Hydro Thunder (N64, PS1) Retro Review

What's that? Did you ask for more racing games for review on SuperPhillip Central? I think you did, but if you didn't, I'll blame the water that's lodged in my ears for not hearing correctly. This aforementioned water comes from the aquatic racing action seen in Hydro Thunder, particularly the Nintendo 64 and PlayStation 1 ports of the arcade classic! Let's get to racing with the retro review.

H2OMG, what wet and wild racing!

Back in the 90s, racing games of all types were commonplace in the gaming market. Less so nowadays, especially when you consider the deluge and embarrassment of riches we had back in the day. It wasn't just games going after the Mario Kart crown with mascot-based kart races, either. You had snowboarding, futuristic racers, and yes, even water-based ones like Midway's Hydro Thunder series, taking the racing to the waves in powerboats. 

Originally an arcade game and a classic at that, Hydro Thunder would make its way to home consoles, first with the Sega Dreamcast getting nearly a 1:1 port in 1999 with ports to decidedly hardware--the Nintendo 64 and PlayStation 1--just about a year later. The latter versions is what this retro review is based off of. Hydro Thunder is known for its blistering fast, speedy, aquatic gameplay, so how does that transfer over to the N64 and PS1? 

There's not a pot of gold at the end of this rainbow, but there
may be a worthwhile shortcut. (Hint, hint.)

The basics of Hydro Thunder generally have you taking on 15 other powerboats in a race from point A to point B. Two of the races, however, forgo this linear design and serve as circuit tracks in a stadium. Either way, you're battling both the competition and a timer that ticks down, extending your time remaining as you pass checkpoints throughout the race.

The Arctic Circle may be notoriously cold, but it's sure to heat up with some intense racing.

Sprinkled among the tracks of the game are large, spinning boost icons coming in blue and red varieties. Upon passing through them, your boat gains the ability to boost to not only speed up but speed through obstacles and even opponents on the aquatic track. Blue boost icons are more plentiful and easier to access than their red counterparts, but the red boost icons provide nine seconds of boost energy whereas blue boost icons only give three seconds more. Suffice to say, a big part of Hydro Thunder's racing is rationing your boosts, smartly and strategically using them to gain on the competition.

Hydro Thunder is a hard game, no doubt. You'll seldom find yourself with a big lead. In fact, the majority of races will be you at the back of the pack, slowly overtaking the competition, and usually finding yourself passing first place at the homestretch just before the finish line. That's even if you can manage first place, as again, Hydro Thunder is difficult, punishing players for even the smallest mistakes. This can be a frustrating aspect of the game, but it's all the more rewarding when after dozens of attempts of keeping your head above the water against the CPU that you finally achieve first place and are victorious.

Whether you know the track by heart or are just learning it,
this race will probably be "Greek" to you regardless.

 

Hydro Thunder is arcade-y in feel as all get-out, and essentially the game feel is quite good, making a tremendous splash for a first impression. Depending on the level of boat you choose--from easy to medium, medium to hard, and hard to bonus (the latter are wackier designs, such as a fisherman in a paddle boat or an iceberg-fearing ship called the Tinytanic)--these control either well but lack speed, or in the case of hard-ranked boats, are fast but lack great control. 

There are 13 tracks within Hydro Thunder. Each present multiple opportunities to seek out and pull off insane shortcuts, as many of them require precision maneuvers to nail--whether that be getting big air off ramps, threading the needle through precarious paths, discovering sneaky, hidden routes off the main path, or utilizing the Hydro Jump mechanic, which requires you to have boost energy in your gauge while pressing the boost and brake buttons simultaneously to "lift" your powerboat off the waves and into a leap. This allows you to reach areas you otherwise would not be able to, though it's also a bit clunky in practice to use. Often, even with plenty of the required boost energy to utilize, I'd find myself either just boosting or worse, just braking without getting any lift.

The race has only just started, and already we're jockeying for position here.

The tracks within Hydro Thunder unlock in groups, and the requirements to unlock them get tougher and tougher as you go down the line. There are three easy tracks, three medium tracks, three hard tracks, and finally, four bonus tracks. To unlock the medium tracks, you need to finish each of the three initial easy tracks in at least third place, whereas the hard tracks unlock upon reaching second or better in the medium tracks. Understandably and through one's divine powers of deduction, those bonus tracks require you to win the hard races outright to unlock them.

