy laser beam rush but also the boss battles. And it’s these kinds of games that just really make Air Riders stand alone, doing its own thing, really trying to iterate and change things in the racing space.

So I’m definitely intrigued and super excited to see the full release from Nintendo when it drops on November 20th, exclusively on Nintendo Switch 2. This one is a lot and redefines the meaning of chaotic racing, but for now at least, in the best possible way.