The Kart Racer War Of 2025

2025 was a crazy year for fans of kart racing games as we got three big name entries in the genre: Mario Kart World, Sonic Racing Crossworlds, and Kirby Air Riders. And as you might expect, the competition was fierce and the debate over which one is best is still raging on to this day. Since I unintentionally ended up reviewing the tracks of all three of those games, I thought I might as well wrap this little series up by comparing the trilogy and figuring out which one's my favorite. I'll go over each game and pick out what I think are the pros and cons of each, and then weigh them to figure out which one reigns supreme. Beware, I'm probably going to go against the grain a little here...

Mario Kart World 

Pros

• The core movement and mechanics are fantastic. The parkour, wall-riding, air-tricking, and rail-grinding systems add so much depth and freedom of expression to the gameplay loop, but it's just streamlined and accessible enough so that anyone can pick it up and start messing around. The drifts are weighty and have a level of mastery to them, and everything about the steering feels completely polished.
• The track lineup is consistently strong with barely any weak links, and the vast majority offer a ton of varied paths and routes to increase their replay value. MK World's time trials are easily the most fun to watch out of any kart racer solely for how crazy the shortcuts can get.
• The sheer amount of routes, over 200 in fact, help prevent Mario Kart World from feeling too stale or repetitive because there's so many of them that it's hard to actually memorize all of them. Their open nature also once again allows for an incredible level of freedom in terms of finding shortcuts.
• The item system is probably my favorite in any Mario Kart game, perfectly balancing the chaos of earlier games with the more generous QoL features like the double item slot and the Super Horn. The fact that item recovery is the fastest its been since Double Dash also means that being hit doesn't slow down the pace of gameplay nearly as much as it did in prior entries. (update: As of recently, there's also a custom item option which is wonderful)
• The Grand Prix feels more like a proper campaign than it's ever did, with each of the first seven cups having a rival to fight, and the Rainbow Road getting a lot more build-up to it.
• Knockout Tour is a brilliant addition to the Mario Kart formula that forces you to be constantly vying for the lead so you don't get eliminated.
• Free Roam is mostly a chill affair but I found it a joy to mess around in. There's fun little easter eggs all over the place, the P-Switch missions and Peach Medallions do a great job at encouraging you to master the tech, and simply messing around with the mechanics with no goal in mind is addicting on its own. I didn't really feel like the game was missing a Story Mode or a greater objective, the Free Roam on its own was enough for me to sink 30-40 hours into.
• The open world also serves as a great social hub to hang around with friends. Some of the best online this game offers comes in the intermissions where you're just goofing around in the world waiting for the next race to start.
• Local VS is pretty much perfect. You have the choice to play whichever tracks you want, routes and 3-lap tracks included. As of a recent update, you can even do Mushroom-Only races which are an absolute blast on routes as they turn into a chaotic race to find the biggest shortcuts.
• The roster is really charming and pretty big too with an impressive 50 total characters. The introduction of NPC drivers may seem weird at first, but I quickly grew attached to a lot of the new enemy characters like Para-Biddybud, Stingby, and Peepa thanks to their adorable animations. And speaking of which...  
• Mario Kart World is an absolute visual treat. Every character is animated wonderfully, the environments are bright and vibrant, and the whole game has this cartooniness to it that really stands out. I especially love the ragdoll physics on the vehicle whenever they tip to the side or get hit by an obstacle, really helps add to the chaos of everything.
• And of course, Mario Kart World has my favorite soundtrack of the year. Not only are the new track themes incredibly catchy and memorable, but there's also a massive 200+ selection of live-performed tracks remixes of old Mario tracks in a variety of genres ranging from jazz fusion to rock to EDM.

