Urban Trial Tricky Deluxe Edition Review

It’s been 2 years now since I put my controller down and admitted defeat to Ubisoft’s epic Trials series, but it seems the time has come to test the durability of my controllers once more. This time though it’s by way of a new challenger. Developed and published by Tate Multimedia, Urban Trial Tricky Deluxe Edition is the latest 2.5D platform adventure looking to adopt the popular Trials-style formula, with the hope of turning players into crazy tricksters through the mastering of incredibly satisfying, albeit daring motocross stunts and wacky death-defying combos.

The premise of Urban Trial Tricky Deluxe Edition is fairly simple. Your job is to progress through the 30+ levels, earning either the biggest scores or the fastest times to push towards the ultimate goal of five-star success within each stage.

There are three distinct level types to be mastered – after having learned the basics from the introductory tutorials of course.

Timed levels task players with racing through the environment as fast as possible in a time-trial-esque hunt for the quickest finishing time. Tricks are as the name suggests, a set of levels that require you to pull off the biggest and best tricks in order to rack up your points to bank the biggest score. Finally, we have Competition, and in these stages you will need to pull off specific tricks one after the other to come out victorious.

Whilst tricks and score are certainly the primary focus, it also pays to keep an eye out within each level for the various collectables laying around, most of which come in the form of money bags. These add to your overall currency, which in turn can then be spent on rider customisations, new tricks, or even a new bike or two – provided you’ve racked up the stars in single-player to unlock them that is.

Snacks can also be found littered about within some levels, but rather than add to any currency, these are collected as one of the many ‘Extra Challenges’ that come bolted on to each and every level within the game. It’s these extra challenges that provide plenty of reasons to retry levels over once they’ve already been completed, with developer times to beat, higher scores to master and often the most brutal of tricks to pull off.

The environments themselves seem to be just what you’d expect. Platforms galore, plenty of ramps and jumps trying to tease you into pushing out that extra risky trick that could prove your ultimate demise and of course, a colour palette that could paint a rainbow.

Unlike the aforementioned Ubisoft series, Tate Multimedia isn’t looking to cater to the hardcore player here – thank god! There are some challenges that might have you a little frustrated later on and getting the full completion certainly requires a little more dedication if you are to learn which tricks offer the big points, or just how to pull some of the more outrageous ones off (Ultra and Extreme tricks I’m looking at you). Even with that in mind though, there is definitely a casual feel to proceedings within this latest offering and you won’t find yourself pulling your hair out just to string together something that looks half decent before you can enjoy yourself.

What aids itself most in ensuring this game can cater to the casual community is the controls. With accelerate and slow down tied the usual right and left triggers, and the entire trick list readily available from the pause menu, there is nothing here that is going to cause too much stress.

What’s more, is that the gameplay brings a super-smooth feeling be whether you’re flying through the air or transitioning from one trick to the next and that only helps things feel more accessible as you’re not fighting with anything just to do the basics.

Sadly, there are a few glaring misses as well as some technical issues that stop this from being a definite go-to and one of those things is the lack of any multiplayer, be it local or online.

Even though there won’t be many out there looking to have some master show them up after having learned the entire trick-list off by heart, it’s always enjoyable to at least be able to jump in with a friend and have the casual competition, especially when scores and timers are involved. Unfortunately, the only way to integrate any real competition besides the level-based goals is to try your hand at topping the leaderboards that accompany each level. Sure, they are satisfying, and they add in a good layer of replayability, but they aren’t quite the only thing that could have made Urban Trial Tricky Deluxe Edition thrive.

Another issue that appears to happen from time to time is button presses not quite registering as they should. This is only a rare issue, and it only seems to affect tricks that need some sort of combo, but there were times in which I was found restarting my level because that ‘worm’ just wouldn’t land no matter how many times I pressed the right buttons.

Despite the issues, there isn’t anything here that should put you off spending some time with Urban Trial Tricky Deluxe Edition. The gameplay is fun, the tricks are incredible, and the visuals are inviting, and with a soundtrack that will have your head nodding to the beat, what’s not to enjoy.

Conclusion

I have to be honest; I was wrong. I fully expected to find a poor man’s Trials but instead, I found a game that provides a more accessible experience to the well-known platform trialist experience, whilst also holding enough of its own character to feel like a fresh game in its own right.

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This game was tested and reviewed on Xbox Series X/S. All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by publisher.
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Good
  • Vibrant and colourful
  • Smooth gameplay
  • Accessible to all skill levels
  • Extra Challenges help the longevity
Bad
  • Complex tricks can be non-responsive
  • No multiplayer
7.4
Good
Gameplay - 8
Graphics - 7
Audio - 7.2
Longevity - 7.4
Written by
After many years of dabbling and failing in Dark Souls and many other equally brutal gaming adventures, I can now be found in a state of relaxation, merely hunting for a little extra gamerscore or frightening myself with the latest Resident Evil - Sometimes I write about it too!

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