Kirby Air Ride (2003)

Game #34/200 I was surprised to see here, on this website, the praise that Kirby Air Ride has received from so many other people. It appears to be one of the higher rated Kirby titles, despite it being somewhat of a black sheep (even in a series that takes so many digressions from its usual formula). Kirby Air Ride was a hit title for Sakurai that received a somewhat lukewarm reception from critics, so I was ready to feel like somewhat of a contrarian by so highly praising this game, but it seems other (nostalgic) folks have also fallen for its charms. I did spend countless hours in city trial as a kid, obsessing over the game's built-in achievement system and staying up all night on several occasions dying to get another multiplayer match in, so I can't say that I've played Air Ride without any biases, but it holds up remarkably well. The graphics look fantastic for a 20-year old game. As you might expect, the art direction is really great with quite a few memorable enemy designs, items, and classic characters (Kirby, Meta Knight, DeDeDe). The vehicle choices are also really appealing and quite varied. The Dragoon vehicle is especially attractive, but there are plenty of fun looking ones. I'm a Swerve Star fanboy myself. The racetrack landscapes too look nice with some good environmental features and colorful backdrops. The music is also strong, with many familiar tunes mixed in with some new ones that fit with the various in-game events.

The presentation of the game, which uses menu screens ripped from Sakurai's masterpiece Super Smash Bros. Melee, features 3 distinct modes: Air Ride, City Trial, and Top Ride. All of them are rather different, and I'll detail my thoughts on each below. But the meat of the game is the large checklists of 120 challenges for each of the game's modes. It's not unlike the game design of something like Yakuza, which challenges you to complete various random tasks for completion marks. This sums up basically what it is:

For people like myself who are obsessed with lists and completion (and have been for several decades, going back to this game and achievement/trophy hunting only a few years after), this game's progression is like a dream. It's a blast to consult the checklist's board and hunt down new tasks to complete, especially if more than one can be completed simultaneously. The "free fill" boxes are also such a superb idea, as it takes the stress away from the one or two particularly unfair challenges that exist (get stomped by Dyna Blade), or frees you up to eliminate some less-than-interesting challenges.

Top Ride is the game's simplest mode and is more of a mini game type of race that features a top-down camera. I remember loving the short matches in multiplayer as a kid, and it was still a lot of fun competing with CPUs to complete challenges and find the secrets of each small map. There isn't much to comment on other than that this is a pretty fun mini game and a nice diversion from the main modes.

Air Ride is my 2nd favorite mode, and one that I could never click with as a kid as I had never been too partial to racing games. Nonetheless, I had a lot of fun with it this time around as I attempted to memorize the game's track to be the requisite times using various vehicles. The tracks and game play are so simple (using the control stick and a single button), but somehow there is still plenty of depth to the mechanics -- when to charge your boost, when to pick up enemy powers, flying vs. ground racing, choosing routes, etc. The limitation of single-button gameplay forced Sakurai and his team to develop other creative and interesting twists to the racing formula for it to be a fun experience. I think I prefer the simplistic Air Ride even to Mario Kart, although I would have to go back and play that series again to be certain.

Finally is City Trial mode, which consumed many hours of my childhood. The more I think about it, the more I feel this mode is a rogue-like. You enter a map with some other Kirbys on your vehicles, and race around for 5 minutes seeking up stat-up patches, new vehicles, etc. to boost your racer. Afterward, you all compete in a mini game. The person who powered up the most is likely to win depending on the randomized mini game. After that, the game tells you which challenges you've completed, which sometimes generates some unlocks. Rinse and repeat -- not unlike a modern rogue-like at all. It's difficult to pinpoint why this mode is so fun and addicting. There is a constant dopamine rush from picking up stat-up patches, even if you don't need them and they don't service you in any significant way. The gameplay loop of exploring, improving, and beating down your rivals, buttressed by the checklist board of tasks to complete is simply a blast.

The sixteenth Kirby game ever released and the ninth spin-off, this time HAL Laboratory experimented with the racing genre and created Kirby Air Ride.

Despite being a spin-off, it was heavily marketed, with two specials in the anime Kirby: Right Back At Ya, TV commercials and even printed ads... Which sadly didn't help that much, as the game sold less than one million copies and received mixed reviews.

Image taken from Wikirby

However, nowadays it has a cult following and it influenced other Nintendo games, especially the Super Smash Bros. series, developed by the same studio, and Smash Bros. Melee was created using the same engine, which is fairly obvious when you notice how similar the style and menus are.