Cons 

• Online is a bit of a mess. As of right now, you don't really have a choice between playing routes and 3-lap tracks. If you like solely playing on the 3-lap courses, you're going to be forced to play a route around 50% of the time. And if you actually like the routes, you're gonna have to deal with the playerbase constantly selecting 3-lap tracks every chance they get.
• The routes are very hit-or-miss, particularly depending on the region. I think the stereotype of them all being straight-lines is a bit overexaggerated, but there are quite a few stinkers particularly when it comes to the water routes. (update: Sooo... Nintendo completely retooled the water routes and they're actually fun now?)
• The Battle Mode is a real let-down only boasting eight overly large arenas built into the open world, and a mere two modes. I do like the Balloon Battle ruleset, but the arena design just doesn't take much advantage of it. 
• Mario Kart World at launch had some rough edges that have thankfully been patched out like NPC drivers only being unlockable through the unpredictable Kamek system and not being able to see the collectibles you've already found on the map.
• There are some weird missing features in MK World. Particularly no stats menu, no individual lap times for Time Trial, no jukebox for listening to the aforementioned massive soundtrack, and no 200cc.
• Speaking of which, this is the slowest kart racer of the year, and the lack of 200cc only compounds that. If you like going really really really fast, this is not the game for you.
• Some of the tracks feel a bit too short and lacking in hazards, likely to compensate for Kamek who's too rare to actually make up for this. 
• It's $80 if you don't get the bundle. I don't think anything else needs to be said about that. 

Sonic Racing Crossworlds

Pros

• The drifting feels really nice, especially if you can get a gadget that speeds up how fast your drift charges since it basically allows you to snake ala Mario Kart DS. I can't understate how much snaking improves this game for me, I'd find Crossworlds a lot more boring without it.
• The gadget mechanic is great and allows you to come up with so many different racing builds. While I personally love my snaking build, you can basically configure Crossworlds to play however you want. Heavyweight builds? Builds focused on stealing rings from other players? Glass cannon builds? They're all valid. 
• The track design is consistently pretty solid, and I don't think there's a single course that's downright bad. While there are less Crossworlds than there are routes in Mario Kart, none of them come even close to being as bad as MKW's worst routes, they all have enough turns and cuts to feel engaging.
• Crossworlds' approach to Grand Prix is pretty great. It takes the rival concept that MKW introduced and fleshes it out even further, and the final race being a mix of the previous three tracks works better than it sounds.
• The Time Trial Mode is probably my favorite in any kart racer to date, it's filled with features to help you improve, the addition of a Sonic-esque ranking system is brilliant, and the fact that completing Time Trials unlocks music makes you actually want to do them.
• This game is incredibly fast-paced especially on Super Sonic Speed. Some tracks will straight-up force you to let go of the acceleration because you won't be able to make a turn otherwise, which I always love to see in these racing games.
• There's achievements and most of them are pretty fun to do, they're a great addition if you need extrinsic motivation in these party games.
• For the most part, online is quick, streamlined, and easy to get into. There's no frills, you're most-likely gonna get a track you enjoy, and the emotes are charming.
• The roster is solid and has pretty much all of the important Sonic characters you'd want, and the free updates are adding even more great Sega characters for no extra cost.
• The soundtrack is very fun and very diverse, lots of catchy J-rock and memorable vocal tracks like Blizzard Valley and Aqua Forest. It didn't make the best first impressions, but I can definitively say that Crossworlds' OST is the best Sonic soundtrack since Frontiers, it's genuinely really good.
• There's an actual jukebox and you can even assign music to races which is a fun addition.

