Bizarre Spots in Kirby Air Ride's City Trial

I played a LOT of Kirby Air Ride as a kid. So much time spent in City Trial, just exploring this tiny map over and over and over and over and over and over. And over. It definitely has some weird spots. Watch the video to see them!!!!!!
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Music Used:
Intro - Opening (Kirby Air Ride)
00:34 - Air Ride - Ending (Kirby Air Ride)
01:55 - City Trial - City (Kirby Air Ride)
04:52 - Air Ride - CHECKER KNIGHTS (Kirby Air Ride)
08:17 - City Trial - City (Backside) (Kirby Air Ride)
13:20 - Air Ride - FROZEN HILLSIDE (Kirby Air Ride)
17:40 - Air Ride - FANTASY MEADOWS (Kirby Air Ride)
19:58 - City Trial - Dense Fog Today (Kirby Air Ride)
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[@genericname_]

When I was a kid I always assumed the Electric Lounge was like, a weird multi layer parking garage since different vehicles used to spawn on them a lot 😂

[@jobriq5]

It’s not a parking garage!?

[@gabeskai]

That's what I thought!

[@Frutiger_Ar00w]

Uh it isn't? What is it?

[@Pyco_]

Is it not?

[@CoolPorygon]

I can't believe it's not! My friends and I always called it "the big garage", since it was so close to the weird houses. As opposed to the underground garage.

[@coreyander286]

"Kirby, you've attained the Legendary Air Ride Machine: The Hydra! Now, go and demolish the dilapidated houses of the shantytown south of the city, to make room for the New Luxury Housing Development! It's okay Kirby, there aren't any squatters there anymore, and even if there are they aren't supposed to be there! Thank you, Kirby!" 🥰

[@andrewstephenson5825]

Feels like it would be a quest if there was a corporate route in Planet Robobot where Kirby joined the Haltmann Works Company

[@WinterMadness]

*Item Bounce starts playing*

[@kingofthegrill]

"Kirby, that submarine belongs to the Hylian Kingdom, they're our allies!"

[@gizoginjr]

The “dilapidated houses” are clearly made of sheet metal. There’s nothing “pre-industrial” about them. It’s a shanty town.

[@gwentarinokripperinolkjdsf683]

Yeah i thought that was a weird thing to say too. But also they still don't look like houses

[@Spudtron98]

The aesthetic of the City Trial (and the rest of Air Ride for that matter, just look at those menus) is _peak_ 2000s. You just don't get art design like this anymore. The game also exhibits that attention to detail that Sakurai is so well known for. There's so many little design choices that exist to both satisfy curiosity and to make sure that curiosity doesn't get you locked in an area. There's _always_ a way out. My sister and I spent _hours_ roleplaying in this city, and we imagined the room at 20:35 to be a secret lair for whatever bad guy we were imagining at the time. The purpose of the models generally alternated between representing investments that the antagonist had built that we should investigate, and them being _targets_ that we needed to protect.

[@PretzelYT]

I've seen a ton of people say they had their own little games they played in Free Run. I love that just letting the player hang out in an empty world gives them the opportunity to let their imagination run wild.

[@Sneavile]

I had almost the exact same experience as a kid, roleplaying with my sister in free run, pretending there was a villain's secret lair down there-- some of my fondest memories with my siblings were just us messing around in free run. And I totally agree, even though the map isn't really super flashy or complex, the amount of just... small, empty areas that serve no real purpose, seemed almost purposefully designed to satisfy the curiosity of a child. It was a special feeling finding the little closed off area under the volcano, or climbing to the very tippy top of the map, that made it intrinsically rewarding despite there being nothing there. Like you'd just found a secret hidden area, put there for only the most inquisitive to find, or sometimes like you weren't supposed to be there at all. The developers absolutely understood the value of pointless places and things put somewhere just because it was fun to find them.

[@SniperOnSunday]

Me and my brother would do the exact same thing.

[@mitwhitgaming7722]

As a kid, my friends and I used City Trial as a virtual playground where we screwed around instead of actually playing the game the way you were supposed to. It was a blast. We would play Hide and seek, and one of my friends would always go out of bounds in that spot next to the whirlpools. Also, in freeplay, that same friend would steal all of the stars and toss them into the ice room where you can't get them back out again. 😂

[@PretzelYT]

Your friend sounds like a no-good evil-doer. Good for them👑

[@Jethro-goro]

I remember messing around a lot in free ride too. I remember my friends and I would come up with minigames, like racing to the top of that floating platform above the city, or jumping across the treetops in the forest without touching the ground (sometimes with someone destroying the trees from below)

[@healthyminds9279]

What me and my friends did during City Trial freeplay, is semi-intentionally lose vehicles by getting off them at high places (so they go flying off the edge), and then try to find them. Some vehicles would be designated as air patrol for flyby searches, and others as ground patrol.

