What each stat does in Kirby Air Riders

Kirby Air Riders is not your typical racing game. Nowhere is this more evident than with its heavy focus on stats (aka patches) in two of its main game modes, City Trial and Road Trip.

kirby rides a unicycle in kirby air riders.

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To get the most out of Kirby Air Riders and progress in the City Trial, you need to understand the ins and outs of stat upgrades and what each one actually does. Here is a complete walkthrough.

How do statistics work?

A statistics screen for final results in the Kirby Air Riders' City Trial.

The main mode that stats are important for is City Trialbut they also appear in Road Trip as rewards for completing challenges. During a City Trial match, the map is full of stat upgrades, which appear as massive symbols that can be run through to pick them up. Stats can also be earned in events, stolen from other players by attacking them, and found in blue breakable boxes.

Be careful with power-down patches, as they actually remove points. You can tell they are off if they are grayed out.

One of the main goals of City Trial is find as many stat upgrades as possible to give yourself a strong build. You can either focus on a certain stat if you want to specialize, or try to round yourself out a bit so that the final minigame doesn't surprise you. That's only part of it though, as you also need to understand the stats themselves. Here are each stat and what they do.

Every stat upgrade, explained

State	Effect
	Boost appears as stacked purple arrows pointing forward, and it affects your machine's accelerationas well as giving your Charge Boost more energy.
Lift
	Top Speed looks like a blue fireball, and it affects, you guessed it, the highest speed that your machine can reach. It is very useful for most machines, but you will want to be careful not to collect too many and go too fast if your Rider and Machine are already speed based.
Top speed
	Turn looks like a green arrow spinning around, and the more you have, the better your machine can turn. Some machines, like the Chariot and Scooter Bike, don't need this, but the Slick Star and Turbo Star definitely do.
Turn
	The charge stat looks like a battery and, as the name suggests, affects it how quickly your machine can fill the Boost Charge meter. Fee-based machines like Rocket Star and Bulk Star will take advantage of as many of these as possible.
Charge
	Gliding stats look like wings, and they affect how easy it is for your machine to slideas well as how quickly and long they can stay in the air. Machines such as Paper Star and Jet Star are suitable for sliding constructions, but you don't want to bother with heavier vehicles.
Slide
	Weight stats appear as brown weights, and they are one of the more complicated stats in the game. The more you have, the easier your machine is to control and the more damage it causes when it crashes into other machines. As said, it also affects the glideso you don't want to load it up if you're trying to stay in the air.
Weight
	Offensive stats are orange and look like a hit. A fairly simple one like this, Attacks increase how much damage your attacks domaking it a good thing to focus on for heavier Machines or if you're a light Machine that needs a little more power.
Attack
	Defense stat upgrades coming increase the amount of damage resistance your machine haswhich makes it last longer against attacks.
Defense
	Collecting HP stat upgrades, which are shaped like red hearts, will increase the amount of health your machine has. Unlike some of the other stats, this doesn't really have a negative attribute, so collect as many as you can without worrying. It's good for making weak machines like Paper Star more viable, while polishing already strong machines.
HP

It is also worth considering each rider has built-in stats that you can see when you select them. For example, Starman and Meta Knight are built to glide, while Dedede and Chef Kawasaki are fast and powerful. Keep these in mind, as they will also affect the type of stats you want to go for.

How to get the most out of the statistics

Rick's character stats in Kirby Air Riders.

While it may seem like you just want to collect as many stat upgrades as possible and be a total powerhouse in Kirby Air Riders, you should actually be a little more strategic when you can. Going too far or not going far enough with certain stats can make some Machines a nightmarelike if you increase the top speed of the turbo star too much or don't put enough weight on the scooter.

If you go too far in one direction, consider switching machines or intentionally losing some stats by getting into fights or looking for shutdown patches.

True mastery of Kirby Air Riders' City Trial comes from focusing on one specialty as much as possible, while carefully rounding out the stats you're lacking in. Of course, you can't always control what machine and stats you'll get, but you Can check which Rider you're entering with and what type of build you might want to search for.

Overall, you will want to start learning what each machine is best at, what weaknesses you want to compensate for, which machine suits your rider bestand which stats you don't want too much of. If you do that and keep things relatively balanced, you'll be on your way to winning City Trial matches in no time.