Changes in Kirby Air Riders from Kirby Air Ride

There are some minor and not so minor changes in Kirby Air Riders from the original Kirby Air Ride that I've noticed while playing the game and I'd just like to talk about them.

[Misc.]
In the original game, if you were on a vehicle that hovers (which is most of them), you would have to press A to pres down on a boost panel to use it, otherwise you just glide ride over it.
So grounded vehicles like the bikes would just use the dash panels automatically. This made it feel especially unfair in City Trial mini-games like Air Glider or High Jump where you had this very short slivers of boosts that you would kinda just have to mash A and hope you hit a few of them while bike users could just go and get all the boosts.
But in the new game, all vehicles use boost panels automatically.

[Power Ups - Items & Copy Abilities]
So with power ups, as I call them, you have the ones that are copy abilities and the ones that are items like the one that makes you spin continuously, missiles, firework cannon, etc.
In the original game, if you grabbed a power up and then touched another one, you would immediately just gain the other power up and drop the previous one. But in the new game, if you had just grabbed a power up, you actually have a few seconds before you can pick up another one, you'll just push them out of the way if you touch another one.
I do like that because say you're having an arena battle or something, it would sometimes be really annoying trying to grab a power up only to try and stop and turn around and slide into another power up that you didn't want.

One thing I'm a little disappointed by though is that the item power ups would kinda stack in the original with another item or a copy ability.
So you could have the continuous spin and the firework cannon at the same time and it would be kinda funny, shooting all over the place like that. And if you got it with a copy ability, it didn't really change anything. The copy abilities still functioned the same, even the ones you had to aim with. But it was still neat.
But now they don't stack, you just drop the one item for another item or copy ability that you pick up.

I also noticed they got rid of the wing and tornado copy ability.
The wing ability I can understand because it was mostly useless. It didn't really make you any faster nor could you glide/fly that much higher or faster with it which you would think would be the one thing it'd be good at.
Also if you quick spun with it, it would have the same effect as the tornado ability.
I suppose the one use it did have is if you were using a grounded vehicle like one of the bikes, it would temporarly give you the ability to glide. Buuut there weren't really many opportunities where it was actually useful in that case.

The tornado ability I thought was fine though, don't know why they got rid of that.
With tornado, you would charge up and then do a tornado spin when launching in a direction and it would fling opponents into the air and stun them a little.
I guess they thought it was OP? I mean you could sorta juggle opponents with it.
Or maybe they thought it was a little redundant to the continuous spin item?
idk

[Enemies]
Of course they got rid of the tornado and bird enemies as those abilities aren't in the game anymore.

They changed the look of the fire enemy.
In the original game the fire enemy was some floating elephant head that spewed fire from its trunk. Now it's just like a black ball with 4 little fire wings.

In the original game, the wheelie enemies looked like the wheelie bike because that's what the enemies looked like in games like Kirby Super Star.
But now they're just the wheel with the eyeball which is fair, makes them more distinct from the ridable vehicle. It is kinda weird to have the wheelie bike vehicle while also having just sentient wheelie bikes riding around on their own.

[Vehicles]
The Turbo Star's gimmick is that it's fast but slow to turn. But like, in the original I know it had this thing where, when trying to do a hard turn with it, it would do a little twirl. But in the new game it just doesn't do that.

A neat quirk of the Scooter was that it had an insane jump height, especially after getting lots of glide. Making it surprisingly effective in mini-games like Air Glider and High Jump.
But that aspect of it appears to be gone in Air Riders. Sad.

The Compact Star.
The vehicle that everyone starts with in City Trial. Some people claim its the worst vehicle in the game. But I'd argue that it's the most balanced.
Yeah it sucks at first obviously but it's actually pretty good once you get enough upgrades during the match and doesn't suffer from any of the downside quirks of the other vehicles. Even the Warp Star, that's supposed to be the well-rounder, still slides a bit before coming to a full stop. The Compact Star doesn't have that problem.
So I usually prefer just to keep the Compact Star.

Nothing changed about the vehicle itself in the new game. But a certain new mechanic really screwed it over.
There's a new mechanic in Kirby Air Riders City Trial where, when approaching another vehicle, you can press Y and ram into the vehicle and hop onto it. Leaving the previous vehicle behind. But if you don't press Y, you'll just bump into it.
HOWEVER...with the Compact Star specifically, you don't have to press Y. Running into another vehicle automatically makes you hop onto it, and then the Compact Star immediately just diappears!!
This has led to a few moments where, near the end of a match, I'll accidentally run into another vehicle cause I'm going so fast, and it's a vehicle I didn't want, and then I don't have time to find a more preferrable one!
Why did they do that?! JUST LET ME KEEP THE COMPACT STAR IF I WANT TO!
I guess the devs just assumed that nobody would want the "shitty" Compact Star so they were like "Oh you don't want THAT piece of garbage, here, we'll help you get another vehicle and we'll just throw that trash away for you! 😊"
UGH!