Masahiro Sakurai, the brilliant mind behind a library-full of our favourite Nintendo titles, has moved onto another development story in his latest YouTube video. This time, the discussion is all about Kirby Air Ride as the legendary creator discusses how the idea came to be, development challenges and the game’s lasting influence today.
Air Ride was something of a sharp turn for the Kirby series (especially given its release around the time of the more conventional GBA titles Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land and Kirby & the Amazing Mirror), but we think it’s fair to say that this wacky racer twist on the pink puffball format worked.
While the game might not be remembered quite as fondly as Nintendo’s other racing series like Mario Kart or F-Zero (yep, we’re manifesting that definitely real Switch release for the latter) Sakurai clearly holds a soft spot for the title. Serving as both designer and director, this is a Sakurai project through and through (he considers it to be “one of [his] creative works”) and it is interesting to hear how the creative changed the pace of the game after a year of tough development.
You can check out the full video below for all of the behind the scenes details:
What is your top memory of Kirby Air Ride? Fly down to the comments and let us know!