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General Gaming / Re: Backlaugust 2026 - (Splatoon) Raiding the Backlog
« Last post by broodwars on Yesterday at 06:37:59 PM »Lastly, I finally rolled credits on the True Ending of the Road Trip mode of Kirby Air Riders.
Been chipping away at this one for a while now, as you have to beat Road Trip mode at least a few times in order to obtain all the vehicles needed to trigger the last segment of the story. And yes, after a really bad initial experience trying to win single races in Air Riders against the CPU, I did Road Trip on essentially Easy difficulty. I'm glad I did, too, because I was just not having fun with Air Riders outside of Stadium mode until I did that.
Overall, Air Riders is good. It's certainly better than that PoS Mario Kart World, though that's damning with faint praise. But I'm really not good at it, and I'm not altogether sure WHY. I did all the tutorials, I get the basic flow of the game, but when the races start I just can't get any consistent speed.
It doesn't help that the combat is legitimately terrible, especially since your main form of attack is done by...wiggling the stick you use to steer. It's Wii-era waggle all over again, which makes sense when you consider this is based on mechanics introduced in a late-era GameCube game. There's no real form of lock-on with most attacks, so trying to attack an enemy basically results in driving at them and praying that the camera won't screw you over as you two consistently just zoom past each other like Medieval Jousting Knights. It's especially bad in boss fights, where the camera is forced to lock-on to the boss so you're stuck controlling your character in a 2nd person perspective that never feels good.
That said, with the difficulty turned down, I really enjoyed the variety in what Air Riders is doing, which most prominently comes through with Road Trip's rotating series of events. One moment, you could be running around hitting trying to gobble up food or trying to hit more buttons than your opponents. The next, you could be in an extremely chaotic race or hitting targets. If you don't like one mode, you'll be something different just minutes later that you might like instead. You can very much see the Smash Bros. DNA at play.
As for the story, for all the expensive CG cutscenes at play I'm not sure I really understand the point of it, especially in the Normal Ending. I get the idea behind what Neo Dededee is doing and why...but why do I fail the story if he beats me to blowing up the ship at the end? Kirby blows it up, too, if he gets there first, and I had to do that last race several times because there's a LOT of rubber-banding at play AND attacking him kicks him forward a bit BEFORE knocking him back a lot. And why did the Fountain of Dreams grant that thing's wish by subcontracting the wish to a being that turned him into a Doomsday clock? I just...look, it's a Kirby game, so who cares, but it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
Definitely a game I might pick up and dabble with in the future just for the hell of it, but i feel content having gotten my 8-10 hours of SP "story mode" play out of it for now.
Been chipping away at this one for a while now, as you have to beat Road Trip mode at least a few times in order to obtain all the vehicles needed to trigger the last segment of the story. And yes, after a really bad initial experience trying to win single races in Air Riders against the CPU, I did Road Trip on essentially Easy difficulty. I'm glad I did, too, because I was just not having fun with Air Riders outside of Stadium mode until I did that.
Overall, Air Riders is good. It's certainly better than that PoS Mario Kart World, though that's damning with faint praise. But I'm really not good at it, and I'm not altogether sure WHY. I did all the tutorials, I get the basic flow of the game, but when the races start I just can't get any consistent speed.
It doesn't help that the combat is legitimately terrible, especially since your main form of attack is done by...wiggling the stick you use to steer. It's Wii-era waggle all over again, which makes sense when you consider this is based on mechanics introduced in a late-era GameCube game. There's no real form of lock-on with most attacks, so trying to attack an enemy basically results in driving at them and praying that the camera won't screw you over as you two consistently just zoom past each other like Medieval Jousting Knights. It's especially bad in boss fights, where the camera is forced to lock-on to the boss so you're stuck controlling your character in a 2nd person perspective that never feels good.
That said, with the difficulty turned down, I really enjoyed the variety in what Air Riders is doing, which most prominently comes through with Road Trip's rotating series of events. One moment, you could be running around hitting trying to gobble up food or trying to hit more buttons than your opponents. The next, you could be in an extremely chaotic race or hitting targets. If you don't like one mode, you'll be something different just minutes later that you might like instead. You can very much see the Smash Bros. DNA at play.
As for the story, for all the expensive CG cutscenes at play I'm not sure I really understand the point of it, especially in the Normal Ending. I get the idea behind what Neo Dededee is doing and why...but why do I fail the story if he beats me to blowing up the ship at the end? Kirby blows it up, too, if he gets there first, and I had to do that last race several times because there's a LOT of rubber-banding at play AND attacking him kicks him forward a bit BEFORE knocking him back a lot. And why did the Fountain of Dreams grant that thing's wish by subcontracting the wish to a being that turned him into a Doomsday clock? I just...look, it's a Kirby game, so who cares, but it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
Definitely a game I might pick up and dabble with in the future just for the hell of it, but i feel content having gotten my 8-10 hours of SP "story mode" play out of it for now.
I'm making an attempt to complete OG Hollow Knight. I played it long ago but never quite finished it. I'd like to get through all of it including the DLC if possible. 
I feel like I came back to the site once after another of my long disappearances and found that had been updated for me. Kind souls out there, I don't deserve them.
