But are we alone in our admiration? Let's take a look around the web and find out...
We'll kick things off with a whopping 9/10 review from GamingBible, where the outlet enjoyed just about everything the game had to offer:
Kirby Air Riders may fall short in terms of track selection compared to Mario Kart World, but I’ll be damned if it isn’t the best racing game released this year, and one of the best first-party Nintendo games to launch on the Nintendo Switch 2
The Gamer opted for a 4/5, giving particular respect to City Trial mode and the game's overall presentation:
Even more so than the kart racing adjacent Air Ride, City Trial isn’t for everyone, and I can see a lot of people being put off by how relentlessly hectic and loud it can become. Still, as a connoisseur for carnage, I can’t wait to keep playing online and get wrecked by real players instead of CPU bots
On much the same page, VGC also awarded Air Riders a 4/5, even if it conceded that Road Trip, not City Trial, is the standout mode:
All this combines for a game that appears almost insultingly simple at first – virtually any action except for the special attack is performed with a single button – but hides a hidden depth in its vehicle diversity and special moves
These good times continued in IGN's 8/10 review, where the outlet sang the praises of the game's scope and strangeness, but felt the overall formula and controls didn't stack up to multiplayer mayhem elsewhere:
The biggest hurdle to enjoying its dizzying amount of content is how it all controls, as its frantic pace and slippery one-button control scheme is endearingly novel, but occasionally too simple for its own good
GFinity went marginally lower in its 7/10 review, appreciating the frantic excitement of it all, but feeling slightly let down by some game modes and the generally overwhelming nature of the race structure:
It's a game that fully embraces its mayhem, with it rather unapologetically overloading your senses. Sometimes that’s overwhelming, sometimes it’s confusing, but more often than not, it makes Kirby Air Riders uniquely entertaining
And finally, for a contrasting opinion, Metro wasn't as keen on Air Riders, giving it a 4/10 after struggling to get on with just about every game mode on offer:
If, however, you want to play an irritating, formless, racer that’s simultaneously overcomplicated and far too simple then Kirby Air Riders is the game for you
At the time of writing, Kirby Air Riders is sitting on a 78 Metacritic score based on 64 critic reviews. Hey, at least there's not long to wait until we all get to go hands-on with the full game tomorrow.
