In this review, we boost ourselves into the GameCube game Kirby Air Ride. We find out how well this racing game plays.
This game was released in 2003 and is another spinoff game from the main franchise.
At this point, we know quite a bit about this franchise. First, we tried a number of the games for the original Game Boy. We played the original Kirby’s Dream Land. That game ended up scoring well. We also played Kirby’s Pinball Land. That also got a solid score. We also played Kirby’s Dream Land 2. That game got a solid score. We tried Kirby’s Block Ball. That game also got a great score.
We’ve also played a game on the NES. That ended up being, of course Kirby’s Adventure. That game wound up being one of the best games we’ve ever played.
We then moved on to the SNES and played a few games on that one. We played Kirby’s Dream Course. That game got a great score. We also tried Kirby’s Avalanche. That game wound up being only mediocre which is disappointing to us. We also played Kirby Super Star which, again, wound up being one of the best game’s we’ve ever played.
We followed the series to the Game Boy Advance by playing Kirby – Nightmare in Dreamland. That game got a solid score. We also played Kirby and the Amazing Mirror. That game disappointed by only being mediocre.
We even started playing the franchise on the Nintendo DS by playing Kirby Super Star Ultra. That game got a great score.
So, we got a pretty solid resume going in terms of reviewing this franchise and it’s only growing with the addition of this game.
Like a number of other games in this franchise, this game deviates from the normal adventure game and tries a new genre. This time, it’s the racing genre.
There are three main modes of play: Air Ride, Top Ride, and City Trial.
The first mode players are likely to try is the Air Ride mode. You basically select a type of “kart” that suits your racing style. Initially, all you get is the overall well rounded star. You can also tweak your opponents by not only adjusting their abilities, but also handicaps as well.
After that, you can pick from 1 of 9 courses. You have a limited number of laps to make before crossing the finish line. First to make it across wins as you normally would expect.
From there, this is where thins deviate from your typical racing kart style game: controls. You steer with left and right, but everything else is largely handled by “A”. Want to swallow an enemy? Go near it and press “A”. Want to use that special ability? Most of the time, you press “A”. Running over a zipper and want a boost? Press “A”.
You can use brake by pressing “B”. Brakes are handled slightly differently in this game, though. While “B” does slow you down, letting go means you get a speed boost. The longer you press, the bigger the boost. So, if you reach a turn, it is beneficial for you to slow down for the brake and the added speed boost exiting also helps substantially. You will slide while braking and turning, but the boost negates a lot of the negative effects of sliding in the process.
At this point, you might be asking about acceleration. How do I accelerate? Well, the game handles that for you. You are always accelerating in this game. As a result, the game partly plays itself in that regard. The positive is that you don’t have to worry about constantly holding down a button for acceleration. The bad news is that you can’t strategically decelerate to handle certain corners. You are forced to simply brake for them as a result assuming you need to slow down.
Once you finish, you’ll place in the top 4 (simply because you always face off against three other opponents in regular racing mode). After you finish, you’ll see if you win any achievements. Achievements appear in a massive grid and you don’t technically know what they are at the beginning. You can win them by finishing with an ability, getting a fast time, or finishing first in one or a combination of races to name a few possibilities. If you go back to your records, you’ll notice that requirements for neighbouring achievements are revealed. This can help you get a sense of where else you can earn achievements.
Achievements are used to earn extra rides in this mode. Different vehicles have different strengths and weaknesses. Some have poor turning, but fantastic speed. Others have good statistics, but can’t speed boost while braking. Eventually, you have to figure out which racer is right for you.
The next mode is Top Ride. This mode is effectively a mini-game version of Air Ride and features a top down perspective. You can see the whole map depending on where everyone is. As players come in closer, the camera will zoom in on the action (which can be limiting depending on your knowledge of the course). Since the courses are smaller, you have more laps to contend with.
The only big difference is that you are stuck with two different rides. One ride simply points your ride in the direction of your control stick. The other will turn based on how much you push the control stick left or right. The differences generally end up being all about play style in the end.
Like Air Ride mode, you have a whole grid of achievements to achieve. There are also only 7 courses to choose from.
Finally, there is the city trial mode. There are two parts to this. In the first part, you simply go around the city powering yourself up. Coloured power ups increase certain stats like speed, glide, turning capabilities, health, and a whole lot more. Meanwhile, black and white variations power down those statistics. You obviously don’t want to get in contact with those for the most part.
In addition to this, you can engage in combat with other players in the trial. You can knock out a few power ups and steal them for yourself while you are at it. There are temporary power ups that help increase your chances of nailing on opponent as well.
