Kirby Air Ride Is a Misunderstood Gem

[@CloudConnection]

NEW CHANNELS! Livestreaming channel: kzbin.info/door/u1DOksPPNoEpzaW8wSUaGA Lupin III review / retrospective channel: kzbin.info/door/Z94UrRHZV64RgKIetyRnBQ

[@TramiNguyen-oi3kp]

Awesome Kirby game!

[@CrowTRobot]

We need another City Trial or Smash Run like mode in a Nintendo game. It’s such an addicting premise that makes me revisit those games far often than I otherwise would.

[@BananaR777]

I vvish city trail had more than 1 map.

[@Greendawn-di3dl]

Smash run was so good! Played it every day at lunch with 3 friends.

[@guy8029]

I spent countless hours playing this when I had a Gamecube as a kid

[@vvwvvwvv]

City Trial in Air Ride and F-Zero are my two most revisited Gamecube games at this point

[@Icedragon01234]

City Trial brings back memories on where me and my friends would just roleplay around and find secrets like the flowers or climb the golden floating tower

[@SpaceCafeMusic]

Lmao yep same here

[@HeyItIsMichal]

Actually, if I can make a correction: Kirby Air Ride 64 was confirmed by Sakurai about 7 months ago to have nothing to do with GCN Air Ride, and that Air Ride 64 was to be more of a snowboarding style game.

[@avikellerman4539]

"acKcHyUaLlY"

[@cosettapessa6417]

LooooL

[@connormc4050]

Drag race with everyone as rocket star was fantastic. When they draft off of each other, they get massive speed boosts!

[@PhilDaBank]

City trial should end with 3 random stadium game’s tournament style

[@EnigmaBarry]

I loved playing Kirby Air Ride as a kid with my Sis and Dad. City Trial was the fan favorite. Though the map was simple, there were a ton of secrets to it.

[@addisonharris4046]

I'm sorry but the Shadow Star is just as good as the Wing Star. Maybe even better in many situations. You have to use it's strengths! It has MUCH higher ground speed than the Wing Star, and it's flight ability is almost as good. It also has better boost than the Wing Star. When you're navigating through tight sections, or when you can't get in the air as much, it will dominate! Even on tracks where there is a lot of gliding, you can still outpace a Wing Star. This is because the Shadow Star's actual air speed is almost as fast as the Wing Star. You won't get too far behind in the air, and then once you're on the ground, or in more twisty technical sections of the track you will find yourself catching up. The only really significant thing the Wing Star has over the Shadow Star, is that it's significantly better at gaining altitude. P.S. I didn't even mention the Shadow Star's insane offensive capabilities in City Trial.

[@sadovuato]

City trial is the best experience on GameCube. It's a battle Royale before battle royales. I love the city and all the secret areas and things you can find in it. The idea of building up your vehicle overtime while inside a huge a PvPvE type area and using that vehicle to battle it out in a final round at the end just feels so incredibly fun. I love it so much.

[@Icedragon01234]

City Trial was so simple yet so addicting

[@waxwinged_hound]

I cannot count the hours that me and my siblings spent playing Kirby Air Ride when we were kids. It's one of my favorite "party games" to ever exist, right up there with the SSB series. To the point where the "checklist item complete" sound is one of the notification sounds on my phone, so I kept thinking I was getting emails while watching this video lmao

[@UGF_ENT]

Fun fact: If you go to your settings you can up the time to 7mins in City Trial. I know this because my brother & I would always run 7mins on City Trial & always felt like I needed more time, the events were also pretty fun.

[@Stratilex]

Dude your idea about "randomized" City Trial maps is something I thought about like 4 years ago! My idea is that, each "sector" of the city would randomly be selected together, let's say 5 or 6 get chosen out of a pool of like 9 or 10

[@monster25man]

hate to pull an "actually" on you so soon but Sakurai himself on his youtube channel has confirmed that the N64 Air Ride game has NO releation to the Gamecube one, as shocking as that sounds

[@CloudConnection]

Interesting, thanks for the note!

[@Sacren365]

You beat me to it 🤭 I deleted the comment I just made saying the same thing.

[@jvdude9061]

I sunk so much time into this game back when I was kid. I remember going straight to it on Friday afternoons after school...