[@dood3530]

My and a friend did something similar as kids, playing out all kinds of made-up scenarios in the city. In our minds, the Electric Lounge was an apartment complex, with each floor being a different room that one of us lived in. The underground area with the stars was a shop, and we'd have to earn money doing various jobs to "buy" the stars we wanted. Castle Hall was a restaurant, and we'd often drive around town making deliveries.

[@SkadingleMadongle]

daamn, I used to do exactly this to a friend of mine back in the day... I was also that kind of guy that told him how I found all these weird glitches although I didnt find any

[@Equinox_Fox]

City trials is the game I want modern day party games to be. Throw ya on a map, randomize stats, randomize a challenge. It's just such a brilliant formula.

[@Robeebert]

They did it in smash 4 on the 3DS

[@ericcarvalhoferreira512]

It isn't.

[@matthewjones6786]

Smash Run was _amazing_ for this reason. Shame it was trapped on the 3DS!

[@VARVIS_]

Its so fucking good

[@sleettreat]

Molementum is similar to this

[@kikibrown1385]

A few tidbits that weren't covered in the video: -If you drive a star across the volcano bridge and into the volcano, it shoots you skyward towards the Sky garden much like the launch pad in the ice cave. If you jump in without a star, you can stand on the lava just fine. -In normal gameplay, the volcano actually has three breakable walls along its base. The one that feeds into the ice cavern changes each time you load the map with no way to tell until they're broken. -Red boxes inside the volcano were almost always a guaranteed legendary star part. Same goes for red boxes in the caves under the woods, and the plateau above the waterwheel. Red boxes in the garage, the castle, and higher floors of the Electric Lounge seemed to have a higher drop rate, as well. I remember as a kid, I knew about the out of bounds area beyond the first wall, but an incident stuck with me that scared me to turn off the game. I was fairly young, so games doing unexpected things made me panic. I vaguely remember playing city trial, and got the UFO event. I decided to stay on the UFO as it left the map, and instead of the collision preventing Kirby from going further, Kirby went even further out than the developers intended, and I voided out. I can't seem to find anyone to corroborate this being possible and I am unable to replicate this today due to no longer possessing a copy of the game. I wish someone could look into this and try replicating it to confirm if my memory's wrong or not.

[@lolAvalanche]

More than that, red boxes in the volcano can lack pieces, but any and all boxes that spawn in the rock area, underground woods, and the tunnel connected to the volcano will always be red boxes with pieces. This can be handy, if you’re in the underground city and see a box indicator through the wall it is guaranteed to be a piece.

[@Yoyomo124]

That’s UFO incident is crazy. Sounds like a real life creepypasta where the UFO was trying to abduct your Kirby or something. I would love to see someone recreate it on video.

[@shadybadger7896]

I would constantly ride the UFO to the invisible wall and not once did I ever go out of bounds with it

[@caseycat]

​@@shadybadger7896same, I always got pushed off by an invisible wall

[@edfreak9001]

i wish there were a way to force events for the sake of messing around/practice so people could try to find that UFO OoB

[@PhirePhlame]

One headcanon I've seen is that nobody actually lives in that city, because it was built solely for the purpose of being the venue for City Trials. (As a believer in that hc, I do like to imagine that this may make the modern City Trial a formalized, safer alternative to a more underground and illicit predecessor)

[@thewizardslime6764]

Ancient kirbies fighting in actual cities destroying houses and stuff... it was too unsafe so they moved to made up cities. I like that theory!

[@UnknownCleric2420]

Fun fact: If a red box appears on the little plateau in Green Canvas, as well as the dirt cave after the ice tunnel under the volcano, it is 100% guaranteed to drop a legendary machine part. Also, the golf holes in Green Canvas are actually a reference to the anime, Kirby Right Back At Ya - there's an episode where King Dedede is seen playig golf. A lot of KAR is inspired by KRBAY, even some of the machines from KAR appeared in the anime. Also, small correction: there's 120 checkboxes for each mode, not 100. Nice to see someone else mention the little flowers though! Always felt weird that there wasn't a third one on the sky garden, and honestly it'd make the "garden" part actually make sense.

[@coreyander286]

Never realized that _Kirby: Right Back At Ya_ formed an acronym that can be read like "Kirbay". 😶

[@Kit-pj5kq]

Never realized that _Kirby Air Ride_ formed an acronym that can be read like "Car". 😶

[@jebroiroij2176]

I’m pretty sure the references between Kirby Air Ride and the anime is due to them releasing either in America or in Japan at the same time, so the anime played a role in the development of the game

[@Draezeth]

​@@coreyander286 plus if you exclude the preposition "at", which you usually do in acronyms, you get "KRBY".

