development period (the version shown at the 1996 E3 resembled a skateboarding sim) before eventually being canceled. Producer Shigeru Miyamoto said in an early 1998 interview that the project had been temporarily halted so that Nintendo could focus efforts on finishing 1080° Snowboarding and rework the Kirby's Air Ride concept. The game resurfaced on the GameCube in the form of a short video preview in March 2003 at the annual DICE summit in Las Vegas, at which point it received its final title. This preview received a mainly negative reception due to slow speeds and poor graphics, factors which the Nintendo 64 prototype had also been criticized for. Kirby Air Ride was first seen in playable form at E3 in May later that year. The demo contained five playable tracks and three different game modes. The reception to this playable demo was more positive than the video preview. Masahiro Sakurai, the game designer behind most of the early games in the Kirby series, resigned from his position at HAL Laboratory shortly after the game's release, citing that he was tiring of the constant pressure from the industry to keep creating sequels. Music The soundtrack was composed by Jun Ishikawa, Shogo Sakai, Hirokazu Ando, and Tadashi Ikegami. The latter three of those composers also worked on Super Smash Bros. Melee, while Jun Ishikawa has been a regular composer for the Kirby series since its debut. Kirby Air Ride also features songs from the Japanese version of Kirby: Right Back at Ya!, composed by Akira Miyagawa; the game was advertised at the end of some episodes, and a two-part special featuring vehicles from the game aired alongside the game's launch. Reception Kirby Air Ride sold 422,311 copies in Japan and 750,000 in the United States. Upon its release, the game received mixed reviews according to the review aggregator website Metacritic. Most websites and magazines praised its clean presentation, music, and the originality of the City Trial mode while criticizing its gameplay as being overly simple. Kirby Air Rides similarity to other titles released for the GameCube around the same time (most notably F-Zero GX and Mario Kart: Double Dash, both of which were also made by Nintendo) resulted in it being categorized as a rather throwaway title. In Japan, Famitsu gave it a score of two eights and two nines for a total of 34 out of 40. Notes References External links