Kirby Air Riders' New City Trial Has A Bizarre Finale

I have a lot of nostalgia for the original Kirby Air Ride, and in particular, its City Trial mode. While Mario Kart spun its wheels with its tired balloon battle mode, Kirby was cooking. City Trial was Kirby Air Ride’s crown jewel; a multiplayer mad dash across a city to collect power-ups, build your air machine, and prepare for a final, winner-take-all showdown.

City Trial has stood the test of time thanks to its originality and variety. Between its randomized events throughout the trial and a mystery finale, every City Trial run is a new experience. Unsurprisingly, City Trial is back in Kirby Air Riders’ and, thankfully, largely unchanged. There are some new features, like the ability to steal machines from opponents, and new events, but the game mode remains the City Trial you know and love… until the end. For the sequel, Bandai Namco and Sora Ltd. elected to give each player the option to choose the finale they want - a small change that has a big, confusing impact on the entire game mode.

Kirby Air Ride’s City Trial Was A Flawed Masterpiece

If you’re not already familiar, here’s how the original City Trial worked. Four players had seven minutes to roam a sizable map, picking up as many power-up badges as possible. Each badge you picked up would increase one of nine stat lines, like boost, glide, and weight. You could also swap to different machines scattered around the map, which would significantly alter your stats.

Every few minutes, a random event would trigger on the map. Some events were hazards, like the meteor storm, that could damage you and make you lose your badges. Other events would concentrate a large number of badges in one area of the map, encouraging players to fight over the supply for a quick stat boost.

Once time ran out, the stadium event would begin. There were eight of these events, with each one favoring a particular stat. One would be selected at random, and whoever won the stadium event won the entire city battle.

The random nature of the stadium event meant that it was difficult to effectively prepare during the city trial. If the finale were a drag race, whoever had the top speed and boost had a significant advantage. If instead the stadium was air glide, then however had the highest glide and lowest weight stats would almost certainly win. Collecting as many badges as possible was typically the best strategy, regardless of what stats they boosted.

This didn’t leave a lot of room for strategy, but that didn’t hold City Trial back from becoming an iconic game mode. The speed, exploration, and moment-to-moment excitement of collecting piles of badges and battling your friends more than made up for the random nature of the stadium event.

Kirby Air Riders Tries To Bring Deeper Strategy To City Trial

The sequel makes one change to the City Trial formula that completely changes the way this game mode works. Instead of randomly selecting a stadium mode for you, players will now choose the event they want to compete in - and they don’t all have to choose the same event. Each person can choose the event best suited for the stats of their machine, and instead of competing head-to-head, you’ll all split up into your own separate events.

I can see why the developers decided to make this change. If you can choose the finale you want, it’s much easier to decide which badges to focus on during the city trial. It gives players the opportunity to create custom builds, then rewards them for that effort in the stadium event. If you spent the entire trial focusing on finding glide badges and avoiding weight badges, it feels pretty good to glide a mile past your opponents in the final showdown.

The problem comes from the fact that everyone gets to have their own stadium event. If two players choose the same event, they will compete, but if everyone chooses a different one, you’ll all play in separate events. This creates a couple of awkward outcomes. First, some events are shorter than others, so if you finish your event first, you’ll just be left sitting there waiting for the other players to complete theirs. You can’t even watch them play; you’re just stuck looking at your own scoreboard and waiting for everyone to finish up.

Secondly, you can end up with multiple winners, which makes the whole thing feel pretty anticlimactic. You spend the entire City Trial ramming into each other and racing to collect the most badges, but in the end, everyone somehow gets to share first place? I know Nintendo games aren’t always designed to be the most competitive, but a head-to-head mode should at least have an ultimate winner.

The new City Trial is 99 percent the same, but that one percent difference really sours the whole experience. As much fun as I had rushing around the city collecting badges, the end of each game left me feeling confused and unsatisfied. There had to be a better way to fix this problem. One solution would be to simply announce at the start of the city trial which stadium you’ll be competing in. That way, everyone knows which badges to focus on and can try to create their ideal build. Making City Trial multiple rounds with fewer stadium options each round could have worked, too. As is, I’m not sure I’ll enjoy the new mode as much as the original one. It’s less random, but that doesn’t make it more fun.

Kirby Air Riders