[@annoyedghoul7243]

I'm so glad that Air Ride has been gaining more traction online as of late. I've adored playing it ever since I could remember, and it's making me giddy seeing more and more videos a out this game

[@bendonatier]

I really appreciate you mentioning top ride and air ride in depth. A lot of folks hate on them, when for me they were just as much what made this game special as city trial.

[@SpongicX]

Since some liked to compare the 2, I will say Kirby Air Ride was better than Sonic Riders.

[@dianceperez8540]

Kirby Air Rider>Zero Gravity yea……but Riders 1>Kirby Air Rider……Riders 1 is the only Riders game that’s better than Air Ride

[@SpongicX]

@dianceperez8540 Nah, Air Riders had the stupid air fuel limit, and those awful analog spinning moments. It was a neat idea with flawed executions. Air Ride has flaws too, but not enough to ruin the game. City Trail is more fun than anything in Riders. I honestly thought Zero Gravity was better than the first Riders. The only things the 1st game had over ZG was the Sega Carnival and Ulala as a playable character. Otherwise, ZG had better gameplay, better story, better visuals, and the inclusion of Blaze and Silver. If you like Riders over everything, that's fine, everyone has their opinions and preferences.

[@MajoraZ]

How do you feel about the Jet Star? I think it was the only non-mode specific Star you didn't talk about. It's got decent but not excellent stats on the ground, but rapidly gains speed in jumps and in the air and has pretty good air handling, albiet not as much as the Wing Star. Might be worth messing with, if you're disappointed in the Shadow Star it might fill that niche you want for an alternative wing star?

[@Riako]

I remember years ago when I went to a Smash Bros tournament (back when Apex was still a thing) and we all went into the back room after we lost, and just played smash. Throughout the entire time we were playing I brought up Kirby's Air Ride. I kid you not, almost every person in the room was like, "Oh my god I would be SO down for that right now." Legtiimately everyone in the room was genuinely hyped about the idea of playing Kirby's Air Ride. They had no problem turning the smash bros room into a Kirby's Air Ride room (or at least a portion of it). Unfortunately, no one had brought the game and no one had brought the lan cable as well. But the excitement for the game was there.

[@IGN_OFFClAL]

I will always be a little sad we didn't get a smash run mode in ultimate I played the snot out of it, as I did with city trial

[@Wolfkaosaun]

I won't lie, back when it was first released I was disappointed because I wanted another platformer/adventure with the little guy. I didn't give Air Ride a fair chance until years later. One of my biggest GameCube mistakes

[@Spongedude94]

This game and Pokemon XD Gale of Darkness were my all time favorite gamecube games. And Wind waker

[@Greendawn-di3dl]

Kirby air ride is by far my favorite Kirby game; and that's saying alot. I adore the Kirby series and smash for the matter. Man's a genius.

[@starparodier91]

I will say that at the time, my best friend’s mom and both of my parents ended up with bad headaches after we made them play it with us 😂

[@AriesManiac]

We need kirby air ride remastered with online support

[@unforeseenboy420]

I think its a below average racing game but City Trial is a blast with friends.

[@AvelineMelena]

I loved this game ever since i put my hands on it

[@Typotypes]

I miss the hat from ice climbers 😢

[@MulinaTheAngelWolf]

This game deserves a switch port.

[@tsunalein]

Lets hope Kirby arrives in MK9

[@n8ivegogo1]

Idk if it’s because I’m playing on my modded Wii through Dolphin, but the A.I is FREAKIN RIDICULOUS!!!!! It’s almost impossible to clear all the tracks even on Easy🤷‍♂️ I looked up tips & hints but nothing has helped me out yet. That’s a bummer as I was starting to really get into it, even the top down mode is impossible to beat😢

[@SSBFWU]

Increasing AI's level in Air Ride and City Trial doesn't improve their knowledge of the game, it just increases ridiculously their reaction time and their base top speed: in some City Trial matches I've won by a small difference even though I almost doubled the stats I collected

[@cosm1c822]

Me and my cousin used to play air ride all the time lol

[@TramiNguyen-oi3kp]

Awesome Kirby game!

