City Trial

City Trial is one of the three game modes in the game Kirby Air Ride. It involves a group of two to four Kirbys riding their Air Ride Machines through an immense island city, gathering various power-ups called Patches and better Air Ride Machines for a competition in a Stadium event. The city is divided up into various sectors, each connected by a series of rails that can be ridden for quick transport between them. After a certain amount of time is spent exploring the city, 3–7 minutes depending on the options set beforehand (default is 5 minutes), a Stadium match begins, where the players can put their new, upgraded machines up against the other players in one of several different challenges.

All players begin on a Compact Star, an Air Ride Machine exclusive to this game mode with lackluster stats. However, strewn about the city are Air Ride Machines of every type that the players can find and ride. An important note is that when getting on a new machine, if a Player has collected more than 20 power-ups, the Machine will drop them until it has 20 (these can then be picked back up, though).

Besides the actual main City Trial mode, there are also two other options for play. First is the Stadium mode, which allows players to skip the City portion and compete in a stadium event immediately. None of the players are given the option of gathering power-ups in the city, but everyone is allowed to choose their vehicle. Second is the Free Run mode, which omits the timer and the stadium portion. It begins a match with a choice of vehicle. All the vehicles not chosen are placed in the city's underground (save for Meta Knight and King Dedede). There are no CPUs in Free Run, nor are there any Boxes. There is one Air Ride Machine that is exclusive to Free Run in City Trial, and that is the Flight Warp Star.

Boxes
Boxes are scattered around the city. The player may simply bump or quickspin them to break them and reveal items. Three different colored boxes are found in the city, giving a different type of item when broken.


 * KAR BlueBox.pngBlue Boxes: Blue boxes give out either a power-up patch, a power-down patch, or food. A blue box may contain at most 4 items, in any combination of patches and or food. All patches can be found in blue boxes, but very rarely, and only during Events.


 * KAR GreenBox.pngGreen Boxes: Green boxes contain Quick Fix items such as the Attack Up or the Candy, and the Special Offense Items such as Hyper Spin or Timer Bombs. All of these items vary and have different effects when touched, either helping or hindering the player.


 * KAR RedBox.pngRed Boxes: Red boxes usually contain a random Copy Panel for the player to use when touched, but occasionally contain a Legendary Machine part (either of Hydra or Dragoon).
 * For more information on finding legendary machine parts, see Legendary Air Ride Machines.

Food
Picking up different foods will recover the current Machine's HP by a fixed amount, or always 100% regardless HP pool for the Maxim Tomato.

Events
Many things happen during City Trial, usually appearing about every 2–5 minutes. Because of this, only one or two events happen in each match.

Some of the events can be detrimental to the players, while others prove to be helpful. The Events that occur are selected randomly, and it is very rare that the same event occurs twice in one match.

Stadium
Once Kirby has spent enough time in the city, he will compete in a Stadium event.

Whispy Woods
Whispy Woods Forest appears along with Whispy Woods himself. Although it's small and it has two areas: Overground, and underground. In the overground, all of the trees are destroyable except for Whispy. If the players attacks Whispy, he'll eventually close one of his eyes and shed a tear (even the audience awws). The underground area can only be accessed through one of the three pitfalls around the place. Beneath the woods is a small network of tunnels, with pads that will propel a player through the ground and back overground, and a model of what appears to be the city. The underground area can also be accessed if the player creates a hole in a wall that is in the basement.

Electric Lounge
This lounge is located to the south in the center of the city if the player uses the map for direction. The Electric Lounge is made up of 4 floors. The first floor is green and has 3 panels that lead the player up into the second floor. Two panels in this level lead the player directly to the top. The second floor is blue, with a big hole in the center that leads the player back down into the first floor. There is a panel that leads the player to the third floor. It also has a rail station that leads the player into other parts of the city. The third floor is brown, also with a hole in the center. It has one panel that leads into the last, red floor, on the top of the Electric Lounge. Seen to one corner of the lounge is a hole, that leads the player back to the center floor. Each floor (excluding the first one) also has boosters on the northern side, that can help the player fly back towards other parts of the city. The Electric Lounge rail system connects Whispy Woods and City Wharf.