[@Swordkirby9999]

Given the crowd noises during play, I always took it like City Trial is some sort of game show

[@mr.lavander7145]

This is one of the most liminal Gamecube games ever. Contextless buildings with no people

[@averysmalman8191]

I've owned Kirby Air Ride since it came out, played it constantly as a kid, still playing it on and off...and I NEVER KNEW that each area of the city has an official name. It's no wonder why City Trial is what people remember most about Air Ride, there's so much stuff cramped into this relatively small map and so much to do. It's like a virtual playground that always has something new to find or a new way to experience it. Never mind Kirby Air Ride HD, just City Trial as a stand-alone game with online play would be a certain buy for me

[@leilaclarridge5807]

It should be noted that other species live on Pop Star, Kirby’s planet. In fact, his species seems rare, as only he and possibly Meta Knight and Galacta Knight are the only known members of his kind. The buildings are probably designed for a wide range of strangely built people, from small flying Bronto Burt’s to towering penguins like Dedede.

[@BeefinOut]

Depends on what you consider canon. I personally feel like there are only a handful of Kirbies, and the main character is a particularly dopey one, but Kirby and the Amazing Mirror features tons of Kirbies.

[@NicoleColenico]

@@BeefinOut Those are 'clones', 'copies'. The game shows Kirby being split on the opening cutscene

[@lucianosgonzalez3561]

Currently partway through the video and I want to note a thing for lore reasons: Kirby is a mostly unique entity in the Kirby mythos. There ARE Kirby sized beings, the waddle dees and waddle dos. The city's buildings are probably for them, rather than for a society of Kirbys.

[@coreyander286]

But just try not to remember the beings identical to Kirby who blow up enemies that block doorways in the last level of _Kirby's Dream Land_ or how the original ending of _Dream Land_ seemed to have a crowd of other Kirbys cheering in celebration, only retconned to be Waddle Dees in _Super Star._ 😬

[@SniperOnSunday]

​@@coreyander286Headcanon: Kirby extinction event

[@kingofthegrill]

Great Kirby Replacement

[@JohnLattanzio98]

One thing you forgot to mention: an alternative entrance to underneath the forest exists, you just need to stop on top of some leaves which you will fall through

[@topaz7462]

This map is as iconic as 2Fort and GM_Construct for me

[@riotwryy]

yes. you get it.

[@alexpollard2969]

Such a crazy little world, so memorable

[@ForgoneMoose]

My vote for the weirdest spot on the map is the cliff area you showed briefly around 13:29, but for very different reasons. Aside from having that one little flower you showed that doesn't actually do anything, it is, as far as I'm aware, the only truly completely useless area during normal gameplay. The wiki says it is the only area in the map where no items of any sort will ever spawn, and I don't see how going there would help you accomplish anything, like how going to the Garden in the Sky makes it easy to get on the UFO during the UFO event, for example. Even the other most out-of-the-way spots at least spawn legendary machine parts sometimes, but these cliffs get nothing. And despite all that, it's a weirdly substantial spot, being bigger than the volcano that it's adjacent to, with multiple different spires forming flat, tiered platforms for you to stop on and do nothing in particular. I was revisiting the game on a whim recently, glided up there accidentally during a match, and realized that I don't think I'd ever stopped and explored up there... like, ever. And I say that as someone who played the game a ton when it came out and already knew about most of the details you brought up in the video.

[@GourmetSubZee]

Those cliffs were always my safe spot to stay on during the meteors event if I was running low on HP -- pretty sure it's impossible for them to get impacted

[@healthyminds9279]

I feel like this video was made just for me. Kids today will never have a splitscreen experience as good as City Trial. I loved using my imagination to piece together the lore when I was playing. I think I thought of the miniature city model as being there because it could be a city constructioneer's secret underground house. Or it's some secret city council hideout that has nefarious plans for the city. One crazy thing about Freeplay, is that the game doesn't tell you that ALL the vehicles are underground in that one room. So it was a magical feeling to be exploring for quite a while, then stumble upon all those vehicles, which opens the floodgates for ideas for stuff to do. Apart from Freeplay mode, there's a lot of super weird lore stuff that's revealed by the random events. Like how you can ride on top of a MASSIVE UFO, the spotlight tower turning on and healing you, the Dynablade boss, the weird tower you can break, the fog, and more.

[@jayceofspades7195]

My friend and I used to play this soooo much, but not like it's supposed to be played, we'd just be messing around. A lot of times one of us would play a villain and one would be the hero, where the villain would be next to those underground models saying they're plans to destroy the city. The hero then had to chase them from there before they shattered the Star Pole and destroyed all the dilapidated houses. If they broke all them first they won, and if the hero broke their vehicle or knocked them out (Meta-Knight or King Dedede) they'd win.