[@ShakerGER]

Topride is my favorite mode! Q.Q

[@kpena21]

my cousins and I loved playing this growing up!! We would just take turns dueling it out on the rails or blowing each other up with bombs or canons 😂 I know it's just rumors but I really do open Nintendo does a remake for this game, even if it's just city trails, I would preorder so fast 🥲

[@Zero0fTime]

NINTENDO MAKE A NEW AIR RIDER OR PORT THIS THING TO SWITCH IDC WHICH

[@TraceOran]

*cough* 7min. It's too fun not too XD

[@MeDsCP]

I like the review but come on man, Bulk Star = best Star!

[@PP-ok2xt]

The reason to use copy abilities is that you gain a speed boost when killing enemies. Kind of embarassing you didn't realize this really

[@Broomlad]

Legit a legendary game. One of my personal favorites

[@drckargaming]

Something you severely overlooked is the skill ceiling for specifically City Trial and the combat system. In air ride mode, part of the way the racing works similar to mario kart is that it is incentivized that you attack the other racers to try to slow them down or even KO them. In City Trial though, the combat system is unbelieveably versatile and it is often not fully realized because CPUs no matter what level you put them at have no idea how to fight. Take 2 main mechanics of city trial, stat collection and combat. When you consider the fact that there's no definite way to know the ending stadium, the most consistent way to win City Trial is by winning in stats over the other player. Something that can often happen though is if you play somebody of similar skill level, you don't want to have to rely on RNG to win every time. City Trial has red boxes with copy abilities and green boxes with weapons and temporary machine powers. Almost all of these are meant to be used in order to fight the other player to steal their items to gain an advantage. Not only does this remove the need for RNG reliance, but it also offers the player a method of improvement in the game that is completely skill based and super rewarding. With that said, I for one have seen just how far the game can be pushed with the stat collection and also how intense, fast paced, and technical the game is when you play with 4 players for instance. I have seen this a lot in the Netplay community, and I for one am still actively playing this game almost every day for hours for the last 3 years still optimizing my play and exploring the millions of situations that you can be in. City Trial is not about the environment your in, the city was not meant to be a super in depth idea that was to be explored, it acts as an arena that has super diverse environments to maximize situations that are impossible to master. When you combine all these things with like diverse machine pysics and mechanics that are always randomized with the 198+ billion different stat combinations on top of the impossible to master combat mechanics. All of these provide each city trial experience super exciting and fresh. It's important though that you play with other people and explore these ideas and try to push the meta, thats why City Trial with online capabilities in so widely desire. And it does exist because there's a pretty popular netplay community. Things that you also mentioned like events n stuff are important too. You also mentioned the lack of diverse stadium mini games. I would semi agree, but what makes it unique is there's not just 1 way to win each stadium. Each Drag Race has their own things that make them more favorable for different stadiums. Drag Race 3 has the ledge that makes the rocket star, an otherwise overpowered drag racer, less viable and so you can't always prepare perfectly. The Single Races and Destruction Derby's follow this rule too. Anyway, I thought this was all worth noting.

[@addisonharris4046]

FACTS

[@Alexander_Grant]

Honestly, they need a remake of just City Trial with proper online. It'd be perfect for today.

[@StonerWeeb]

The many afterschool and weekends I used to play City Trial with my friend and his younger brother back in 03/04, such great times

[@hunter00143]

Same, algorithm gave me a random kirby air ride video. Here i am days later deep into grinding out that checklist lmao I havent played this game in ages

[@Spironic]

You know I never thought about it this way before, but City Trial is one of the only PvP roguelikes ever made.

[@Andrew-ww1hz]

It would be roguelike if the map changed every match. Otherwise I don’t think it is

[@DarthBenneth]

My friends and I would love doing City Trial free run and basically act like mafia bosses owning their own territory. If someone left their claimed area and tried to enter someone else's, war would quickly begin and chaos would ensue the whole map. No one could start out with a legendary vehicle, but you could still use one if you could fight your way to the parked vehicles since no one could own that area and anyone who entered it would be considered trespassing on everyone's turf at the same time. It was so much fun and so chaotic, we went for hours on end.

[@happyhour4670]

21:04 "worst of the three game modes" That's one of the worst opinions I've ever heard in my entire life. Top ride is way more fun than air ride, air ride is literally just courses you play in city trial but without stat upgrades, talk about boring. Me and my sister always had a lof of fun in top ride and we always got competitive. We played it like 20% of the time and air ride like 5% of the time. Maybe it's the worst gamemode to play single player Also great video 👍👍

[@Astrogeon]

29:12 You could feel the panic for the rider on the Wheelie Scoot during target jump. That's what happens when you give it to many glide patches, folks!

