The moment Sakurai announced smash run, this game was already doing more than enough to meet my expectation. I seriously don't think I will have any complains from now on just because of this (yes even if paper mario doesn't get repped properly, I would still be happy).
You have to understand that kirby air ride was SOOOOO underrated because of how simple the game was (which is weird because ssbm IS simple). City trial was like 75% of the quality of the game and the sole reason why the whole game was underrated was city trial. Here's my philosophy on why Sakurai reviving this mechanics was one of the best decisions he took.
I see city trial as kids playing in a court in elementary school. You have a set time when anything can happen randomly because the fun you have each day would be different each other and it will be at a different degree because there's so much random factors in it. What makes this even more interesting is the environment: it is open and doesn't change so you get used to it which means that you will have to use it to your advantage making things even more random. What's important is that you can't guess what others will do and you can't guess how this will affects you so you just expect anything to happen. Sometime, the environment is changing like snow in winter or rain but the structure of it mostly doesn't change so ageing another random factor here. Why this is so fun? Well, kids actually like when random stuff happens they like to experience as most possible outcome as possible.
City trial is the exact same thing just replace kids with kirby on vehicle and the court by a city map. It really has the same feel and this is why this game was so innovative. This is the only random / fun game I've played that I find enjoyable to play with cpus. And that is alone imagine with 4 players…
But now, as determined as Sakurai is, he bring this feeling again in a different way while still keeping the same charm that it offered in ssb4. Remember, this was underrated so to be so sure that it was good enough to bring it back is all thanks to Sakurai's determination. If it wasn't for it, he would've made decisions like others do; based on the sale of a game. Another reason for me to think that Sakurai is the best developer I have ever heard of.
Luckily, more people will realize how this philosophy is the way to go since this game will automatically be well known day 1. So, just for this mode, this game is meeting more than enough my expectation and so, I shall not complain for it (really just imagine me alone playing this mode with 3 level 9 cpu… the cpu in sub are so good).
Thank you Sakurai, you're impressing me more every day.