Cons

• The default settings feel pretty awful. You pretty much need to go into the settings menu and crank down the sensitivity if you want to have a good time with Crossworlds.
• Race Park is one of the worst VS Modes I've seen in a kart racer. The AI rival mechanic is a dreadful grind, all of the team-based modes are incredibly unfun as they force you to stick behind with your team, and the custom match doesn't even let you disable Crossworlds entirely.
• Speaking of which, I don't actually like the Crossworlds that much. With how little of them they are, they got repetitive fast and often feel less engaging than the standard tracks. I also don't like how you don't actually get to hear full music tracks in this game because they get cut off after 40-50 seconds.
• Like with Mario Kart, some of the tracks can feel too short and too lacking in hazards. Unlike in Mario Kart though, there's no Kamek to make up for this.
• The online Festivals are a big mistake. You're not allowed to do standard online races while a Festival is active, so you're forced into team races for the entire weekend. And as I mentioned, I think the team-based modes in Crossworlds are really unfun.
• The single-player content here is the worst out of these three games. There's nothing on the level of Free Roam or Road Trip, but what's especially shocking is that this is the first Sonic racing game since R to not have either a Story Mode or a Mission Mode (or both in the case of Riders!).
• The jukebox doesn't actually let you assign individual music tracks to individual tracks. Instead, you pick a record and it'll play a random music track for each lap which feels oddly restrictive for no reason.
• The vehicle customization simultaneously feels too limiting and too overly-complicated, especially with how clunky the menus are. This is a problem with the whole game actually, Crossworlds' UI is really bad and screams live service game with how many annoying pop-ups there are all over the place.
• Crossworlds' art direction is really bad. The decision to make this game in UE5 really harms it with the harsh bloom and poor lighting. The character and vehicle animations are also very stiff, the textures are rough, and the game as a whole feels pretty sauceless and lacking in visual identity.
• The progression in Sonic Racing Crossworlds is such a massive grind. Many of the achievements require you to do tons and tons of races, and the amount of tickets the game gives you feels way too small for how much there is to buy. The Friendships mode is the biggest culprit as you'll need around 50,000 tickets per character to unlock everything in it (keep in mind, the game gives you like 50 tickets per race).
• While the soundtrack is good for sure, the actual sound quality can sound a bit cheap and muffled on occasion. It's definitely not as crisp-sounding as the live-performed tracks for Mario and Kirby.
• I can't really say that much of what Crossworlds brings to the table feels especially novel within the genre. Like half of its best ideas are ripped straight from the much better Transformed, and the main Crossworlds gimmick doesn't land for me so I don't really see myself coming back to this one over Mario Kart 8 if I ever want a no-frills kart racing experience.
• Not a fan of how the DLC has been handled. The crossovers with non-video game characters like Spongebob and TMNT feel awkward and gimmicky. The DLC tracks so far have felt a lot less polished than the main game ones, and the DLC characters lack voice-lines so what's even the point.
• It's a $70 game with $20 DLC and honestly, it feels the least worth its price out of any of these three games. I put like 15 hours into Crossworlds before getting bored.

Kirby Air Riders

Pros

• Kirby Air Riders' mechanics are weird, but so damn fun once you get the hang of them. I love how punchy the drifting feels, and the game manages to balance a ton of wacky concepts like aerial movement, taking out enemies to speed up, combat mechanics, copy abilities, and special moves impressively well.
• Each and every vehicle in Air Riders plays entirely differently, but they all have their own strengths that make them viable in any of the modes. Further adding to the complexity is the fact that there are also over 20 racers to play as, each with their own unique strengths and perks, so finding a racer/vehicle combo that synergizes really well feels especially good.
• Air Riders is fast and it doesn't even have speed classes. Even the basic Air Ride mode will have you darting across the track and it feels exhilarating. And in City Trial, you can build up your vehicle to go nigh-uncontrollably fast, and it's wonderful.
• The Air Ride mode has some of the coolest tracks I've ever seen in a racing game. Waveflow Waters, Crystalline Fissure, Steamgust Forge, Cavernous Corners, Cyberion Highway, and the final track are instant classics for their varied biomes, large amounts of branching paths, crazy setpieces, and stunning visuals. You also get all the Air Ride courses from the original game and they feel fantastic with these new and improved mechanics.
• Top Ride is a cute little addition that may have the least depth out of any of the modes, but it's still a wonderfully fun and chaotic battle mode that absolutely trounces any of Mario Kart's Battle Modes.
• City Trial is still the best mode in any kart racing game, and it's somehow even better here. 16 players, way more events and challenges, a new map with shifting terrain, more legendary vehicles, tons of quality of life improvements that keep up the pace, and of course, online play to really help the mode live up to its fullest potential.
• There's an actual Story Mode here in the form of Road Trip, and it's a ton of fun. Road Trip brings together all three gameplay styles into one campaign, and its fast pace and roughly 3-4 hour length prevents it from overstaying its welcome.
• The checklist is easily the most addictive and rewarding progression system in any kart racer, boasting a whopping 750 achievements to chip away at. Despite how overwhelming it may seem, completing the checklist never feels like a grind because you're constantly unlocking stuff and all the missions are smartly designed to encourage you to experiment.
• The customization in Kirby Air Riders is on another level, you can really transform the look of your machines but the UI remains easy to parse through. You also have hats to put on the playable characters, a customizable license card to use online, and garages to display all your vehicles.
• The online functionality is easily the best out of all of these three games. The paddock system is immensely charming and gives you a lot of freedom when it comes to playing matches with friends. All three major modes have online support and their own separate ranks, and while there are events, they're never forced on the player.
• In general, the sheer amount of content in Air Riders is staggering. I'm over 20 hours in and I'm still discovering tons of new secrets, features, and unlocks. There's a ton of online and accessibility features, an incredibly robust stats page, and a wide variety of superfluous features that only make the game feel even more complete.
• There's a robust shop with tons of decals, customization options, and collectibles to purchase, and you actually get the funds to be able to buy them all. Unlike in Crossworlds, you can get around 1000-2000 coins per race depending on the game mode, and that's not even counting the machine stock market.
• The UI in Kirby Air Riders is some of Sakurai's absolute finest, it's all visually-interesting, well laid-out, and easy to navigate.
• Visually, Kirby Air Riders looks incredible on every level. The character animations are wonderfully fluid (especially for Lololo & Lalala who are a joy to watch with their constant character switching), the tracks look gorgeous and cinematic, and the game is filled with thrilling and snappy visual effects that accentuate everything. Sakurai's art direction is also at its best here, with some Road Trip sequences in particular giving off Subspace vibes in the best ways possible. Simply put, I'd argue Kirby Air Riders is one of the most stylish kart racing games I've ever played.
• And of course, the soundtrack by Shogo Sakai and Noriyuki Iwadare is incredible. The main themes are massive ear-worms, the track themes are all incredibly catchy and varied, and the remixes of old Air Ride tracks are lovingly crafted and often surpass the originals. There's also a music player and a functioning My Music feature so you can listen to whichever songs you want in City Trial.
• It's a $70 game... but it actually feels worth the price in terms of its content and production values. And on top of that, there's no DLC, no microtransactions, and no live service bullshit whatsoever. It's a complete package through and through.

