Developer: Ubisoft
Publisher: Ubisoft, RedLynx
Platforms: Switch, PC, Xbox One, PS4
Tested on: PS4
Trials Rising – Review
Monday, Monday, Monday, Monday nitro day! If you remember the very first Trials games on the PC, you will have that line engraved into your memory. Trials titles have always intrigued people because of its fun and exciting gameplay. The series really picked up speed since Trials HD came out on the Xbox 360 back in 2009 and ten years later, this franchise has spawned many fun titles. With Trials Rising being the newest member of the bunch, is it as fun as its predecessors or did it succumb to the newest trends?
Story
Just like in most racing games, there isn’t a real underlying story. You start out as a new stunt racer who just got his first beater bike and does the Trials University in his hometown to become a real rider. After completing a few lessons, the teachers will let you have a shot at the real deal. To make it big in this world, you will of course need a sponsor, and quickly you will impress one that takes you on a tour around the world. The overall flow is quite decent with you starting out in the USA and progressing through Europe and Asia to places unknown, meeting interesting people and other riders as you go.
Graphics
Trials games have always been quite decent when it comes to graphics. In the past, the beautiful backgrounds combined with amazing special effects created a very pleasant image. Only the animations were lacking and felt stiff in previous iterations. Now, with even larger and more impressive landscapes to ride in, and completely customizable characters and bikes, improvements have been done on the rider animations in order not to look as stiff as a board. For a 2.5D game, the game really has some nice transitions that almost feel like you can traverse the whole map and not be restricted to one direction.
Sound
If you are at least a bit familiar with dirt bikes, you will either love or hate their high-pitched two-stroke noise. This is represented amazingly in the game; the loud exhaust node is astonishing and combined with great music making the game quite adrenaline-rushing. There are no real voiced characters, but your player can have different screaming tones, which is chosen in the customization menu.
Gameplay
Trials Rising is a racing game in which you need to overcome the many obstacles in your path to successfully reach the finish line. Trials is all about manipulating your bike to get from point A to point B, which is done by carefully applying the throttle, brakes and shifting the weight of the rider. Controlling your character goes quite smoothly, as you feel fully in control all the time. Do not forget that the game also strongly emphasizes on momentum, so getting caught the wrong way while flying through the air results in crashing into an object. Mostly, you will be racing against the ghosts of other racers, setting the right time trial to either get a bronze, silver or gold medal. In championships you race side by side against the other riders but you are not able to interact with each other.
In the story you start as a rookie driver that just got his first beater bike. This underpowered toy will carry your scrawny behind through the first few races, but sooner or later you will discover that power isn’t always the answer. As you complete events and make your way up with sponsors giving you a new bike, you will get to know the importance of the balance between nimbleness and sheer power and only when reaching a quite high level, you will get a bike that performs great on both aspects. Unlocking the last two rides, a BMX and a mini four-stroke, will take a lot of event grinding. There are fewer rides than in the previous games and this is kind of a missed opportunity.
The series has been going on for quite some time; the original flash games date way back to the early 2000s and the well-known console release of HD will be celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. Most games improve and adapt to newer settings, and while the core of Trials has never changed, there are a few alterations to the formula that occurred over the years. To start with, you can now fully customize your bike and rider with various parts, clothing, accessories, and you can paint and sticker them to your heart’s desire. The negative side effect of this adaptation is that many things are locked behind a paywall or hidden in loot boxes. This would normally not be that much of a problem if the earnings are fair, but unfortunately, they are not. By completing courses, you get a loot box at each level up, but the currency you get to buy actual things is pretty much nothing. Buying a simple sticker can easily break the bank and then we are not talking about actual clothing pieces or bike parts. While everything is cosmetic, it feels more of a hassle to customize everything because you are left to RNG when opening these boxes. It is also possible to get doubles in loot boxes. These can be sold but at a very low price and when we tried the game out, there were a lot of doubles, so we hope this does get fixed.
The last downside of modernization is the fact that you must be connected to the Ubisoft servers at all times. Because we had the game a bit before the actual release, the servers were not always available, stopping some gameplay aspects dead in its tracks. You can still play certain levels and with some luck even progress the campaign but some events won’t unlock or take a while to finally load in.
Conclusion
Trials Rising is an amazingly fun game that builds further on the well-known franchise. With many new levels and ways to entertain you, this game is certainly one to pick up if you like trial racing. The only thing that is quite irritating is, that although very elaborate, the new customization options are so expensive that it takes a long time to grind the necessary coins, while others remain locked behind a paywall.
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