Sakurai Gives An Update On 'Kirby Air Riders' And Pays Tribute To Iwata

Can't believe it's been 10 years since he passed and Iwata's loss is still felt by members of Nintendo and fans. I was extremely fond of him as well.

I'm sure the Sakurai will do everything in his power to make sure that Kirby Air Riders is going to be a phenomenal game. I wonder if he will be starting work on a new Smash Bros after that, although I highly doubt he should be put to such a momentous task again. Last time he suffered greatly for it and I wish to see him grow old and happy making new games.

For those of you who've read Ask Iwata and would still like to learn more about him, I highly recommend The Impact of Iwata by Lucas M. Thomas. It's much more of a biography than Ask Iwata and features some really lovely illustrations.

I guess I'm just one of those weird people who loves Kirby Air Ride on the Gamecube, so I'm all-in on this one.

Looking forward to Kirby Air Riders to watch videos of it, then compare it to Mario Kart World to see which one is better for me! On a side note... Sakurai is catching up to Iwata's age?! I really hope he doesn't pass anytime soon. He's one of my favorite Nintendo people.

@Peteykins I know someone that loved it and is very hype, it's definitely more niche than some games but they must have faith in it to give it a new full release after all this time

Really nice tribute, though it speaks for just how young Sakurai was when he entered the games industry considering he'd been there since the NES era and was 10 years younger than Iwata who had been at HAL while at College.

@Dom_31 I'm sure it will be better. Kid Icarus Uprising gives me a lot of confidence in his non-Smash games.

(Also I sort of wish there's Kid Icarus Uprising 2 or atleast a HD remaster)

Really nice tribute by Sakurai, and I look forward to see how Air Riders will turn out. I for one hope there are more non-Kirbys playable characters.

@Dom_31 I think Air Ride benefits from how simple it is to play, but yeah the game modes were in severe need of fleshing out.
I trust the new game will be more fully-featured given Sakurai's games since Brawl have been chock-full of modes and unlockables.

Sakurai would make a great Iwata style president of Nintendo one day

Super excited for Kirby Air Riders!!! Really also love the tribute to Iwata as well

Hopefully the Air Riders will be really fun!! I'm still uncertain about it so I'm waiting for more information (and also hopefully the price won't hurt too badly...)

Also agreed on hoping for a Kid Icarus Uprising remaster or second game or something haha. One of the best game on 3ds that.

A wonderful acknowledgement to Iwata from Sakurai. It's crazy to think the latter will soon be the same age as Iwata when he passed on.

I'm gonna need more info on Kirby Air Riders before I consider the game, but I'm happy for those who are fans of the original game. I had no GameCube access back in the day, so I have no experience with it.

Really wish they ended up making a pink game and watch for Kirby at some point. Kirby's air ride was one of the best games on GameCube so I hope the sequel is just as good.

Man, the Air Ride hate in this thread is disappointing. I loved the original game's simplicity and how arcade-like it felt. It was a game for when you wanted quick, thrilling action. And of course, City Trial was brilliant. The fact the vocal critics of this game don't seem to understand that is just sad.

I’m not planning to buy the game based on the merit of Sakurai alone. I do however believe we will see something special.

I will wait patiently and hope the game meets all of Sakurai’s goals.

Smash Ultimate, and the level of dedication to meet their goals to put EVERYONE in was a true testament of his team’s effort.

Really curious how all those learnings shape up a sequel to a game that quite genuinely wasn’t that good. It was fun with friends in one mode, but it really lacked scope and features to warrant full price back in the day.

One of the main motivators for me getting a Switch 2 was for Kirby Air Riders. And yet I have no interest in Mario Kart World. Funny, huh? Kirby Air Ride was one of the GameCube's all-time greats. I trust Sakurai to make a great follow-up.

Air Ride was an underrated racer, even by its own fans! (there's more to the game than City Trial, after all!)

Nice words from Sakurai about the late great Iwata. Excited to hear that he feels Air Riders is shaping up well too.