Cons

• Kirby Air Riders isn't going to be for everyone. It's a very unconventional game and a lot of people have bounced off of it. But that's not even really a con, is it? I'd rather a game be entirely itself even if it alienates a more mainstream audience.
• The music player doesn't show who composed each track which is especially jarring in a series otherwise great at crediting its composers. I'm genuinely desperate to know which songs Noriyuki Iwadare was responsible for.
• The roster feels like it has some gaps. In particular, the lack of Adeleine or Ribbon anywhere in the game is baffling.
• One or two events in City Trial cause the framerate to dip a noticeable amount. You could argue it adds to the chaos, but I found it distracting.
• Road Trip doesn't randomize the missions with each playthrough, so I can definitely see it getting way too repetitive if you try to beat it with every character. 
• The Time Trial modes don't have any online leaderboards, you're just racing against yourself here. 
• There's only 18 Air Ride tracks which means this game has by far the least amount of courses out of these three games. That being said, the other modes do make up for this, especially if you count the nine Top Ride tracks and the 50 Stadium events.

So... Which One's The Best?

It's Kirby Air Riders, obviously. I don't even think it's especially close. Mario Kart and Crossworlds both have their share of pretty blatant flaws, but I could look past them in Mario Kart's case because it pushes the genre forward in so many exciting ways. I love the parkour system, I love the interconnected world, and I love the more chill and lax approach to kart racing. It's a very cohesive game and all of its design choices, both good and bad, feel like they're contributing to one deliberate vision. Crossworlds is a more traditional and safe kart racer that lacks some of Mario Kart's more baffling omissions, but I also find it a lot more boring and a lot less remarkable. Kirby Air Riders, at least for me, is the best of both worlds. It has the sauce and the mechanical ambitions of Mario Kart, and the greater breadth of options and features that Crossworlds touted.

Winner: Kirby Air Riders 

Ranking Kirby Air Riders Tracks

Well, I suppose I ranked the tracks for Mario Kart and Sonic Racing so I might as well come back to complete the trilogy. Kirby Air Riders has just released and I'm still kind of stunned it exists. I've gone on about how much I love the original game despite its obvious balancing issues. The sheer variety of vehicle builds, creative modes like City Trial and Top Ride, multi-tiered track design, and immensely satisfying "push and release" drift system made for a kart racer unlike anything else on the market. It's such a strange oddball of a cult classic that a sequel or even a remake felt like a pipe dream, and yet we somehow got both in the same package.

Sakurai's sequel to Kirby Air Riders feels like the full realization of his initial vision, fixing pretty much every single issue with the original game and elevating everything that did work. Air Riders is faster, snappier, more polished and yet more chaotic at the same time. The vehicles are far better balanced, there's more playable characters than just Kirby, City Trial has more events and challenges, Top Ride's gameplay is less mechanically simplistic, there's a Story Mode that's actually kinda solid, the list goes on. And just to sweeten the deal, this game even brought back the original nine tracks allowing me to enjoy them in clean HD with those improved controls, it's truly euphoric. For as much as I loved Mario Kart World and... reasonably enjoyed Crossworlds, Kirby Air Riders is easily my favorite of the three. Hell, it's probably my new favorite kart racer period, and an easy contender for my Game Of The Year. It's got all the mechanical weirdness I love to see in this genre, but with the polish, presentation, and content to further elevate it into something truly special.

