Trivia / Kirby Air Ride

• Creator Backlash: While Masahiro Sakurai likely doesn't hate the game itself if his Shout-Outs to it the Super Smash Bros. series are any indication, the development cycle for this game is what made him leave HAL Laboratory and Nintendo. He publicly criticized the company for its practice of constantly churning out sequels to established franchises rather than taking risks with new IPs and this game was the final straw for him.
• Executive Meddling: It would appear that this happened a lot during the game's development cycle, which pushed Sakurai to leave HAL Laboratory.
• Flip-Flop of God: Although the game is widely considered to be the final version of the Nintendo 64 game Air Ride, in Masahiro Sakurai on Creating Games, Sakurai himself claims the two games are unrelated, as Air Ride was more of a snowboarding game. He does admit that it's possible Air Ride may have inspired some ideas on what would or wouldn't work in Kirby Air Ride.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: As the game has yet to be re-released on newer consoles, copies of the GameCube version have understandably become rather sought-after.
• Marth Debuted in "Smash Bros.": The soundtrack for Kirby: Right Back at Ya! got replaced in the west thanks to 4Kids Entertainment, so the reused songs in this game ended up making the anime soundtrack's sole appearance in the west in said title, as even Super Smash Bros. Brawl credits "Strong Star Warrior" as "Checker Knights" from Air Ride.
• Moved to the Next Console: It was originally Kirby's Air Ride for the Nintendo 64 and looked extremely different. After being put on the backburner for several years, it was revived as a GameCube title.
• Saved from Development Hell: The game was originally supposed to launch for the Nintendo 64 and had started development around 1995. It got scrapped, but it would eventually resurface on the Nintendo GameCube in 2003.
• Troubled Production:
  • The game started development in the early days of the Nintendo 64 but got shelved for a while, only to turn later in 2003. And even then, the early March 2003 footage, left a rather poor initial reception. What really shows how troubled the development process, though, was series creator Masahiro Sakurai himself leaving HAL Laboratory after its completion.
  • In Masahiro Sakurai on Creating Games, Sakurai said that after a year of development, none of the vehicles worked properly. This required the developers to rebuild the game from scratch in just three and a half months. Fortunately, assets like the vehicles and courses were "mostly good to go" and could be carried over to the new version.

---