City Wharf
This place is located between two beaches. The wharf is located east of the city, to the right of the underground area and in between the Electric Lounge and Grand Castle Hall. There are no quirks and turns in the wharf, unlike the Electric Lounge or Whispy Woods; it's simply a gray road area that leads into the heart of the city.

Grand Castle Hall
Grand Castle Hall is located on the northeastern part of the map, north of the City Wharf. Inside the Grand Castle hall is a large room, with a rail station and a large closed chamber. On occasion, the chamber will open up, revealing patches or food for the player to take. The patches will disappear over time if the player isn't fast enough. Outside, the Grand Castle Hall is white. If the player manages to go to the very top of the Castle Hall, there will be a flower on it. However, this is minor as this flower serves no purpose whatsoever. The Castle Hall's rail system connects Heat Top and City Wharf.

Heat Top
Heat Top is a hot area, with a smoking volcano in it. Dragons fly out of the lava, which will damage the machine if the player happens to run into the flying dragons. 3 breakable walls are found in the base of the volcano. Two of them lead into a small chamber of 2 to 5 random patches and food, while one leads inside the volcano. There is another way to take, which is spiraling across the volcano until reaching the top of it. The player can see a rail leading inside the volcano and a bridge, which leads to the smoky volcano. If the player goes into the smoky volcano, he/she will end up in the highest place in the city, which is the gardens.

Inside the volcano is a completely different environment. In the room the player will go into, the room is completely icy, with a tunnel that leads further or a pad that will launch the player into the City Gardens the same manner as going into the actual volcano. If the player takes the rail, he/she will go through the icy tunnel, and then into a tunnel with dirt in it. If the player continues further, he/she can see the underground of the city. If the player goes into the underground of the city, he/she may not return back where he/she came from.

Garden in the Sky
There's a giant flying platform in the sky. It can be accessed by using the Heat Top launch pad or by flying up there. This area allows people to see the rest of the city, thus giving the advantage of flying to anywhere in the city easily. This place is also a reliable place to get to the U.F.O. during the U.F.O. event.

Dilapidated Houses (Battlefield)
One section of the city is filled with giant, metal blocks, presumably old shacks. These blocks can be broken, though it's somewhat difficult to do so. By breaking all of the houses in one City Trial, a checklist box will be checked off, unlocking a Hydra piece. It serves no other purpose besides unlocking the piece, but it can be used to lose racers.

Checklist Tasks
Like the ones in Air Ride and Top Ride, the Checklist in City Trial has a total of 120 tasks.

General
There are 3 tasks that record progress from completing other Checklist tasks.

City Trial
There are 63 tasks that record progress from City Trial. They have a variety of requirements.

Stadium
There are 50 tasks that record progress from Stadium mode, and must be fulfilled by completing certain objectives in the corresponding Stadium.

Free Run
There are 4 tasks that record progress from Free Run.

Trivia
These could be viewed as easter eggs that's awarded to the player for getting to very high and hard to reach points.
 * The City's layout resembles that of Cappy Town.
 * The UFO looks like a Destroya.
 * The volcano looks like Booma-Dooma Volcano in the Anime.
 * Dyna Blade is incorrectly mentioned as a male when she lands.
 * Green Canvas Area has a golf course, just like Dedede's Golf Course in the Anime.
 * Scattered in the area are flowers. They serve no purpose whatsoever. They're located:
 * 1) At the very top of Castle Hall.
 * 2) At the corner of Heat Top, at the highest point.
 * It is possible to fly over the first set of invisible walls on the borders of the city. If the player happens to fly far enough and high enough, he/she will fly past the area of the invisible walls and into a land of nothingness and just water. However, there is another invisible wall just after that. The player may explore there as he/she wishes. This is due to an error that the invisible wall is not extended up enough, although there are one-way ramps scattered about to get back on the main land.
 * Although the dilapidated houses are referred to as such in the checklist, they more so resemble metal blocks in a junkyard than houses.

City Trial