And it's understandable that HAL Laboratory and Kirby fans still appreciate Kirby Air Ride, as it is a really original and interesting racing game with three modes, each one with 120 achievements to unlock, meaning that you can do 360 different challenges and get new vehicles, stages and characters in the process. Also, if you get 100 achievements in one mode, you unlock a bonus cutscene which serves as an ending , so, in order to "complete" the game, you need at least 300 achievements, something that takes way more time than your average Kirby adventure.

Of course, you don't have to do that in order to have fun, but it's a really nice alternative if you get bored from racing against other NPCs and players without a real objective, just like the challenges from the Super Smash Bros. series.

The first mode is Air Ride, which is the standard racing mode. You can customize the amount of laps or play in timed mode, as well as try to set records in the Free Run mode. It's the perfect place to start and accustom to the gameplay, which is fairly simple, as it only uses one button and the joystick, but every vehicle is unique and their controls are vastly different, so it's important to prove them and decide which one do you prefer or is better suited for the stage, as some of them are very useful in the air but slow in the ground, while others are really fast, but have a hard time with curves, and so on.

Image taken from Youtube

The second mode is Top Ride, where there are only two vehicles available to use and the courses are much shorter, but instead of trying to drive better than your opponents you have to use the random items that sometimes spawn (although you can turn them off if you want to test your skills) to win. It's pretty chaotic and fun, and because the gameplay is totally different, it is a nice change of pace if you get tired from the other modes.

Imagen taken from Wikijuegos

And the last mode is City Trial, perhaps the most popular one. It is divided in two sections: City trial, where you explore within a time limit a huge open world that is full with power-ups, random events, different zones with secrets and vehicles that you can change whenever you want, and the Stadium, where you use your powered vehicle to compite and prove you're better than your opponents in a random event, like a Destruction Derby where you have to defeat them as many times as you can, or a flying test where you have to glide farther than them.

Of course, the real fun is in the city, where the experience and strategy is never the same. Maybe in a round you will be attacked by Dynablade, or a UFO will invade the city, or all the vehicles will run amok, and these are just three examples from the many events that can happen. This is also the only mode with the Dragoon, the legendary vehicle that appears in Super Smash Bros. as an item, so you have to play for hours if you want to experience everything the mode has to offer.

Image taken from IGN

In conclusion, why was the game poorly received when it came out? Probably because if you don't know that you have to unlock most of the vehicles in Air Ride and how expansive City Trial really is, the game will feel pretty barebones and basic, especially if you compare it to other racing games like Mario Kart: Double Dash or F-Zero GX.

Which is a shame, as Kirby Air Ride offers a really original experience that no other racing videogame has and it deserves more than be known as an obscure Kirby spin-off for the Gamecube. Hopefully someday it will be released on newer platforms so more people can enjoy it.

The best way I can sum up the genius of Kirby Air Ride is as a game you play on your birthday. Each time I have played this with other people, whether new to the game or not, it feels like a game you have just unwrapped and eagerly cram into your Gamecube so you and your friend can try it out.

It's a massively multiplayer party game before each were fully defined. Okay, yes, both existed, but Kirby Air Ride takes enough chances to feel daring for its time and ours! Will I ever sit down and play by myself? Hmmm.. I don't know... Will I ever play for longer than one, short, possibly soft drug-fueled hangout/kickback? Hmmm... I don't know, the controls are kind of weird and it's offputting... that's what some of you may say but give it a chance amen

Sakurai is one of those gameplay auteurs who manages to showcase absolute mastery of how to challenge himself and then still bring out a great sense of depth and fun at every turn. This time it's, "hey what if we literally made a racing game around ONE button (and an analog stick i guess)"

That's the beauty of Kirby Air Ride, it's a rip roaring time with 3 solid game modes that utilize the most of the depth of its mechanics while also being a solid party game to play on the side. Whether you play on the well structured and designed race tracks in classic Air Ride with a multitude of different but very distinct karts, the minigame nature although probably weakest component known as Top Ride, or the total stat-grind rush and general party randomness structure of City Ride, you will have a shitton of fun to experience.

It manages to be more interesting than most racing games in general, especially with racing powerups that don't rely on luck factor as much as they do knowledge of the game (even the "random" obtaining powerups actually just come down to timing) and have more depth to show. It's also just incredibly accessible to jump in on, with a skill floor low enough that anyone can enter in.

It's a crazy good time that I'd recommend playing at any point you can, especially with friends through Parsec. (8/10)