When Ubisoft announced that Trials Rising was coming to the Nintendo Switch, I didn’t get my hopes up. It might seem like an ideal fit for Nintendo’s hybrid home/handheld console, but I could spot some potential problems that could ruin the entire experience.
Trials Rising always felt like a Switch game that would get delayed and then later cancelled. But now that its release date is upon us, the Switch version sure does seem real. Ubisoft even released an open beta that ran over the weekend. And now that I’m playing the Switch version (along with the PC release), I have to admit that it’s really coming out.
So does it overcome my concerns like so many motorbikes flying over ramps? Well, let me address both of my major worries.
Analog triggers
In Trials games, your goal is to get a motorcycle to the finish line. In your way stands various ramps, obstacles, and other challenges. You control the bike by leaning your character or by gassing up the throttle and slamming the brakes.
The problem here is that, like on a real bike, the throttle is an analog mechanism. On an Xbox One controller or DualShock 4, you control the throttle with the right analog trigger button. The more you pull the more gas shoots into the transmission (I don’t know how engines work). This is crucial because flat-out speed is not always the best choice in Trials. Instead, you might need just a touch of power to ensure you don’t flip over backward on an extremely steep slope, for example.
But the Nintendo Switch does not have analog triggers, and neither does the Switch Pro Controller. So I had my doubts that Switch players would have even a comparable level of control over their bikes. To me, this was actually a dealbreaker.
And yet, the problem I was imagining isn’t really that noticeable when playing Trials Rising on the Switch. Now, Ubisoft and developer RedLynx did include support for the GameCube controller, which you can connect to the Switch with a dongle. But I want to play this game handheld, and I am — and it works.
I can’t tell for sure, but it seems like RedLynx put some AI into the throttle in the Switch version. So if you are on one of those steep inclines, it throttles you up gradually. If you combine that and gentle taps on the gas as needed, you can get through any challenge in the game.
Visual fidelity
The Switch’s lack of power also worried me. Trials HD and Trials Evolution both look and run great on Xbox 360, but RedLynx has amped up the visuals for the series on the current generation. Mostly, the studio has added graphical flair in the background and put more racers on the screen at once.
I was never really worried about losing a lot of that flair, but I did think that the game might not run well on the Switch because Ubisoft isn’t used to scaling games down to Nintendo’s system. And those fears turned out to be pretty close to the reality.
On Switch, Trials Rising has a thick fog in many of its stages that hides a lot of the background geometry. RedLynx has also dropped the resolution to 720p, and that dynamically scales to even lower depending on what is happening on the screen. But most noticeably, the framerate is an average of 30 frames per second.
You can see what all of that looks like compared to the game running at 4K on PC in the clip below:
But while the game is definitely the result of a number of compromises, it still plays just fine. Even at 30 frames per second, I feel like I am in control of my bike and am able to take on any stage in the game. Of course, I prefer 60 frames per second (it is capped at 60 on PC), but I’m often OK with giving that up to play in handheld mode.
Should you get the Switch version?
If you are a Trials fan, and you’re trying to decide on which version to buy, I probably still wouldn’t say the Switch. Unless you really need a portable version or this is your only platform, it’s worth it to get the higher framerate, crisper visuals, and analog triggers.
Trials is the kind of game that you will get better at over time, and you’ll begin to feel any disadvantage — especially if you’re competing against friends.
But if you’re like me and would end up getting this game on multiple devices, I think the Switch version is totally serviceable. It’s not a broken game or a shell of the real experience. This is the full Trials Rising, and now it can go with you everywhere.
