Masahiro Sakurai has been in the news a lot lately, and a big part is due to his YouTube channel about “Creating Games.” The channel focuses on Sakurai’s views on the game design/development industry and his thoughts on key topics. However, he also dives into his personal history to reveal the behind-the-scenes facts about the games he worked on. In his latest video, he talked about the fan-beloved game Kirby Air Ride. A title that has a deeper history than you might realize.
For example, the reason that this and many other Kirby titles were made between 2001-2003 wasn’t specifically because of the success of previous games, but because Kirby just had its anime released in Japan. Adding that to the popularity of the character in Super Smash Bros Melee, which was a huge hit for the Gamecube, and you can see why Nintendo wanted to give Kirby as many games as possible.
As Masahiro Sakurai notes, the game had a focus on both drifting and having many unique ways to race. He even notes how he created the ‘achievements’ system long before Microsoft and Sony brought it to their systems. This was also the last game that Sakurai did before leaving Hal Laboratory to start Sora LTD. So check out the video on Kirby’s Air Ride below!