[@Jethro-goro]

4:10 On this room, if your machine ever breaks in free ride it'll respawn here. Alas one shortcoming of this: it won't respawn unless all machines of that type are destroyed. If multiple people start with the same ride and someone's breaks, they're not getting it back.

[@Chadworthy_]

I knew there was text on those rail stations but it never even registered to me that they spelled out readable words… I was always too focused on where my next power up is! Thanks for this slowed down tour!

[@PretzelYT]

I don't think I ever paid attention to them either 😅 This series really has given me a chance to notice stuff like that.

[@acolite2341]

Modders should make a ROM hack that adds to this game mode, we got some for monkey Ball so it's not out of the question

[@blahthebiste7924]

I researched this a while back and it seems there are at least ones for changing the time limit and filtering events

[@Lampent12]

The Sky Garden feels like it could be some sort of observation deck with that glass floor.

[@nightfrostbreeze]

I always loved the juxtaposition of an ice cave being under a volcano. A very cool (heh) fantasy element.

[@SG-jq5vt]

Me and all my friend were certain that if a color of Kirby stood by each of the corresponding flowers maybe something odd would happen…

[@real_quotegoat]

I knew I was a true 'city trial homie' the moment you showed a blurred image of your favorite spot in the game and I knew where it was instantly

[@caseycat]

LMAO real

[@tiredfire444]

So, about the flowers... Some of my childhood friends tried to convince me that if you reach all three of them (there's only really two,) you can summon a kraken that will attack the castle. Of course this was false, but looking back, it was like my own little Mew-under-the-truck moment. And that felt really special to me.

[@CrazayFish1]

I haven't even thought about this game in a LONG time. I used to play this a ton with my cousins when I was a kid and went over their place. Eventually my parents got me my own copy as a gift for Christmas. City Trial was hands down my favorite game mode and my favorite part of it was just exploring around in free roam looking at all the different areas and driving around. Thanks for the video

[@kiwiandstoat]

This is such a good analysis.. I've had all these questions for years and its comforting to know others have wondered the same.. Some of these areas feel like no other game, and its so nice to see them explored like this

[@NormDeMoss]

My little sister and I loved this game way back when, and I've missed the feeling of exploring the city with another person. Haven't been able to do that in years.

[@PretzelYT]

Recently I played this with a childhood friend that I also played it with back in the day. It was so much fun jumping right back into it like a day hadn't passed. I said it elsewhere, but this game needs a remaster with online play. It'd be so fun to goof around with friends.

[@Emerald_Raven08]

God i loved messing around on this map when i bought my gamecube. It wasn't thet long ago but it's still nostalgic

[@JohnLattanzio98]

One theory I have for the model of the city underneath the forest is that the Kirbys initially lived there, but wanted a new way of life. So, they devised a scale model of their plans, and resurfaced to make it a reality.

[@Geffro]

I think the scale model is Tec's hideout, I think I remember him spawning there for the "tec stole items!" event

[@michellep3814]

Destroying the houses makes me feel like I’m supporting gentrification

[@coreyander286]

I would totally believe there was a Kirby anime episode about Dedede ordering a monster to help him gentrify a poor part of Cappy Town and trick Kirby into helping. I think one episode referenced American evangelicals burning the Harry Potter books.

[@domoru5264]

Ah a fellow Wheelie scooter enjoyer I knew I wasn’t the only one who adored it

[@hellothere4431]

i forgot all about that game mode. this video brought back so many childhood memories. remember playing this with my brother and cousins and we would all choose a spot of a map as our own territory and then would pretty much add a roleplay aspect to the game i would always try to claim the floating platform in the sky

[@PretzelYT]

I love how a mode with literally no objective causes the player to come up with weird little games of their own. It's so cool you all added a little roleplay side-mode.

[@ComfyCherry]

3:00 definitely a shanty town, they also appear to be scrap metal rather than stone (wait he says "stone structures" at 2:43 but "metal shacks" at 6:45)

[@PretzelYT]

I think I realized I made that "stone structures" comment after the fact, but I forgot to go back and fix it 💀

[@ComfyCherry]

@@PretzelYT lol, well shit happens XD

[@coreyander286]

@@PretzelYT I figured you just thought that humanity had corrugated iron roofing in prehistoric times.

[@christiancinnabars1402]

They seem to look like scrap metal, but they crack and break into dust and rocks when you destroy them. Very strange.

[@Cheeyze]

I spent an absurd amount of time here as a kid. Sometimes in the actual game modes, but mostly in Free Ride. I vividly remember every inch of this whole map. My favorite thing to do was always gather as many vehicles as possible in a few locations, like the volcano, the whirlpools, the sky garden, the cliff tops, the random ability perch, etc. I remember flying in circles on the Dragoon for hours, or destroying every breakable piece in the map. Another thing I liked to do was bulldoze through all the other machines on the Hydra in the garage. I always wished there was more to do with Meta Knight and Dedede in free ride, I'd always pick them and get bored after a few minutes because you couldn't dismount and just walk around.

