The first Kirby Air Riders playtest just wrapped up, but clips coming out of the session are still tearing up the internet. Much of it has to do with the frantic speed at which the racing video game moves, and how it makes watching footage feel like an IV drip of pure adrenaline. But most of the Kirby Air Riders excitement is centered around one of the racers: Rick the Hamster, who at this point might be overshadowing the game’s namesake.
That Rick was destined to be a star is no surprise. For one thing, Rick isn’t new: he’s been a part of the Kirby franchise since 1995’s Kirby’s Dream Land 2. Heck, Rick is literally at the center of that game’s cover, where he takes up more real estate than Kirby does. But the Switch 2 presents another opportunity for people to discover Nintendo’s deep cache of characters, and the console’s big game for the month of November is Kirby Air Riders. And while clips of Rick went viral from the moment Nintendo first revealed footage of the sequel, the public has now had a chance to step into the hamster’s pink shoes. And boy, are folks walking away bewildered.
As fans who have played the first Air Ride know, this is a racer that makes Sonic the Hedgehog look like a slowpoke. The game has two primary buttons, one to accelerate and one to bust a special move — which, of course, makes things go faster. Everyone rides around on vehicles that can collect power-ups that, you guessed it, can also make things move briskly. Put all of this together and what do you get? A game where players can barely make out what is happening.
“Am I just old or is this game too fast?” reads one concerned thread on GameFaqs. Maybe you’re reading this and scoffing to yourself, thinking, how fast can this really be? Consider:
I don’t think you understand, though. And you cant truly get it until you see Kirby Air Riders in motion. Get a load of this:
One Redditor compares playing Air Riders to being inside a pinball machine where they “cant make a single turn correctly.” Nearly every clip coming out of the playtest makes Sakurai’s racer look like it was designed for an attention-adled, stimulus-overloaded Subway Surfers audience … except this is exactly how the first game played. The Switch 2, however, is selling at a faster pace than the console currently set to become the best-selling video game hardware of all time. And with the Switch 2 being so early in its lifespan, there aren’t a ton of new game options. In other words, there are more eyes on Kirby Air Riders than there might be otherwise.
And the character that most people are gravitating to is Rick. It makes sense. Yes, he’s cute. But also critical here is that the gameplay already looks like it could be coming from the perspective of a hyperactive hamster. Lo and behold, lobbies seemed to be overflowing with Ricks — just look at the top image in this post, shared on X by @GamesCage_. It’s like the Mario Kart cow all over again.
Turns out, having a small friend moving at a face-shredding pace lends itself handily to memes and jokes.
The year isn’t over yet. Kirby Air Riders has one more online playtest before its Nov. 20 release date, and the Switch 2 still has some heavy hitters on the docket for December. But I’m calling it now: the Kirby fandom is having the best time out of anyone. No thoughts. No worries. Only Rick, tearing up the fabric of time itself.