The other thing is that, by default, you have health. Lose all of your health and you’ll lose your ride. Luckily, there are other rides randomly lying around for you to jump on to. You can’t collect anything without a ride, so the longer you are on a ride, the better. One thing to keep in mind is that some rides might benefit you in the next event. So, when time expires, you’ll get whatever ride you are on going in to the next event.
The next event is seemingly a random mini-game. You might be trying a general race. Other times, you are trying to jump for as long as possible or trying to crash into something. You might even find yourself in a combat style situation. How well you fare depends on how well you built your ride. If you got a whole bunch of health, you might do well in the combat games. Alternatively, if you collected lots of turning and got stuck with a straight slot racing jump game, all that turning won’t do you a whole lot of good. So, some luck is involved here.
Going into this, I personally had a pretty high expectation for this one. Yes, there are a few duds along the way, but for the most part, I felt like I could reasonably expect some great action and an overall fantastic time. I was disappointed here.
It felt like the Air ride mode was incredibly dumbed down. I’ve never encountered a game that requires a player input to use an on-track booster. The only game that I can think of coming close to this is Diddy Kong Racing where players could temporarily let go of the accelerator to get an even faster, long lasting boost. Still, if you didn’t, you still got the benefit of a boost in the first place. This is a design decision that, quite frankly, is just bizarre.
Additionally, the fact that you pretty much got so much of the game and have the option to simply set the difficulty of your opponents reminds me of the original Road and Track Presents: The Need for Speed. Like that game, I can’t help but feel like the developers more or less gave up trying to come up with any sort of progression – even a linear one. Instead, it feels like the developers simply said, “here, have everything and have fun. We got the basics up, the rest is up to you”. I felt like there was nothing to work for. Because I could set just about anything, it makes winning any race feel like it was handed to me at some point. It made me not care about how I did in the game. If the developers didn’t care, why should I?
Top down racing is a bit more interesting. It has a bit more of a simple joy of slot car racing. From a mini-game perspective, this is a nice addition to the game. As a major feature to carry the day, I would say not so much. Instead, it provides an interesting distraction to give the game some variety. On short, it prevents the game from feeling like a complete and total waste of time.
City trial is interesting from a non-racing perspective. It gives the game an adventure like feel while I busted down boxes and collected as many powerups as possible. Unfortunately, the seeming random nature of the last game makes it feel like I’m more pulling the arm of a slot machine more than actually strategically playing something where skill is involved to a reasonable extent.
At the end of the day, this game simply under-performs in the most critical aspect: gameplay. It’s dumbed down and overly simplified to the point where aspects of the game play themselves. It felt like a cheap throwaway game in the end. This is coming from someone who was hoping for something enjoyable and has enjoyed the franchise. With the way controls ended up being, it might have been better to have been a spiritual successor to Snowboard Kids 2. At least the controls would make a bit more sense in something like that. As it stands now, at best, it’s a two afternoon distraction before you throw it back on the shelf to add with your other dust collectors.
Graphically, this game shines very well. The levels themselves are nicely designed with so much eye candy. The effects and animations are very well done. Various effects work quite well and really gives this game a nice high action white-knuckled game. The huge variety of environments and how well things are designed from a visual perspective is impressive. Probably the only downside is the downright stark and plain achievement board. In that regard, it’s something you could pull off easily with a Game Boy Advance. Otherwise, I’d say it’s a great effort on that front.
The audio is nicely done. The music is actually very well done. There is a lot of variety in the game as it boasts an impressive full orchestra with other styles mixed in between. As an added bonus, there are some of the classic Kirby tracks that make previous games pop in their own right. Probably the only pitfall is that this effort is somewhat muted with the sound effects sometimes overpowering the soundtrack at times. Sound effects are pretty solid. There’s a nice amount of variety throughout. It might have been a bit overpowering for the music at times, but otherwise, this is a pretty solid effort overall.
Overall, I was actually quite excited to play this game. When I actually did, I found myself feeling like a Toronto Maple Leaf’s fan watching what you think is going to be a great performance fall apart. The gameplay is pretty bad especially while discussing the Air Ride. The controls are dumbed down almost to the point of being unworkable and the game plays itself. With very small amounts of progression found in the game, it feels like developers gave up part way through and turned it into a throwaway title. Top down offers some cheap entertainment, but City Trial always felt like luck based gambling more than a strategic thrill. Graphics are great and audio is pretty solid. An overall huge disappointment.
Overall
Furthest point in game: Beat a City trial and all competitive races at some point – not that this really is saying anything.
General gameplay: 13/25
Replay value: 5/10
Graphics: 8/10
Audio: 3/5
Overall rating: 58%
Drew Wilson on Twitter: @icecube85 and Facebook.
