Kirby Air Riders has been available for play for over half a week now, allowing many players to get a good feel for the game and post reviews for their experiences. As is to be expected for a Nintendo game with this much talk surrounding it, fan ratings and discourse are extremely positive for Kirby Air Riders, mirroring the sentiment many had while watching the previous Nintendo Directs for the game. The surprising information regarding the user scores for the game come from how much higher they are than Mario Kart World.

Despite the Switch 2 only being available for less than half a year so far, it already has two separate racing titles starring some of their key characters. This has left the door open for comparison ever since the announcement of both games. This discussion only grew more prevalent following the release of the Switch 2 and Mario Kart World. Many fans were dissatisfied with various features of the game, with some news sites such as Nintendo Life reporting that the game was being review bombed. Even following the initial phase after release, the game’s user score on Metacritic continued to gradually lower until its current score of 6.9.

The relatively mixed reception of Mario Kart World led many to anticipate Kirby Air Riders as the best racing game on Nintendo’s latest console, but there would be no way of knowing before fans had a chance to play the game for themselves. Once the game was released on November 20th, players were able to make the discrepancy clear. While the newer game currently scores seven less than Mario Kart World on Metacritic’s critic reviews, its user score is an impressive 9.0. The difference in reception is also present in online reviews, such as those from IGN. Both from the site were mostly positive, but the review for Mario Kart World described issues with multiple changes the game made to previous titles, while the review for Kirby Air Riders focused mostly on the limited buttons.

The user scores and individual reviews of titles do not paint the whole picture, and as time passes the scores for both games are likely to change. Only time will tell which game is remembered more fondly or if the comparison that many draw between the two games continues to be relevant.