Topic: Kirby Air Riders

@ATMVF I bought Mario Strikers at launch and abandoned it within a couple of days as it lacked a ranked online mode or any sort of unlockables or objectives or literally any other reason to keep playing. Not surprised that it died quickly.

Think this game's online should remain healthy for a good period of time at least. It's a pretty unique experience that will have a bit of a cult following of dedicated fans, plus there's a proper online ranking, plenty of unlockables and customisation as well as the checklist to keep things interesting beyond just playing for the sake of it.

Air Ride and Top Ride will definitely be a lot less players than City Trial though so I can understand being a little more concerned if you're specifically buying the same for those modes. I'm planning to play a lot of all three and 100% compete the checklist but long term it'll be City Trial that I mostly come back to I suspect.

City Trail is still 1/3rd of the whole game. Not everyone sticks here there are fans that are just Air Ride and Top Ride fans, especially now that Top Ride is way better.

@BenAV Ah, I see. Ha, maybe the majority did the same as you regarding Mario Strikers then.

That's a good point regarding having rankings, it makes sense that would be something that makes people want to keep returning. I didn't realise Mario Strikers did not have that feature, so hopefully that will keep the online community pretty healthy for a long time after Kirby Air Riders releases, as well as the unlockables and customisation as you said.

Cool, it's good to get some feedback from others interested in this game as to where they might spend most of their time.

@KaiserGX Right, I see.
I really want to try that Top Ride mode, that looks fun!

@ATMVF Also in my 10-15 hours of the demo, I'd say probably around 80% of the players I played against online had Japanese names. Should make finding matches a bit easier for those of us in Australia if there's a large enough Japanese player base with them being in a similar time zone.

@BenAV Ah, true! Another good point, ha. I also noticed that, even though I didn't spend nearly as much time as you did in the demo. Can't complain about that!

There'll be also some story mode and roguelike mode for regular Air Ride mode isn't it? That's kinda what I'm really aiming for--if it's pretty good content

@darkfenrir Maybe I misunderstood it but I thought Road Trip (the roguelike mode) was the story mode?

@Grumblevolcano oh. I thought they are separate, oops 😅 I'll hope that will have tons of content then since the racing was real fun

After my hype for Pokémon Pokopia got flushed down the drain, this and Pokémon Z-A Switch 2 Edition are the last Switch 2 games I'm super hyped about. This game looks really awesome and exciting, so I hope I can play it someday, even if it means waiting a good part of a decade 😅. At this point, I might not end up getting a Switch 2 until after its lifespan is over and then getting a used one, simply because I don't like some other issues that affect the console and Nintendo overall, even though the console itself looks awesome.

Picked up the game digitally so can finally jump in now that it's after midnight here. So much to do but checking out Road Trip feels like a logical starting point.

Hell yeah! I'm still waffling on it but the Road Trip sounds amazing. Still deciding between getting it or not... Maybe once I finish AoI I can decide

Tried playing online and couldn't find a single other person yet haha. Guess I need to wait for it to release in Japan first. Road Trip seems like a fun time so far though.

Did a few quick rounds of ranked City Trial. It's even more fun in the full game with all the extra vehicles, powers, items, events, etc. that were absent from the test ride.

@BenAV I have a question about the Road Trip mode
So the impression I got from watching the second direct is that this mode was going to be a roguelike mode, where you go through a few level that each have a few challenges, then there is a boss at the end, you can finish it in an hour or so and it's random every time
But the reviews made it seem like a story mode separated into chapters with no random elements but with some choices you can make that change your ending and that it takes at least a few hours to finish
So how exactly does it work?

@Sylamp As you go through each chapter you're always offered three choices been stages/rewards which I assume are randomised so it does have some roguelite elements (Edit: started my second run and they're actually not random) but aside from that it's more of a story mode overall. It's much longer than a typically roguelite run would be and if you fail a stage you're able to try it again as many times as you like at the cost of a bit of currency so it doesn't have that danger element that you get in a roguelite of having to start over if you lose. I'm not sure what happens if you ever get completely stuck on a stage though as I didn't encounter that.

Spoilers on what happens after beating it:You unlock New Game+ which lets you start over with all the vehicles you already collected on the previous run. Seems you need to collect them all to get the true ending but I haven't done it yet.

Overall it feels like a mode that I might play through a few times to fully clear the checklist but probably won't have much of a reason to return to it after that.

@BenAV How long is the story mode?

@FishyS The playtime on my save at the end of my first playthrough says 1:57 but I don't know exactly what counts towards that (probably just time in stages I guess) as I feel like my overall time in the mode was probably at least double that.

Hmm... 2 hours... idk if that makes me want to replay it more or not but the stuff not being randomized takes it down a bit. Can I use any character? I know the machines are tied as like "lives" like when one gets destroyed. Well at least the choices you pick can be different so there's that.

First wave of user icons for this game is now available. I made one of Kirby on the Warp Star.