But enough with the rambling, time to rank all 18 Air Ride tracks in Kirby Air Riders:

18. Nebula Belt

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Nebula Belt was Air Ride's sole unlockable track and it was a massive let-down, basically played out as a very sluggish drag race with a few wide turns. There's the occassional ramp and item box, but for the most part, Nebula Belt is a track where pure raw speed beats out pretty much everything else and it's just plain boring. The one thing carrying this track is the stellar visuals and atmosphere which is only amplified in Air Riders, but unfortunately the improved mechanics just can't save such simplistic track design. This is still easily the weakest track in the game and it only sticks out even more like a short thumb with how stellar all the other tracks in Air Riders are.

17. Fantasy Meadows

Fantasy Meadows is obviously an iconic first track and it does look spectacular. The big-ass windmill tree in the center makes for a very striking visual setpiece, and the music is stellar as usual. Unfortunately, the actual track design is pretty barebones even for a first track. It's got one wide turn with optional rails and boost pads, and a sharper turn near the end, but that's pretty much it. It's a 20-second-long track that felt overly short even in the original game. It's a great pick for grinding out races or if you want to try the 99-lap endurance run, but that's pretty much it.

16. Floria Fields

Floria Fields is a perfect showcase of how well Kirby Air Riders improves on the faults of its predecessors. While this is still a fairly simple first track, it is quite a bit longer with more turns of increasing narrowness and a bit more visual variety with an extended cave section and a gorgeous rail-grind through a storm of petals. It accomplishes everything Fantasy Meadows does while feeling a lot more developed and replayable, and the stunningly beautiful floral scenery helps give Floria Fields an identity of its own. I'd easily say Floria Fields beats out both Mario Bros Circuit and E-Stadium as the best first track out of these three kart racers, and the only reason it's not higher is because the standards here are just that high.

15. Magma Flows

Magma Flows is a track that never fully came together for me. It has a fairly bit of memorable setpieces like the split rail paths, the spinning boost panels, and that one big flight over lava, and the hellish molten atmosphere is incredibly striking, but the sense of flow that I tend to love in Air Ride tracks just isn't fully here. I also think Magma Flows is seriously harmed by that aforementioned lava flight because if you don't have a vehicle with aerial mobility, you are severely screwed and right at the end of the track too. The better balancing in Air Riders does make this less of an issue, but it still holds Magma Flows back compared to other tracks in the game.

14. Airtopia Ruins

The fact that Airtopia Ruins is this low is a testament to how good Air Riders' new tracks are because this is a really cool course. It's a very platforming-heavy track that has you boosting across floating islands in the sky, and there's a lot of cool split paths and jaw-dropping vistas. I also have to appreciate how well Airtopia Ruins is able to accomodate ground vehicles while still giving aerial vehicles clear advantages with its upper paths. However, what holds Airtopia Ruins back just a bit compared to other courses is how bumpy it is occasionally, with simply driving on the terrain often being enough to send you into flight mode when you're not intending to. It's not a deal-breaker by any means, but with such a high bar for quality, even little gripes like this can mean a lot when I'm ranking the tracks.

13. Celestial Valley 

Celestial Valley is a rare retro track that I actually think got worse in Air Riders. The original Celestial Valley for me was a highlight with its moody moonlit atmosphere and the way it fluidly integrates rail-grinding, but this version ends up having very similar issues to Airtopia where the bumpy terrain keeps sending you into flight mode on accident and interrupting the flow. I also think the brighter visuals just don't look as striking as in the original. That's not to say Celestial Valley is bad in Air Riders though, far from it, it's still a very fun track with lots of branching paths, a very fun water slide at the end, and a standout musical track to this day. 

12. Sky Sands

Unlike Celestial Valley, I think Sky Sands got a massive glow-up here. This is a fairly cramped track that I always felt didn't play too well with the original game's controls, but the improved mechanics of Air Riders lets Sky Sands' track design truly shine like never before. The enhanced visuals look stunning, the abundance of bumps and blockades makes it so any vehicle type feels viable, and I love all the hidden paths and secret nooks that make Sky Sands feel like these truly mysterious ruins. I do still think Sky Sands' overall track layout is a bit too simple for it to be a truly standout course, but I am glad to say I got a much better appreciation for me thanks to this incarnation.

