Kirby Air Riders has made good on the dreams we had all those years ago with the original game, specifically in that it gives us more vehicles of varying types to fly around and make mischief on. The Air Ride Machines are the heart and soul of Air Ride and Air Riders, after all, and in addition to the full selection from the first game, we’ve got a whopping ten new machines to enjoy.
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Now, any Air Ride Machine can be a viable choice if you’re sufficiently skilled, and we certainly wouldn’t go as far as to call any of them outright bad. That said, there are certainly some that have more… niche applications than others, which might require a little more finesse or the right character if you want to make them your main, while others are more immediately useful. If we had to play favorites, these are the machines we’d be more likely to forgo in City Trial, versus those we’d immediately beeline for.
Spoilers for unlocks ahead.
10 Gigantes
Hilarious, But Impractical
Kirby Air Riders introduces two new vehicles into the pantheon of Legendary Air Ride Machines. The first is the titanic Gigantes, which you can unlock for City Trial after clearing Road Trip mode. It’s assembled from three pieces as usual, but when it’s complete, it grows to a comparable size to when you fought it in Road Trip, and Skyah can barely accommodate it.
Obviously, getting control of such a gargantuan machine, complete with a full arsenal of weaponry and the ability to completely destroy the city, is absolutely hilarious and fun. That said, you can’t ride Gigantes outside of City Trial due to its size constraints, and when it appears in City Trial, it automatically forces the Stadium game to VS. Gigantes because… well, what else is it going to be?
Getting to drive Gigantes is awesome, but due to its very nature, it’s less of a proper Air Ride Machine, and more of a gigantic toy. It’s a hoot to play around with, but it doesn’t really fit into the paradigm of proper Air Ride Machines, and has little-to-no practical application.
9 Tank Star
Like A Heavier Swerve Star
One of the first new vehicle subtypes to be introduced in promotional materials for Kirby Air Ride was the Tank-type, the hallmark of which is the Tank Star. What’s a good destruction derby game without a tank, after all?
Tank Star’s shtick is that it flies in a mostly straight line with little ability to steer. When you charge up, the treads pop out, and you can switch directions. It’s a similar driving style to Swerve Star, but the difference is that, while you’re charging up, Tank Star will keep going in the direction you were previously going until you release the charge and change it.
Tank Star’s heavy constitution does make it a decent choice for Kirby Melees and Dustup Derbies, but its odd steering style requires you to constantly micromanage it. If you’re not paying attention and either forget to charge or charge too long, you could end up missing your turns entirely. If you’re going to be doing that anyway, you might as well just ride a Swerve Star and get the extra speed.
8 Vampire Star
Needs Regular Snacks
If half of the Air Riders equation is out-pacing your opponents, the other half is pummeling them into submission. If you’re going to be doing battle on the track or in the city, it’d be nice to get a little extra perk-up out of your effort. That’s the mentality that Vampire Star exists to serve.
At first, Vampire Star has somewhat mediocre stats. It’s not that fast, it takes a bit to charge, and its steering could be better. Its gimmick is that, after performing a Charge Boost, it deploys a set of fangs that automatically chomp on any opponent that gets close. When Vampire Star takes a bite, all of its stats are boosted for a brief period.
If you can manage to chain bites against multiple opponents, Vampire Star can definitely get some speed going, but that’s a big “if.” If you lose your chain and your buff wears off, your opponents will outpace you very quickly, and once they’re wise to your game, they won’t get chomped as easily a second time. It’s kind of like trying to chomp all the ghosts in Pac-Man in a single string; impressive if you do it, deadly if you mess it up.
7 Hop Star
Situational Usefulness
On the majority of Air Ride Machines, flicking your stick back and forth makes you perform a Quick Spin attack, knocking away nearby enemies and hazards. Hop Star is one of the few outliers to this default mechanic; rather than a Quick Spin, flicking the stick on Hop Star causes you to bounce up into the air.
The purpose of this mechanic is to let you quickly hop over enemies, terrain, and hazards on the track. In addition to that, if you hold your charge while you’re in the air, you’ll quickly crash down to the ground, damaging any opponents directly beneath you. This all sounds cool on paper, but in practice, it’s not nearly as helpful as it sounds.
Removing your Quick Spin also removes one of your default means of self-defense on the track. If you needed to get past an opponent, a Quick Spin would work fine, whereas the hop doesn’t actually knock them out of the way. Hop Star has decent stats, so it’s not the worst choice for racing, but there are definitely better options available that won’t take your Quick Spin away.
6 Transform Star
Requires Some Skill
I’m a huge sucker for transforming vehicles. Even if it’s not a huge transformation, just seeing one kind of vehicle turn into another kind makes me pump my fists like an excited child. However, the big problem with transforming vehicles from a practical perspective, is that you need to master two types of movement simultaneously, and Transform Star has the same skill ceiling.
Transform Star has the ability to swap on the fly between two configurations when performing a Quick Spin. It starts out as a Star-type, hovering above the ground. It’s a little hard to steer in this state, but it glides well. With a Quick Spin, it switches to Bike-type, rolling along the ground on one wheel. You lose the gliding power, but it becomes much faster and easier to handle.
