Kirby Air Riders Global Test Ride
Today was the first day of the Global Test Ride event for Kirby Air Riders. I do not have many Switch 2 games at this moment. And certainly, none of them have online multiplayer. I was really looking forward to this event as it was a way to try a game that looked interesting and I could play it online with my significant other. Amazing!
It was a bit surprising to see that it is planned in 6-hour long intervals, but it turned out to be enough. And there's more tries, 6 in total.
I have heard of the original Kirby Air Ride game. I never had the opportunity to try it out, though. It looked very cool. Well, of course. It's Kirby. He's very cute and cool. It was neat to see that they ended up making a sequel. And watching the Directs was something, too. So many features!
It was a bit disappointing that during the event the races were available only offline. The online mode was just the City Trial mode. I do understand, it's not even a proper demo, but I do wish the races were also available online. Guess I'll have to wait!
I have attained a few first places!
## Air Ride
There were three racecourses available.
Floria Fields was the name of the first one. It is a very pastelly garden. It is probably the tutorial stage... but it was a bit challenging. Now, I suppose it was exactly because it was the tutorial stage, so I played it first and I gathered skills as I went, so the others were easier. There are a few turns and few enemies, you don't need to jump around much. It's a very pretty stage.
Waveflow Waters was quite insane. A lot going on. Water walls all around you, you could get lost in the water, as well. There was jumping involved. You could fly a bunch. There were way more enemies. I tried my best, and I did win, but it was close!
Mount Amberfalls spooked me at the start as it was one lap only. A bit longer course than the other two. It started out in snowy area and ended up going through more autumnal area, very foresty and leafy. It was quite cozy. I think it was easier, somehow, but there were very sharp turns to take. If you didn't take a vehicle with good turning, that's where you'll lose a lot of time, for sure.
I didn't try out a lot of character + vehicle combinations this time. They behave very differently, which is cool, but it will take a lot of trial and error trying to perfect my playing, if I end up getting the full release.
## City Trial
The main online event. I played with my significant other, and the rest were CPUs. I tried it on my own later with real people and real people are very scary. I got my vehicle absolutely destroyed so much in very little time.
City Trial is like a mini game mode. You have 5 minutes to upgrade your vehicle by collecting things like speed ups, weight ups, defence ups etc. You can also switch your vehicles freely, but the one you're on will be the one to use in games. I didn't pay attention to that, but later, with full release and all, you should probably choose the final vehicle based on what was collected. That sounds smart.
You can attack the other players, which will result them in losing their upgrades (I think) and you can destroy their vehicle too, so they will have to walk over to get a new one.
As you play, there are even mini games happening during this collection time. Sometimes there is a short race. Sometimes you have to destroy some thieves. Sometimes it's just bad things happening, like meteors falling from the sky. I feel like it could be more common for these kinds of events to happen. But then they would be more likely to get annoying. I think it was around three per collecting time?, so three in five minutes. That does sound reasonable.
The city is quite large. There are many tunnels and sometimes you can fall to a crystal mine or something and get lost there. There are always jump up points to help you get to the main city. There is also a pirate ship that's pretty cool. I try to follow the upgrades to find my way around the city. It will have to be learned a bit.
When the five minutes is up, you get to choose from four minigames. Some of them are recommended to you based on how you upgraded your vehicle, but you can choose whichever you want.
You get to fight a boss. You can fight other players - or fight with them to see who will defeat the most enemies. I enjoyed this button pushing game, where you have to push buttons, but they can be stolen from you. There is regular racing or jumping across rails. In one game, you had to be fast and avoid lasers. There were many I didn't get to try.
We might not have been able to defeat Robo Dedede fully, but he did get his bum kicked anyway.
## Paddock
To play with your friends, one has to host a room. The room is quite cozy. There are two machines for setting up the matches. That was the only thing that worked in the demo. I'm sure the jukebox in there also works. You can view the vehicles of people in the room. You can emote and talk. The emotes of Rick, the hamster, are top tier. I think that's what I enjoyed the most about the demo, spamming I'm happy with my significant other. Although they did spend quite the time spamming “no.” That was funny.
I'm happy!## Concluding thoughts
I think the Global Test Ride is a decent showcase. It left me wanting more. And I know there is more - I saw the Directs. I thought the game would be a bit easier to play for me, because I like drifting games (doesn't mean I'm good at them, though). It was still harder to play than it looked. Sometimes it got too hectic. I think with the full game, when something gets too fast and too chaotic for you, you can switch into a calmer mode. At least that's what I imagine the full game experience might be like.
Will I get it? Maybe. I liked what I tried. I might try to import the game from neighbouring countries, where the price is lower. Even though there is a lot of content in the game, it seems, I don't think our price is justified. If I'm not successful with importing, I look forward to grabbing a second-hand copy whenever that is available. I think a Kirby game is too cute to pass on a physical purchase, so those are my only options.
And for now, there's still 5 more Test Rides to be had!
### Global Test Ride 2 (November 9, 2025)
An update! I woke up early. The second Test Ride was scheduled 1 AM to 7 AM my time. I wasn't planning on trying it out, but when I saw I had 14 minutes, might as well, right? I had time for two runs. The first run went well, I didn't get my vehicle destroyed, and I did bully two people, I think. That was fun. I also won the button mashing game. Found out there is a second floor to that game - the two other players were fighting upstairs while I took control of all the bottom buttons. The second run played out okay. I didn't collect a lot of upgrades, and I did get my vehicle destroyed once... but I think it went decent. What was bad, though, was that I picked the rail racing game and I got absolutely destroyed. Took me ten seconds more to finish. I guess they had more speed upgrades? And they also didn't fail the jump, haha...
Previous | Next