[@metaKnightSpamer777]

The Model City was always a point of interest to Me & My siblings when We played;

[@PretzelYT]

Same. What a weird little thing to include...

[@Geffro]

I always thought it was Tec's hideout, I think I remember him spawning there at least once for me during the "Tec stole items!" event

[@Agustin_Leal]

I've never played this game. I didn't even know it existed. But from the very first moment you started showing the city layout and the feelings you got when you were younger, I instantly knew what you're talking about and how I'd feel kind of the same had I played this game as a kid. It says a lot about how misteriously unique this level design is. Like an empty GoldSrc map had Valve stook with the more cartoonish design from Half-Life 1 beta .

[@Yuurg]

As a kid my headcanon for the city model under the forest was that King Dedede made it to help him plan out some attack on the city. Idk why, it just felt like some secret war planning room. Maybe because it was so close to Whispy Woods, another famous Kirby bad guy. And the scale of the models kinda looks like it'd match Dedede.

[@raskr8137]

The sky garden kinda looks like a lighting rod. Maybe it harvests the lighting to power the whole city, the dome distributing it below. Still doesn't explain why it's called a "garden"

[@SkadingleMadongle]

I loved hiding the machines from my friends in free ride mode. You could slide off the stars so that they would continue to glide and land in the golf holes, so they couldn't be seen from the outside. Another place where they couldn't be seen was behind the water wheel. Just sneak into the edges of the current from behind the wheel and jump off. They'd be fully emerged in the water and completely invicible.

[@fuzzydude64]

We used to make a game out of trying to get as many of the machines in The Garage in Free Run parked as high as possible on the train station tower without falling off. Some machines would have to get creative or head to the Sky Garden, but most if not all could do it, but it was super tricky. The jackpot shot is successfully landing on the tip with the flower without falling off, and it WAS possible. We managed to pull it off a few times. We did it with the other flower on the cliff too but the former was the more alluring challenge. We also had a game where we would hop onto the train rails in opposite direction to see who would explode first in a mad game of chicken. We had another game where we'd try to hide all the machines in places that felt fitting for them around the map, as well as a form of Death Tag. 19:40 We visited this area frequently. It was one of a handful of locations where red box spawns were a 100% chance for a legendary machine piece.

[@goddessdeedeebubblesofimag7789]

This is one of my all-tome most precious childhood games and I know this island way too well. So I'm going to spill some random things about it that I think are interesting or fun. It's challenging, yet possible, to reach the top of the Ability Chance Wheel building and further completely on foot. You have to start on one of the yellow side overhangs of the large white building, jump to the green quadrilateral building, to the blue building, then to the roof of the white building, and then finally aim for one of the corners of the Chance Wheel building. From there, you can make it to the dark blurple overhang building, and then to the green-and-yellow overhang building. From there, feel free to enjoy the view! The Star Tower is gorgeous from that angle, isn't it? It is similarly challenging yet possible to climb the different floors of the Electric Lounge on foot. You can stand on top of the archways and easily make it to the second floor, where you can _maybe_ (I'd have to test this) reach the third floor from the railway station sign? Or you could make each floor from the jump pads, or the fences if you're good enough. If you stay standing stationary on any of the three large fans attached to the Sky Garden's rotating spire, you will sloowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwlllly drift off. Make of that what you will lol. I often tend to call the Castle Hall the City Hall, and I believe/headcanon "Hall" is in the name because it's the city's town hall/government building. Also, maybe the red Kirby just loves to take a hot lava bath in that volcano :) Also also, my *_subjective personal absolute_*_ best location on this island_ is the Sky Garden. I even made a weird attempt to turn it into a custom stage in Super Smash Brothers Ultimate. If you want to here more about Kirby Air Ride locations I tried to turn into SSBU stages, keep reading. If not, treat this as the end of my comment and have a wonderful rest of your day :3 First off Frozen Hillside. This one isn't really an attempt at recreating anything on the track itself, rather just I made a literal hillside out of the ice terrain. That's- that's the only feature worth mentioning. I also tried to make Heat Top, turning the bridge into most of the stage and turning the lava dragon and the lava in the volcano/floor of the area onto actual lava hazards. An attempt at a Shadow Star is riding the rail into the ice cave offscreen, and there are weak winds blowing away from the volcano lava in place of its billowing smoke. I'm pretty proud of that one. But my most bullsh!! and vicious one... is the Celestial Valley waterfall. You've got the ramp cliff as grass and dirt, some background bush-and-eggs, three dirt platforms on the other side of the waterfall representing the three split routes you can end up in, and the waterfall itself represented as MAX SPEED WIND RUSHING STRAIGHT DOWN INTO THE BOTTOM BLAST ZONE WITH NOTHING IN THE WAY. With falling/respawning droplets of ice terrain in the background and foreground to help portray that its water. This stage is extremely bullsh!! and unfair as there is a gap of *nothing* between the ramp and the waterfall, and the waterfall is RIGHT up against the three dirt platforms, making it very difficult to climb between them and very easy to edgeguard. You don't even have to leave the platforms, in fact you shouldn't; the wind will most likely do the rest for you. And then I also have an attempted recreation of the Castle hall interior, I guess- Oh, and I almost forgot: 2D Electric Lounge with the speeders substituted as bumbers and the jump pads substituted as portals. Neat stage; very big forces you to chase your opponents around a lot. Insert water hazard here. OH THERE'S ALSO GREEN CANVAS AND THE WATER WHEEL I am Dumb I forgor Anyways those are definitely all would provide stage code thingies if I had NSO and didn't write this comment on the toilet ok bye