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Transform Star can absolutely be a powerful contender in races and City Trial, but you need to get the transformation timing down to a science, not to mention resist the urge to randomly Quick Spin whenever someone drives near you. It’s a Machine with a very distinctive barrier to entry, and not everyone can use it.
5 Bull Tank
Come In Like A Wrecking Ball
I think my biggest problem with Tank Star is that it doesn’t really commit to its intended purpose. A tank should be a machine of destruction, not just something good at taking corners. If you want a tank that’ll really send ‘em flying, that’s a job for the Bull Tank.
The Bull Tank is a Tank Star with its potential fully realized. It has the same redirecting gimmick as Tank Star, but it’s got thick armor plating in the front that bulldozes anything in its way. Anything that’s directly in front of you when you rush up on Bull Tank will shortly be spun out 20 feet behind you. Since it’s a heavy vehicle, it does take a moment to get up to speed, but once it’s up there, it can’t be stopped.
You do still need to fiddle with the direction-shifting Charge Boosts, which can be annoying to contend with, but with that extra rushing power, you don’t need to worry as much about overcorrecting. Just pick a direction and go, and you’ll probably get where you need to be, whether it’s the finish line or over the wreckage of your foes.
4 Battle Chariot
Run ‘Em Down
If you’re looking for a Machine with hefty offense, but find the Bull Tank to be a little excessive, there’s a milder option available, relatively speaking: the Battle Chariot. It’s the closest you’ll get in this game to riding a full-on monster truck, and it’s got the mass and muscle to prove it.
The Battle Chariot is a weapon of mass destruction, hauling butt over all kinds of terrain and chewing up anything unfortunate enough to be standing in front of it. Since it’s a two-wheeler, it’s got much better handling than the Bull Tank, and it’s also a major contender in terms of raw speed and Boost potential. This thing isn’t just beefy, it’s fast too. Dangerously fast, even.
The Battle Chariot does have a bit of an attitude problem when it comes to making snap turns. Powerful though it may be, if you miss your target in a Dustup Derby, it takes a bit of work to slow down and turn around. Once you get a feel for the strength and speed, though, this thing will carry you through the meanest of races.
3 Chariot
Smooth And Speedy
In the original Kirby Air Ride, your only options for ground travel were the three Wheelie vehicles. They all had their strong points, but riding on one wheel is naturally going to make handling a little tricky no matter what. The vanilla Chariot is the solution to this problem, offering greater stability thanks to its two wheels.
With its two big wheels, the Chariot is a nice, smooth ride, rolling cleanly on straight courses and turning through corners with relative ease. Unlike the Wheelies, which have very tight turn patterns that are hard to drift through, Chariot gives you enough breathing room to set up a proper boost dash without forcing you to overcorrect.
Much like a sensible Chevrolet, the Chariot is a bit weaker in the raw speed department, outpaced by its sibling, the Battle Chariot, in Top Speed stats. It’s not ideal for drag racing, but it might just surprise you in a City Trial, especially if you can buff up that speed with a few patches. A few Top Speed boosts, and it might just surprise you how fast it gets.
2 Paper Star
Just Don’t Get Hit
I’m all about that acceleration in racing games. Get up to speed quickly and stay there; that’s why I always pick Yoshi in Mario Kart. Everything else is secondary, including the physical constitution of the vehicle in question. That’s why I’m a big fan of Paper Star.
Paper Star is an exceptionally light vehicle with impressive movement capabilities. Its natural acceleration gets it up to speed in no time flat, it handles fairly well, and as an added perk, it’s one of the best Machines for gliding in the game, able to easily clear the entire distance of Skyah. The big drawback is that its lightness comes with fragility; Paper Star has the smallest base HP pool in the game, so it only takes a few good smacks to total it.
This fragility can be remedied with a few HP patches in City Trial, and in Air Ride and Top Ride, getting totaled is far less of a concern. As long as you don’t try to bring it into any Dustup Derbies, Paper Star is a viable contender in most other circumstances.
1 Leo
A New Legend Is Born
The second new addition to the Legendary Air Ride Machines, unlocked after getting Road Trip’s true ending, is Leo. It’s an enormous, blazing lion that has deigned to let you ride upon its back. You’d better appreciate that, because it’s an honor and a privilege to experience such mobile majesty.
Leo is truly the complete package. It tears up tracks and cities with ridiculous speed, mows down enemies and obstacles with its sharp claws, and leaves a fiery path in its wake like a time-traveling DeLorean. In addition to all of that, though, Leo can stop on a dime, handling corners and tight turns like nobody’s business.
Leo’s only real shortcoming is that it can’t fly. However, it can leap into the air with a flick of the stick, and whether you use that or run off a ramp, it’s got enough raw strength to soar halfway across Skyah in a single bound. Outside the most gliding-heavy Stadium events or races, obtaining Leo is pretty much a guaranteed victory, and a very impressive-looking one at that.
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