Getting older means accumulating more and more games that you loved playing once upon a time, but can’t revisit — at least, not easily. Though we tend to expect this kind of problem to get better over time, especially as services like PlayStation Plus and Xbox Game Pass fill the gaps in players’ libraries, it really hasn’t.
It’s just evolved. Digital games become unavailable due to music rights issues. iPhone games stop getting updated and become unplayable as new iOS updates are pushed. It may sound ridiculous, but there are kids out there who played Concord during that brief window it was available, fell in love with it, and will miss it for the rest of their lives. So, in a way, us ’90s and ’00s kids are lucky. I miss Kirby Air Ride, and if I wanted to play it, I could just track down a copy and the hardware to play it.
Related
Give Every Nintendo Series A Tactics Spin-Off
With Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope on the way, let’s take a look at the other Nintendo series that could use an XCOM makeover.
A Friends’ House Classic
Kirby Air Ride was a classic Friends’ House Exclusive for me. I never owned it, but I put in many hours with the battle-racing spin-off while trying to find a comfortable way to sit on my friend’s waterbed. Multiplayer games were the best Friend’s House Exclusives — for the obvious reason that you wanted something you could play with more than one person.
But it’s also because in a time before online lobbies, it was kinda depressing to load up a multiplayer game when you didn’t have any friends around to play with. Sure, you could play Super Smash Bros. Melee single-player, but doing that after you unlocked the full roster just seemed sad.
Air Ride was a kart racer, not unlike its cousin Mario Kart, but it had a twist that the title hints at. Kirby and co.’s vehicles weren’t bound to the ground, they could take to the air. You could ramp off the track and glide along above other players. It was a lot like the gliding mechanic that Nintendo added for Mario Kart 7, but it wasn’t just reserved for specific sections of the course. In the battle mode, you could fly from rooftop to rooftop and quickly soar to the tops of buildings. It was extremely cool, and I’m still thinking back on it fondly nearly 22 years after its release.
One Last Air Ride
It has me hoping that like other long-dormant Nintendo games that have been recently unearthed via remasters or sequels (New Pokemon Snap, Metroid Prime Remastered), Kirby could find a new lease on life. The Switch 2 era is fast approaching, and Nintendo is going to need launch games.
I’ve written recently about how the Switch 2 is the time for Nintendo to finally make GameCube games available via Nintendo Switch Online (after they were conspicuously absent from the Switch’s online library, and the Wii and Wii U’s Virtual Console). If I could grab a few Pro Controllers and play a port of Air Ride with my friends, I would only be a pizza and a Game Fuel away from nostalgic nirvana.
But Kirby Air Ride 2 would be cool, too. It makes sense during this era for Kirby and for Nintendo. The last Kirby platformer, Kirby and the Forgotten Land, was the first 3D game in the mainline series and it was pretty well-received. Why not keep the series going in this three-dimensional direction?
Kirby has always been the black (pink) sheep of Nintendo’s stable. The games are generally really easy, and though there are good ones in the catalogue, the puffball just doesn’t have a widely recognized classic like Mario or Donkey Kong or Samus. As a result, Air Ride is the only Kirby game I have much nostalgia for, and Nintendo could find a new lease on life for the little sucker if it goes back to that (gravitational) well.
Next
The Nintendo GameCube Was Design Perfection
Remembering the aesthetic brilliance of Nintendo’s bold, cube-shaped console, 20 years later.