Trials Series Review (Xbox, PlayStation, Switch & PC)

Trials is a series that you’ll either love or you’ll hate, depending on how you’re feeling before pulling on the throttle, and more importantly, how resilient you are when it comes to suffering from the same fate again, and again, and again. It’s the sort of saga that you think you can master with your hands tied behind your back, but when push comes to shove, you realize how awful you truly are, and that the easiest way to conquer the circuit is with dumb luck and blind faith.

See, Trials is a bit of a mixed bag; it requires tight control and calculated movements to complete, but it also accepts the fact that you probably won’t take each obstacle with a can-do attitude. It knows all too well that you’ll wind up squeezing the trigger and relying on a hope and a prayer to push through, and oftentimes it rewards you for throwing caution to the wind and rolling with the punches. Sadly, it’s the other times that make it the absolute pain in the backside that it is. And if there’s one thing that Trials does annoyingly well, it’s injecting enough thorns into your side to make you tear the hairs from your scalp.

Trials initially tricks you into thinking that the mere act of shoving a dirt bike through a series of vertical ramps and seemingly random objects is a simple task. And it’s honestly quite easy to be fooled into believing it too, mainly due to the fact that it quickly presents you with a handful of beginner-friendly obstacle courses, but then, once you begin to feel comfortable with the mechanics, it lifts the smokescreen from your eyes and hits you with a cold, hard slap. Trials knocks, but by that point it’s far too late for you to turn back. You’re hooked, and you want to try your luck again, even if it means slipping further and further into a state of manic depression. That, frankly, is what Trials does best: it promises you the sweet nectar of a triumphant finish, but then keeps you from ever reaching the checkered flag by adding more and more checkpoints between yourself and the podium.

Honestly, I have a lot of time for Trials. It isn’t that I lose sleep about it; it’s that I always feel that there’s something there that needs to be accomplished when I’m neglecting the throttle. It doesn’t matter if I endure the same headache a hundred times over, because at the end of the day, I often feel that there’s another piece of the puzzle that needs to be found. In my mind, I’m thinking that there’s a better bike, a better route, or a slight chance that, should I angle my jumps just a little better, then I’ll score higher and earn my rightful place on the leaderboard. For the record, I never do. But, like a drug, I find myself itching to take another run at the gauntlet.

Gameplay-wise, Trials hasn’t ever been shy about its simplistic approach to handling and tricking. In fact, it made it clear from the beginning that, if you could pull off a wheelie on a piece of tarmac, then you could manage most, if not all of the challenges that the series would eventually put out before you. However, it was never so much the act of riding the bike that was the problem, but rather, learning how to handle it and not repeatedly fall head over heels. It wasn’t on the same wavelength as the likes of Getting Over It With Bennett Foddy, but it definitely sat in a similar gene pool.

As a series, Trials has undergone a lot of basic changes, though at no point has it ever truly strayed from its signature format and gameplay style. But, that isn’t a bad thing here. No, if anything, the familiarity is almost comforting, because it removes the pressure of having to learn new controls, and instead grants you the chance to engage in the most important thing: the tracks. And that’s all Trials is, really: a series that doesn’t alter its formula for the sake of keeping up with the times, but instead uses its iconic blueprint to explore vast themes and challenges, tracks and bikes. The saying, ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ comes to mind here, unsurprisingly.

Of course, if you were to take a gander at Trials from the sidelines, then you wouldn’t see anything particularly special. It’s difficult to argue with that notion, too, as frankly, it isn’t all that intoxicating. From a visual standpoint it’s a run-of-the-mill 2.5D racing series with a few intricate track designs and little else to offer. However, if you were to peel back the outer layers and discard its lack of graphical complexity, then you would, in all fairness, bear witness to a surprisingly solid series with a ton of excellent qualities, as well as a clean collection of stages with a great deal of replay value. With thanks to its local and online leaderboard capabilities and challenges, as well as a trove of obtainable bikes, each chapter ensures that there’s always something to look forward to. The question is, is it worth the trouble?

Verdict

Trials is like a drug, in that it entices you into thinking that the world is shackled to peaches and cream, but that it also comes with a couple of bitter consequences—a lack of helping hands, a brutal environment, and a stepping stone procedure that requires you to commit to the graft in order to taste the sweet, sweet nectar of the checkered flag. It isn’t the sort of series that you would typically turn to after a rough evening at the office, nor is it one that you would sink your teeth into to quell a desire for forgiving dirt bike challenges, either. That being said, Trials is a fantastic arcade-like saga with a timeless appeal that comes across as both gripping and oh-so-more-ish. It isn’t the most complex series on the track I’ll admit, but it is one that does more than enough to capture your attention.