I find it odd there's another racing game from Nintendo coming out in the Switch 2 launch cycle. Anybody care to enlighten me on the demand for this?

Man these Iwata tributes always make me well up. What an inspirational beautiful human!

@ShieldHero that's the first mistake, you don't compare Mario Kart with Kirby Air Ride, heck, it doesn't even compare to anything out there. Air Ride is almost it's own genre.

Man, it's hard to believe that Iwata left us 10 years ago. it really feels like it happened not too long ago.

More than ever, we need more CEOs like him. For all his "apparent faults" during his time, we can all agree that he saw and treated his employees as the human beings they are and not as disposable tools.

As for Kirby Air Riders, the only thing I really hope is more playable characters other than just Kirby, Meta Knight and King Dedede. At the very least I'd like to see Bandana Waddle Dee, Adeleine and Magolor.
I don't know how much time it has been in development, but what are the chances of making it an racing-adventure game, kind of like Diddy Kong Racing?

@TerribleTerabytes I don't trust any gamer that doesn't like Kirby Air Ride, tbh. It's one of the most perfect games to just drop in, pick a mode and just play without any BS. It's a solid collection of a bunch of mini arcade games, exactly like Super Monkey Ball.

@Dazman that's because they are not direct competitors. Unlike, let's say Sonic Racing or even Fast Fusion, Kirby Air Ride plays like a fast paced-surfing-party-combat-racer. You can even exit your vehicle and walk if you want to, better go blind with no expectations for this game and you'll be surprised.

@Dazman It's more like Mario Kart Battle Mode combined with Super Monkey Ball, than a normal racing game.

@Dom_31 same concern here

@Jack_Goetz

Thanks for the reminder and recommendation. It's been on my wishlist and need to just get it.

@ArcticEcho Hell yeah, you hit the nail on the head there. Not every game needs to be this deep experience, some can just be fun pick up and play experiences. I'm not sure what to expect for this game but I fully trust Sakurai is putting his all into it. Kirby is his baby after all.

I'm pretty sure they won't do that, but it would be cool to have the first one on NSO before this one comes out.
I have no idea what to expect and never played it on GameCube.

Looking forward to it Sakurai-San! I hope you found someone at Nintendo, who understands you like Iwata-San did. Wish you good health!

@Dom_31 agreed, its not a good game, its not overly fun either its too simple. And I love anything kirby

I can agree that Air Ride and Top Ride are pretty limited in their overall enjoyment and quality.

I cannot agree, however, that the game is bad. City Trial is fantastic and has fueled probably a hundred hours of play with my siblings, whether battling it out, exploring the city to discover secrets, playing in the battle modes, optimizing strategies, putting together ridiculous builds, shooting for various achievements, figuring out which boxes hold stats, power ups, and the Legendary Air Ride Machine pieces, in which locations those specific boxes appear. So much potential for mastery.

For City Trial alone, I find Kirby Air Ride to be a brilliant game. Here's hoping we get even more of it!

As long as it has a bigger and better City Trial, then I'm good. (I guess more main tracks as well, since the original game was lacking in that bit, it had like, what, 8 tracks total? Top Ride was fun, too...but we all know we just want City Trial the most. lol)

Very excited to see more, the original is still one of my favorite gamecube games to this day

@ShieldHero Well if it's at all like Air Ride then it's not REALLY comparable to Mario Kart.

The race mode was fun but the city Trial game mode was what REALLY sold the game and that wasn't race focused.

What I'm hoping is that Air Riders both expands CityTrial and adds online multiplayer. That's all I really want.

@TerribleTerabytes totally agree.

I might have not played air ride as much as Melee or Doubledash, but it was a fun game to play with my brothers.

That's a nice tribute to Iwata.

Man I miss Iwata, and how he interacted with the fanbase. Sure everything wasn't perfect back then either, but Nintendo was more fun, during his era, and less like a stiff "evil corporation".