[@Big98Bob]

Man I’m so happy you did city trial, such a mysterious map! Thank you so much this was so fun to watch!

[@Mediocrityexe]

5:03 I like how Kirby swims by just floating in the water and swinging his arms in a circular motion almost like he's paddling

[@skyevlyn]

Fantastic video! Im so glad to know someone else appreiciates how weird city trial was haha I knew about everything except the out of bounds area with ramps back up, that blew my mind!! Ive played this game so much and thought I knew everything its so wild to learn a new secret!! Thank you so much for making this, it really was like seeing the game through kid me's eyes again :)

[@mellow8176]

it's funny how the first two things you mention are like completely incomprehensible to all of us who have played the game forever and yet we still love them for whatever they are (totally a parking garage and just random gray slabs btw)

[@PriffyViole]

My theory: The rope bridge is so you can get sick souvenir shots of the dragons flying over you and the volcano is for swimming. Also, the city models are there because that's where Tac plans his heists.

[@riotwryy]

oh my god i always thought they were tac's models too

[@wigglytuffenjoyer]

Been hoping this was on the bucket list for a while now! City Trial was literally made for this type of analysis

[@PretzelYT]

I KNEW I had to cover this game someday. You're right, it just feels right for this series.

[@jaydongYT]

It’s nice seeing so many people share the same experience with this seemingly simple game as I did. I wonder what it is about this game that had such a profound effect on people like me.

[@PretzelYT]

I think it just comes down to the talent of HAL Laboratory at the time. They knew how to make a damn good game.

[@skyninegaming]

Your narrative style is quite unique. It feels like the viewer is experiencing your inner-dialogue, as opposed to feeling like a 'lecture' on the game. I thoroughly enjoy it. I am definitely going to try and emulate this form of information imparting in my day-to-day

[@TheTedder]

Finally I've found someone else who likes to just look around in videogame levels.

[@PhoenixRoseYT]

I used to spend literal HOURS in the free play City Trial just messing around. I’d break all the buildings and trees and rocks and climb everything.

[@lily_skye]

During the random event where Tac steals all the items, he goes to that cave with the miniatures, so as a kid, I always assumed it was his home.

[@itsmeike]

I've been dreaming of an Air Ride 2 for years now. Especially when Smash Run or whatever it was called came out--I think online City Trial is just such a good idea Also I remember back in the day there was some internet nonsense that stated if you like visited both flowers then flew through 3 rings and pressed the right buttons or whatever, it would cause some crazy event but it could possibly break your disc. I wonder what the origin of that is 🤔

[@PretzelYT]

That's a hilarious theory, I love stuff like that. You don't hear them anymore unfortunately... 😢

[@itsmeike]

@@PretzelYT In some aspects the internet has grown up (or dumbed down depending on what side you're on), but I greatly miss the innocent stupidity of childhood, especially in the early days of KZbin and video game forums

[@averysmalman8191]

@@itsmeikeSince consumers know how to look at a games source code now and see what's in the game and what isn't, those rumors don't circulate so much anymore. I still remember spending hours on Melee trying to unlock characters that aren't actually in the game, lol

[@riotwryy]

im so excited to see someone talking about this, this specific map from this gamemode in this underrated gamecube game is such a formative memory for me. every little part of the city you mentioned brought me so much joy. me and my brother made so many memories just messing around in free play, with no real game content, just letting our little kid imaginations go wild. its nice to see that other people appreciate it too. also, does anyone else remember seeing a blue flower in city trial? i have no idea where it would be but i distinctly remember one of the flowers being blue.

[@saviourscout6183]

I owned Kirby's Air Ride growing up but never really played it so this was an interesting video to watch, good work!