[@Keblash]

Kirby air ride was one of mine, my friends, and my siblings favorite game when we were kids! My buddy and I used to play city trail and try and get every vehicle up onto the rock behind the building with the random power up pad.

[@RyansChannel0203]

Air Ride >>> Melee And I will always die on that hill. Also I love Top Ride with max items because it has that same level of chaoticness I've grown to both love and hate in Mario Kart.

[@ZizZap4]

> Hills in Beanstalk Park Omg yes this. I just played for the first time last night. Was trying the Slick Star out. That exact hill you showed? The Slick Star can barely even get up it, and I found that if I had the wrong angle I'd make it partway up, then lose so much traction that the star would turn and start heading back downhill.

[@sambub]

What! New cloud connection just dropped!

[@SeanLifeFlame]

Something unique I like to point out with the machines is the Wagon Star's funny box shape that, when you lean your Ride backwards, can actually trigger ground panels without sacrificing any speed. I've always found it VERY handy for triggering specific switches and chaining boost panels, and it quickly became my top favorite Air Ride because of that! ...Well, outside of the Hydra, anyways. That monster will always be my pride and joy.

[@KaiKai2thousand]

This game was so memorable that it followed me from childhood to adulthood, I STILL play it to this day. Started playing at probably 5 years old and now I’m 24. It’s crazy how through each walk of life, this was a soothing mechanism.

[@mariopikmin1]

No the game is not underrated at all that's why it literally has the Nintendo bestseller stamp of approval ITS ON THE THUMB NAIL

[@ww4464]

Another city trial assumes that Nintendo leaves Sakurai alone and away from smash long enough to breathe in kirby's direction

[@Cedalus]

Very interesting that you had the same kirby air ride origin story as me, it being the only game my brother and i played more than melee. Surprising considering how poorly the game (and the gamecube) seemed to perform

[@ivythay4259]

If almost everyone who's ever played this over the past 2 decades keeps calling it underrated, is it *really* so underrated?????

[@PhirePhlame]

Funnily enough, it's still called "Kirby's Airride" in Japan

[@gaming_bigfoot]

City Trial felt almost like a mini-run of Mario Party in Air Ride: luck rules at the last moments

[@ThatNoobKing]

23:54 I have _never_ seen that happen what the fuck 24:26 well, I guess it _is_ a bit creepy that the air ride machines are just kinda.. slowly floating forward. With no driver. Even the ones that can't fly well.

[@SSBFWU]

23:54 happens when empty bike machines fall from a high altitude in general. But, in the case of the Rex, that happens because of how bulky it is... And yeah, it's still surprising to see it when it happens

[@phyllojoe5346]

Half an hour on Kirby Air Ride? Count me in!

[@therealflorpepic]

Counterpoint for bulk star: mash A to fly

[@CliffCardi]

When that Jewish music kicks in during City Trials

[@gaming_bigfoot]

Slick Star my beloved

[@Eichro]

I think the control scheme in Air Ride is genius. There's enough flexibility in that single button that every mechanic just makes a lot of sense. I do agree the copy abilities are a bit awkwardly implemented and often get in the way or are just plain useless, but I don't think it demerits the mechanics behind it.

[@Scrubber89]

Hmmm, that main menu looks familiar.

[@schnorks0]

No one expects you to get all or even most of the objectives lol, that's meant for truly fanatical players, or to chip away at little-by-little between other games over a long period of time :) Getting 100 of them for analytical purposes is honestly super awesome and definitely above and beyond I still maintain that the secrets in DKC 2 are a fundamental, core part of its design, and of what makes it so amazing. I hope you have a chance to try another playthrough someday, and I challenge you to tell me I'm wrong :) Awesome video! I always love learning more about Kirby Air Ride, it seems like a game I would have really enjoyed back then

[@sketchman7392]

Despite not being able to play this game back on the GameCube, it certainly has left a mark upon every gamer who has played a Kirby game. 🩷 I feel like this is one of the few spinoffs to Kirby that separated itself from the rest making it stand out in a unique way. 😊👍