11. Mount Amberfalls

Mount Amberfalls is a fun change of pace for the Air Riders formula, being a mostly linear gauntlet that has you riding down a mountain. There are a few small split paths, but the vast majority of this course is focused entirely on razor-sharp cornering. You'll be having to do back-to-back-to-back hairpins which would be a nightmare in any other racing game, but in Air Riders, it feels so damn satisfying. The flow state you can enter in Amberfalls is absolutely unreal, and it became my go-to course for testing out vehicles in the demo. However, this focus on pure driving does come at the cost of Amberfalls lacking a bit in crazy gimmicks, not to mention just how much aerial vehicles really struggle here. I'm also a bit confused as to why this is the penultimate track, it's really not as hard as some of the ones to come before it. Still a very fun and original course though, and visually stunning to boot even by the standards of Air Riders.

10. Waveflow Waters

From what I can tell, Waveflow Waters seems to be the big fan favorite course so far and it's not hard to see why. It's easily one of the most original beach tracks by kicking off with you driving through a parted sea before spending the rest of the course drifting over a raging whirlpool. It's an incredibly fast and frantic course high on visual spectacle, and it's all set to a banging earworm of a rock tune really solidifying the mood. The track design is also quite varied featuring a lot of sharp turns and a dedicated aerial path that pretty much transforms the feel of the course depending on what vehicle you use, it's very well-balanced. That being said, Waveflow Waters is still the second track of the game so it does feel a bit short compared to some of the later courses. Still incredible, but once again, the bar is very high.

9. Cavernous Corners

Some of the best Air Riders courses feel like they're telling a story through the track design, and Cavernous Corners is one of the best examples of this, having you start in a jungle and slowly descend down into a cave. You travel through a mineshaft, ancient ruins, and a treasure room, each with their own unique gimmicks like rolling boulders, Waddle Dees in minecarts, dangerous spikes, Golems, and geysers that push you up. This is a track that changes things up every few seconds and it makes for an incredibly thrilling experience, only amplified by the stellar atmosphere and gorgeous soundtrack. My only gripe here is that Cavernous Corners is a bit lacking in branching paths, though that's partially made up for by it having arguably the most hidden and hard-to-reach shortcut in the entire game.

8. Beanstalk Park 

Beanstalk Park may seem a bit unassuming after Frozen Hillside and Magma Flows, but it's actually an impeccably-designed course that utilizes rails to implement a ton of branching paths that you can hop between pretty much at will. Everything flows really well too, pulling off a clean run of Beanstalk Park just feels really nice, even if it's not especially hard. Though what really elevates Beanstalk Park for me is, of course, that iconic ferris wheel shortcut. There is no better feeling than being caught by the ferris wheel in Beanstalk Park, and it adds this perfect element of luck/skill to make races feel more unpredictable.

7. Crystalline Fissure

I'm just gonna say it, Crystalline Fissure is the most visually-stunning track in the game. This entire course is made up entirely of shimmering crystals and it looks absolutely gorgeous especially coupled with its heavenly music track, and that's not even mentioning the downright trippy rail-grind sequences that have you fly through caves of multicolored stalactites and bizarre crystalline formations. But how's the track itself? Very good actually. It starts off unassuming enough, but the track keeps amping up the pressure as it goes on with increasingly tighter pathways, culminating in you being sent down to the track's molten core to fend off against a giant dragon that shoots crystals at you. The turns are tight and have a wonderful flow to them, and there's a lot of really thin upper pathways that are deceptively challenging to stay on which helps give Crystalline Fissure a really great skill ceiling. This is one of those tracks that's just begging me to master them, and I can't wait to keep improving at its many twists and turns.

8. Frozen Hillside

Frozen Hillside was always the point where Air Ride let off the kiddy-gloves with its track design, and it makes for such a frantic and memorable course. The opening section with its precarious upper path, the wobbly bridge, the ring boosts, the icicle cave, the infamous U-turn staircase, the ice slide, there are so many standout setpieces here so it never feels like there's a dull moment. It all makes for a consistently challenging course that still feels satisfying to master. The atmosphere in Frozen Hillside is also an obvious standout with its gorgeous aurora sky and iconic giant frosted whale flying around, all adding up to an easy contender for best track in the original game. Unfortunately, in the context of Air Riders, the competition is just that steep.