[@PinkNoseCoyote]

After all these years I still have this little city mapped out flawlessly in my head. I spent soooo much time here as a kid. Too much time.

[@danielespinoza8243]

Under the waterwheel ❤ That was my house when I played Free Run. My star of choice was the Compact Star. So cute, so efficient. Thank you so much for making this video. It really was a trip down memory lane, and you handled it so delicately with thought-provoking inquiries. I'm definitely subscribing!

[@Handington]

Your channel is so wonderful, and I hope more people get to see your videos!

[@Atkion]

Man, these videos are killer quality for the amount of engagement they get. I'd bet on people coming back and bingeing this series after your channel takes off properly

[@MUSQUIZanimation]

Something about GameCube era worlds hit so strange. I still think about the worlds in Sonic Heroes to this day.

[@PretzelYT]

That's one I played a lot as a kid too. I'll definitely cover that game some day.

[@cah137-y4s]

Now this brings back memories. Back when I was in elementary school, my friend and I would spend endless hours running around in City Trial, trying to discover secrets and just telling our own stories. We had all kinds of rumors we’d heard or just made up, like about an ultra-secret legendary machine called “Hydroon” which could be obtained by getting certain machine parts in a very specific order. We also spent hours searching for more secret flowers, since it made no sense that there would just be two with no reward for finding them. I sincerely hope the developers bring this gameplay concept back someday. A modern reimagining of City Trial would be absolutely amazing.

[@jrgmen]

I’ve never been at the top of the castle and I legit thought the thing dangling from the ceiling was a scoreboard. My friends and I would go into the castle and see which machine comes out alive

[@Leet-iz2fz]

My headcanon for City Trial's map is that Magolor made it as a setpiece for his amusement park. That's why the interior of Castle Hall doesn't look like a castle, why only one building in the city area has a door, and why there's an active volcano so close to the city - he gave it just enough thought to make the place feel more "alive", but it was never actually meant to be inhabitable.

[@kumaccta17oh61]

Did you know that if you go into those golf holes as just kirby and fly straight up, if you get hit from below by someone on an airride machine that has entered the golf hole and was shot out, you will get sent spinning up up up and right out of bounds! or you can land in 3 specific spots - On the plateau above the water wheel, just below that plateau kind of near the station or right next to the station! my family would always do this and try and guess where the person hit would end up landing! it was so fun!

[@teddy4271]

When I was a kid my friend and I would often go into free ride, head over to the golf holes, have one dismounted kirby jump in, and play whack-a-mole. The dismounted kirby would jump up and the other player (usually on a hydra) would try to hit them. You could always tell when the machine hit because the dismounted kirby would go flying straight up for 30-ish seconds, most of it stuck against the invisible ceiling.

[@sadovuato]

DUDE THIS WAS THE BEST PART OF THE GAME TOO. I've played this for more hours than any other game. I almost only played city trial lol. I still had sooooo much time on the normal game but this is legendary. Like legit no other game has a thing like city trial. There's so much in it. Power ups, items, getting the best speeder, it's just so perfect. The battle Royale esque feeling is just great

[@Nesdude42]

Man I spent a lot of time on this level as a kid. Here I am all of these years later, for the first time seeing anyone talk about it. Such an obscure thing to be a fan of. I love the internet sometimes.

[@Keblash]

I played city trail probably close to 300+ hours total as a kid and never realised each area had a name till now.

[@bungusbajablast2877]

extra things you didn't mention: - riding into the volcano launches you to the sky platform - riding into the golf holes launches you up - there's a true softlock if you play as one of the unlockable characters and die from the fire dragons

[@benjaminoechsli1941]

Having three siblings made four-player games all but mandatory growing up. Kirby Air Ride was one of the games we played to _death,_ especially in Free Run mode.

[@klave900]

13:50 if the volcano just spontaneously appeared and had everyone flee i doubt they wouldve built a bridge and a rail station there :D

[@bogbert7019]

I have genuinely thought I dreamed this game up for like 15 years. I think I played this game once as a kid and this stage specifically has stuck vividly in my brain ever since. I’m really glad I know it’s real now

[@PretzelYT]

I wish nintendo would remember it's real 😔

[@dylantheriault3481]

@3:00 as a child growing up in a rural area, I always thought the area was a trailer park

[@ghammer2048]

those melee-ish brass heavy gamecube soundtracks

[@PretzelYT]

I'm not a big OST guy, but the songs in this game go INCREDIBLY hard. I wish I could have used some of my favorites, but they're a little too upbeat for a video like this 😅

[@Obstagoon862]

Another thing to note about the underground "garage", as I like to call it, is that when a machine is destroyed in Free Run, it respawns down there.

[@Dell2YT]

I remember hunting for those flowers as a kid. Probably my first Easter eggs. I even took terrible pictures with our digital camera at the time.

