Game info: Wikipedia
Listening: game rip, YouTube
Credits
Music: Noriyuki Iwadare, Shogo Sakai, Akira Miyagawa, Hiroki Hashimoto, Nobuyoshi Kobayashi, Sho Okada, Kanaya Oki, Torine, Rio Hamamoto, Yoshinori Hirai
Sound Effects: Shiori Miyazawa, kyo, Yuki Kusuhara, Noa Yokoi, Chi O, Shoichi Hiyama, Junnosuke Yamazaki, Yoshihito Yano, Shoma Kagi, Risa Aizawa, E Xuan Pang, Junichi Funada, Masayuki Endo
Sound Technical Support: Yusuke Kudo, Minamo Takahashi, Hiroto Fushimi, Shuji Kohata, Tetsukazu Nakanishi, Ryo Watanabe
Sound Direction: Saki Kasuga
Sound Management: Junichi Nakatsuru
Full credits available at VGMdb. Akira Miyagawa’s music credit is likely just for pieces reused from the 2000s anime series.
Info
Time to finally listen to the sequel to 2003 nostalgia darling Kirby Air Ride, which is one of several Kirby games which has at one point or another been my favorite soundtrack in the series (the correct answer has definitively been Planet Robobot since that game came out). The original game was developed by HAL Laboratory and its soundtrack was done by its sound team (with some pieces reused from the anime soundtrack by Akira Miyagawa and possibly Hayata Akashi), but as with Masahiro Sakurai’s recent Smash games, Air Riders was developed by Bandai Namco, and so most of the credited composers are part of that sound team; we’ve seen all of their names before in Katamari and/or Daemon X Machina soundtracks. There are also two freelance composers who got top billing before the game was released: Shogo Sakai, formerly at HAL and the only returning composer from Air Ride, and Noriyuki Iwadare, who’s previously arranged Kirby music for Smash.
Like the original game, there are three major modes where the bulk of the soundtrack lies: Air Ride, a traditional racing mode, Top Ride, a top-down view racing mode that was more common in older racing games, and City Trial, a timed adventure-ish mode where you collect stat upgrades in an open map to improve your performance in a random minigame at the end that determines who wins. The way these soundtracks worked in the original game is that most of the main course themes were original compositions, but you could unlock a lot of alternate themes which were either direct reuses or arrangements of pieces from earlier games, and that’s the case here in Air Riders as well. There’s a decent amount of reused music from Air Ride too, mostly in Air Ride because the old tracks are unlockable and City Trial for repeated special events and minigames.
Air Ride mode is the only one of the three that we have confirmed credits for: from Twitter we know three courses that Shogo Sakai wrote and one that Noriyuki Iwadare wrote. The standard Air Ride mode music in the first game was mostly orchestral mixed with a little folk and electronic; that’s not untrue here but there’s rock too, plus the orchestral tracks are in a bit more of a pops style with drumkit and electric bass. The alternate themes in the first game stuck close to their original tracks in style and instrumentation and therefore ended up being a lot more varied, and that’s also the case here too. Finally, Air Ride in the original game had my least favorite music in the game, and wouldn’t you know it, that’s also the case here too; in fact I like them even less this time around, it’s gone from just indifference to active dislike of a lot of them.
I did enjoy the new Top Ride tracks quite a bit, though! They’re overall a little more electronic and brighter in tone than the Air Ride tracks, texturally a bit cooler to me and harmonically a lot cooler to me. City Trial adds two new city themes which are both instrumental versions of different versions of the game’s vocal theme composed by Noriyuki Iwadare; they’re both fairly similar to new Air Ride mode themes, which means I don’t really like them either and think they’re a major step down from the original City Trial themes. I did like the new event and minigame themes more though, I don’t think they’re quite as interesting as the new Top Ride tunes but there are still some good parts. They’re in a mix of orchestral, electronic, and rock (and hybrids thereof) styles, some are clearly trying to evoke the event themes from the first game and others do their own thing.
There’s also a new fourth mode, Road Trip, which is a story mode, but in it you mostly play challenges from the other game modes, so it just has a few extra menu and battle themes. Beyond the game modes, there are a bunch of different menu/UI themes, including a couple of remixes of the same menu themes from the original Air Ride. These are all largely okay, didn’t really hate anything besides the theme songs but wasn’t super in love with anything either.
So the soundtrack’s fine, I guess. My gut reaction to it was more negative than I think I actually feel about it, because it was so front-loaded with music that I very much dislike. After clearing the Air Ride mode themes and getting into tracks that were probably composed by the Bandai Namco sound staff, it definitely got more enjoyable. Honestly, the main problem with this soundtrack is that LindaAI-CUE, the best Bandai Namco composer, was not involved; huge HUGE oversight.
Recommended tracks:
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“Crystalline Fissure” was very easily my favorite Air Ride course theme, nice shiny synths
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“Cavernous Corners” fits in a few different cave vibes into the same track
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“Waveflow Waters (Alt)” is a fun, Latin jazz-flavored remix of the classic “Float Islands” theme
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“Air” is a Top Ride track that feels pretty Hitoshi Sakimoto, especially at 0:40
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“Cyber” drops the most insane part of this entire soundtrack at 0:15
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“Boxes Raining Down” is absolutely without a doubt ripping off the anime music by Akira Miyagawa used as event themes in City Trial in the first game
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“VS. Robo Dedede” is kind of just a :geetarz: remix of “Castle Lololo” from the original Kirby’s Dream Land, but it has some subtly thick string chord stacks in there that are pretty nice
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“Menu (Top Ride)” jazzes up the original Kirby’s Air Ride menu theme a bit, each variation has a different flavor to it and this one’s a little French with the acoustic guitar and accordion
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“VS. Gigantes” has really dirty harmonies during the second statement of the brass melody at 0:51
(“Menu (Top Ride)” is an unofficial title)
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