5. Checker Knights

With Nebula Belt being such a disappointment, Checker Knights ultimately ends up being OG Air Ride's big final gauntlet track, and it nails that role perfectly. For starters, the surreal visuals are still so striking, especially once you enter the lower section of the track with its neon lights. But the track design itself is also stuffed to the brim with memorable setpieces, awe-inspiring moments, and rewarding bits of challenge. The icy hairpins at the start, the shortcuts hidden behind breakable walls, the spinning tube, the powerful rail cuts that require extremely tight turns to hit, and the final two forts that can easily screw over your run if you're not careful. Just a truly wonderful track all around.

4. Steamgust Forge

Theming-wise, Steamgust Forge is definitely a standout for being a factory track set in a steampunk city. As you'd expect from a factory course, the track design is very tight with lots of sharp turns, branching paths, and cool obstacles like molten lava pools and conveyor belts making for a solid challenge. Out of all of Air Riders' tracks, Steamgust Forge feels like the one that splits up the aerial and ground vehicles most often with both vehicle types basically getting their own separate paths, culminating in a jaw-dropping final cinematic setpiece that has you hopping across blimps. The better your flight stats, the faster this sequence will go by, but the rest of the track feels balanced enough that you can still fare pretty well with a ground vehicle regardless unlike in, say, Magma Flows. There truly is a lot to love in Steamgust Forge, it's visually-inventive, mechanically dense, and absolutely lives up to the original game's factory course while still having a unique identity of its own.

3. Galactic Nova

Wow, what an apology for Nebula Belt! Kirby Air Riders' secret unlockable track isn't just an actually good track, it's hands down the coolest spectacle in the game basically letting you play out Super Star's battle with Nova in the form of a kart racer. It starts with a frantic intergalactic war set outside Nova, before you enter the giant comet and work your way through to its heart. While I do think the early stretch is admittedly a bit flat, once you enter Nova, this track just kicks into overdrive with a slew of crazy setpieces, tricky track design, dangerous obstacles, and split paths that accomodates for pretty much every single vehicle type you can think of. It's a perfect final test of everything you've learned throughout the game while still being able to get in a ton of impressive visuals along the way. You can definitely make the argument that Galactic Nova is one of the best final tracks in any kart racer now, and the fact that it's still not #1 is a testament to how stellar Air Riders' track design is.

2. Machine Passage

Machine Passage was always my favorite track in the original Air Ride and one of my favorite kart racing tracks ever, and guess what? It still is! Machine Passage is a tense and frantic factory track known primarily for its constant back-to-back 90 and 180-degree turns that may seem brutal at first, but feel immensely satisfying once you can get them down consistently. But being a factory stage, there's also a lot of fun gimmicks from split paths to conveyor belts to slanted platforms to bumpers to fans to windmills, it's all so perfectly paced. The icing on the cake for me, though, is the stellar atmosphere. The cold blue interiors juxtaposed by the haunting sunset-lit exterior makes for such a moody setting for a race track and that's only amplified by Jun Ishikawa's intense and heavy techno score that still stands out as one of my favorite pieces of Kirby music ever. I've played Machine Passage so many times and it still hasn't gotten old, an absolute stone cold classic if I've ever seen one.

1. Cyberion Highway 

Cyberion Highway shouldn't work. This track is absolutely nuts, tossing so many crazy ideas at the player and a frenetic race. There's hidden rail shortcuts all over the place, parts of the track that just disappear on you or straight-up turn into boost panels, a split path that either shrinks you or turns you big, fake-out rail grinds, and lots and lots and lots and lots of branching paths all over the place. There's so much going on and it should all feel really gimmicky, but it just doesn't. Cyberion Highway actually has a stellar flow with a great sense of rhythm to pulling off all its turns, and the sheer amount of split paths and mechanical variety make this course pretty much endlessly replayable. And of course, that's not to mention this track's unhinged and visually-overwhelming cybernetic visuals that still manage to stand out even by this game's high standards. I wasn't sure if any of Air Riders' new tracks would manage to beat Machine Passage in terms of sheer elegance, but Cyberion Highway managed to by being the exact opposite. This track is unhinged, chaotic, and frenetic as hell just like Air Riders as a whole, and it's all the better for it.