Kirby Air Ride appears set to be finally remembered, with the announcement that a sequel is in the works for the Switch 2, with Masashiro Sakurai again at the helm.
Air Ride, possibly the most atypical game in a franchise with maybe 50% or more atypical games in it, is a sadly-neglected title that is, no lie, one of the truest underrated classics of the Gamecube, and it’s mostly because of the amazing City Trial mode, which I’ve mentioned here before.
In play terms, City Trial is what turns Air Ride from a severely diminished F-Zero clone to a game for the ages. Multiple colored Kirbys (Kirbies?) explore a sizable map, not huge but not tiny either. Scattered around it are a variety of randomly-generated vehicles and items. Of the items, the most important is probably the upgrades, or “patches,” which improve the stats of whatever vehicle a Kirby may pilot. They are Boost, Top Speed, Turn, Charge, Glide, Weight, Offense, Defense and HP. Each has a definite effect on your vehicle’s performance; the more you have, the stronger the vehicle gets.
People who haven’t played Kirby Air Ride, but have played Super Smash Bros. for 3DS, may recognize this idea as the basis of its exclusive Smash Run mode, but in Smash Run you each had your own map to explore; it only became a true multiplayer game at the very end. But in both Air Ride and Smash Run, after the players build their vehicle or character, they’re all thrown into a competitive event. It might be fighting, but it might also be something different. Their success at collecting stats helps determine how well they do in the event, but while there may be clues, there is no definite indication of what the event will be.
So collecting the stats is very important to success. But the game doesn’t explain what they do very well, and in fact some of their effects are quite complex and difficult to communicate briefly. The video above goes into detail, but here’s a few quick takeaways:
- The “Boost” stat, as it turns out, is more like Acceleration.
- The Glide stat works partly by reducing weight, so it and the Weight stat counteract each other a bit.
- All of the stats work by multiplying the vehicle’s base stat, so a vehicle with a 1.3 base gets more effect if it collects that kind of powerup than if it were at the usual 1.0.
- However, the default vehicle, the Compact Star you begin each City Trial game with, has a Defense stat of zero. Since any number times zero is zero, you get no benefit from Defense patches if you stick with the Compact Star vehicle.
Watch the video if you want to know more. And if you’ve never played Kirby Air Ride but have a Switch 2 keep a look out, because it seems very likely that Nintendo will give it a rerelease for Switch Online Expansion Pack eventually!