[@RevolutionaryOven]

Surprised you didn't mention any of the courses from the air ride mode, though! Like the secret passage high up in the windmill in the plains course. It's so bizarre that it lets you go into a wall that seems solid and like an impeding boundary, but then it forces you back down onto the track through a one-way dropdown. Just so... bizarre. So many courses in air ride have bizarre locations. I loved the glowing caves in the plains course and the underwater city in checkered knights with the disco floor.

[@TheTolnoc]

Who needs a door when you can warp star slam your face through a window?

[@CorpseTongji]

i remember testing every single element in this game for its properties in the free mode like a scientist as a kid . my favorite spot in the game is on top of the box in the castle ! you can jump on the back of the rail station and then jump up there ! it feels like a fancy apartment

[@GlitchanBlack]

The reason why a crowd cheer sound effect plays when you destroy the dilapidated houses is because destroying them is part of one of 360 total challenges in the game, with the destroyed houses unlocking Hydra Part X. Thought you should know.

[@GerryRead-sl9tf]

I'm such a city trial homie that i still know that you only get legendary ride parts from red boxes only in certain areas. Also the small wheelie scooter is best at destroying the houses other than Hydra and the best at long jump/ high jump other than dragoon.

[@PhillipLarsen]

FINALLY SOMEBODY COVERING THIS GAME!!! Thank you so much you legend!

[@micheal7932]

The simplest explanation for all the oddities in the city is... that it's not a real city. Specifically, King DeDeDe likely set up this city as a training ground for star riders. After all, "Vs. King Dedede" is one of the challenges you can get at the end of City Trial. Not only is it one of the cooler challenges, but you also unlock him in free mode if you beat him.

[@estellegrignon]

The one thing I wished as a kid was that you could play longer than 7 minutes in City Trial. Sometimes I'd play with my brother and I'd take the green scooter wheelie and he'd help me out finding the right power ups. With that, with even the smallest bumps, I could jump SUPER high and it was so funny. But it only started to be fun towards the end of the session, and then we'd play the customary minigame and have to start again. To this day, I think about how fun it would be to play City Trial and just accumulate an infinite amount of powerups and mess around without a time limit. It's a shame Free Play doesn't have powerups

[@PretzelYT]

Oh man, I'm just remembering how insanely powerful you could get if you got lucky with events like the Castle Hall and the UFO ones. The star would become almost uncontrollable sometimes. I can't imagine what it'd be like if you could set the timer to 15 minutes hahahaha

[@KaitouSaintTailMeimi]

I always really loved the music of this game

[@InfoBinger]

I played Air Ride on 99 laps and it was basically a death battle while we rode our stars. Fighting while racing. Also in the garage me and my buddies would duke it out down there with our favorite stars.

[@Emuney12]

Those destructible blocks were "houses" this whole time???.... Uh oh

[@panique365]

I'm 30 years old and just today found out that these spots had names like "Electric Lounge" and "City Wharf". How I never noticed this as a kid, I have no idea

[@sizzl75]

Y'know, decades later and watching this video has made me realize that city trial just had to have been this game's debug mode repurposed. And that's cool as hell that something as simple as that got popular

[@andyghkfilm2287]

17:17 actually this isn’t surprising to me at all, because there are a bunch of doors you can only go one-way through in like Kirby Super Star for example.

[@quailron1581]

I like the little green “take a break” bars in the video!

[@ToniJamesDickens]

proud to be a fellow city trial homie 💪🏼

[@numbrerotime6683]

Cant wait for the next kirby game to connect AirRide to the main games by making the CityTrial an ancient city made by the"ancients" and the City itself becomes posessed and starts going on a rampage destroying stars and planets.

[@NoahtheEpicGuy]

when you brought up going out of bounds near the whirlpools, you unlocked a memory I forgot I had. I would always play on City Trial Freeplay by myself with two or three controllers (we didn't have four) and act out scenes and scenarios. As you flew over the invisible wall, I remembered doing that all the time and messing about with it. Good times. To me, the abstractish low-poly graphics allow for a lot more imagination, sort of a lost art in games. Well, it really wasn't intentional for these games, so was it really an art or just an era? The art of optimization, maybe. Everything feels weird and not quite to scale, but it's fun to explore. also the music in this game is top notch. this and melee had the best soundtrack (same guy worked on both), and the blend between electronic and orchestral was so beautifully perfect. Probably a little bit of nostalgia bias in there, but it genuinely is a wonderful soundtrack that I pop on every few days now.

[@shoadowolf]

Man, this video gave me so many happy memories, hope we get a remake or a sequel to this someday

[@thebubsy3dgamer]

As a Bubsy 3D and Kirby fan, I think City Trial looks a lot like what the Bubsy 3D art style would look like on a sixth gen console