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Trials Rising Gold Edition review

March 1, 2019

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Trials Rising Gold Edition

Grab your friends and get ready for one of the premier physics-based competitions available on consoles today. Whether you’re participating in solo challenges to improve your best time, or engaging directly in multiplayer mayhem—the action is madcap. Prepare to wipe out again and again in hilarious fashion with Trials Rising Gold Edition, available now for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.

Trials Rising Gold Edition Details

Platform: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch
Reviewed on: Xbox One
Developer: Redlynx, Ubisoft Kiev
Publisher: Ubisoft
Genre: Racing
Modes: Single-player, multiplayer
ESRB Rating: T (Teen)

Are you Isaac Newton on a motorbike?

Let me paraphrase the flavour text on on of Trials Rising Gold Edition’s loading screens. It says “Isaac Newton was brilliant at physics, so he would be very good at Trials Rising”. This made me laugh, right up until a few moments later when I took my first face-plant into the dirt.

In Trials Rising Gold Edition players follow a linear track across a bevy of obstacles. The goal is to reach the finish line in the fastest time. However, speed is more often the enemy than it is an ally.

Just as that loading screen purports, Trials Rising Gold Edition is a game of finesse with deep roots in physics. You’ll need to master each track’s subtle nuances to fully squeeze out the fastest line. Repetition and failure along the way are inevitable—if not mercifully hilarious as well.

Trials Rising Gold Edition

Just one more run

Trials Rising Gold Edition is one of those games with the rare quality of being easy to learn but difficult to master. Anyone can have a blast cruising through a track and aiming for the best time. One of the best features of the game is it’s extremely speedy restart feature.

With a simple press of a button you can instantly transport back to either the last checkpoint or the beginning of a race. There is virtually no load time whatsoever in between. The ease with which you can bounce back from a wipe out and retry for improvement makes time-chasing all the more addicting and fun.

While beating your personal best time is a thrill in and of itself, the real joy in Trials Rising Gold Edition is competing with friends and the world at large. Leaderboards will constantly remind you every time a friend tops your score, and Trials Rising Gold Edition quickly becomes a heated competition of one-upmanship. Just try and resist the urge to go back and topple the friend who recently beat your seemingly untouchable time, I dare you.

Trials Rising Gold Edition

Multiplayer madness

Multiplayer gameplay is truly at the core of Trials Rising Gold Edition. Right from the beginning there is an element of multiplayer, even as you navigate the initial game in solo trials. The game automatically includes the ghost avatars of three other real-world competitors to show their own runs.

This can really help improve your own strategy. Watching other players navigate the track will help you learn potentially new tricks and tactics to find the best line. Of course, if you don’t want to see them, the ghosts opacity can be set to zero in the settings menu. This will remove them from your field of view.

Trials Rising Gold Edition also features multiple co-op and online multiplayer modes. “Tandem” and “Party” mode offer hilarious and fun co-op competition for players and their friends. You can also participate in online “Challenger Mode” matches. Here players take on three other challengers in a series of increasingly difficult tracks, with only a few failures allowed.

The most robust multiplayer action is in “Global Multiplayer”. Here up to 8 players can compete in 3 rounds of traditional Trials competition. The game features divisional rankings to progress through, and will be divided into “Seasons” with unique rewards to earn during each seasonal period. A new Season will begin approximately every three months.

Trials Rising Gold Edition

Choosing the lonely road

If multiplayer gameplay or friendly competition among peers really isn’t your thing, there is still plenty to do on your own. There are nine main (and two hidden) leagues across the globe with solo competitions, sponsor contracts, challenges, and other fare to take on.

Along the way you can earn medals and XP to level up your rider. You’ll also unlock loot boxes full of customization items. These provide aesthetic improvements for both your avatar as well as the stable of bikes at your disposal.

The only downside to the progression system is that the pacing is fairly poor. Starting out you’ll be earning new levels and rewards so fast that there is almost no excitement or anticipation in the achievement. Further down the road this dynamic will shift in the opposite direction however. Later levels have such high requirements that getting to them can become a droll and repetitive grind.

Trials Rising Gold Edition

Create your own trial

Finally, Trials Rising Gold Edition includes a very robust track editor. Here you can build your own track using assets from every Trials game since 2009—that four full Trials releases full of content in addition to Trials Rising. There are over 8000 unique objects to play with, and plenty of video tutorials available online to help you hone your track creation skills.

Trials Rising Gold Edition

Trials Rising Gold Edition is a challenging physics-based racing competition that will have you coming back for more

Trials Rising Gold Edition is full of addicting challenges and hilarious wipe outs. Learning to control your bike and gradually improving your skills is easy to measure and immensely rewarding, especially when you start to knock all your friends off the leaderboard. The lighting fast restarts make it easy to go back and try just once more—again and again.

There’s plenty to do solo—although progression becomes very tedious and stagnant later in the game. Yet the real joy to be found in Trials Rising Gold Edition resides in its co-op and multiplayer modes. From the frantic and silly Tandem co-op mode to the intense competition of Global Multiplayer, there is a huge variety of gameplay to enjoy.

+ Fun and challenging gameplay
+ A variety of co-op and multiplayer modes
+ Leaderboards and divisional/seasonal play

– Unbalanced character level progression