While easy tracks like the tropical Lost Island feature light turns, wide straightaways, and are generally shorter affairs, harder tracks like Venice Canals and Ship Graveyard showcase tight, hairpin turns, incredibly narrow stretches of track where it's difficult to jockey for position, and are longer than your standard easy and medium level tracks. The grandest track of them all, and also the last track to be played in the game, Nile Adventure, is one serious endurance race, a wet and wild ride along the Nile through jungles and the tight turns and corners of an ancient temple. Most of the races feel like aquatic adventures, and they're absolutely exhilarating to race on, even upon the tenth or even twentieth attempt!  

Starting at the top of this canyon at sunset, this wet race ends at its bottom by nighttime.

Compared to the arcade and Sega Dreamcast versions of Hydro Thunder, no doubt you could expect that on weaker hardware, a fast-paced, more CPU intensive game like Hydro Thunder would tax the Nintendo 64 and PlayStation 1. This expectation would line up with reality, as the game decidedly feels slower than its contemporaries on stronger hardware. That said, the game still runs well, features fast, good-feeling gameplay, and makes a nice case for itself as a speedy racer on the N64 and PS1.

Meanwhile, on the sound side of the game, the announcer is mostly what you'll hear above the constant revving and roaring of your various powerboats' engines, stating when you overtake other racers, when you find a secret shortcut, and other things of note. Sometimes you'll also get verbally assaulted by police boats that chastise you for speeding and racing in an unauthorized zone, by which it is then oh-so-satisfying to boost into the boat to cause it to tumble and careen into the air. 

Hydro Thunder is a tough and challenging aquatic racer, but it's also highly rewarding with its skill-dependent, strategic boost-rationing, and smart shortcut-taking gameplay. Its 13 races will keep you playing for a good while, as you discern where it's best to boost, smartest to overtake opponents, and where all those stealthy, second-shaving shortcuts await you. It's not technologically as impressive as the arcade or Dreamcast versions, understandably, but if you lack a means to play those, then the N64 and PS1 ports are more than worthy supplements for some powerboat-ing shenanigans. This is an arcade racing game that neither sinks nor swims--it positively shreds!

[SPC Says: B] 

Speed Punks (PS1) Retro Review

I feel like we're stuck on a racing game trend here on SuperPhillip Central lately--what, with Chocobo Racing, Mario Kart World, and yes, now Speed Punks for the original PlayStation. I must really have the need for speed, and while I'm on this theme of racing, let's take to the track with this oft overlooked PS1 kart racer!

Whether you know them as punks or as freaks, these folks sure have some speed!

 

Back in the 1990s, every publisher wanted a piece of the Mario Kart pie, and Sony with its then-newly established PlayStation were no different. Coming at Nintendo's prestigious Mario Kart franchise with not one but two karting efforts within the span of about a year: Naughty Dog's Crash Team Racing and the subject of today's review, Funcom's Speed Punks (aka Speed Freaks outside of North America), it's safe to say the latter is more forgotten in the annals of gaming history. That said, while CTR is definitely the more popular of the two, does that mean that Speed Punks deserved to slip through the cracks? 

Well, yes and no, depending on what context you're approaching the game from. But, we'll get more into that in a teeny tiny bit. Let's go with an overview of what is inside the Speed Punks package before we delve any further. 

The starting circuits offer gentle turns, wide tracks, and plenty of room to maneuver.

The main single player content of Speed Punks is its Tournament mode. Here, players race against five other drivers in your standard Grand Prix contest, featuring four tracks. There are three batches of four tracks, beginning with the Easy Tournament. The tracks here showcase gentle turns, wide open straightaways, and little in the way of hazards compared to later difficulties. Successfully completing each tournament unlocks the next difficulty in an Easy to Normal to Hard progression. By the time you reach the Hard Tournament, tracks are much more windier, have intense and tight curves, plentiful narrow sections, easy spots to fall off via careless driving, and numerous hazards to evade. 

 Depending on the place racers achieve in the Tournament mode, they receive different amounts of points, with first place earning the most, and sixth earning the least. However, if the player hits fourth or worse in a race, they must use up one of their finite retries to start the race over and try again for a higher place. Races can also be restarted mid-lap, though also at the cost of retry. You might think this is a foolish maneuver, but there is a reason to do this aside of knowing you're probably going to place fourth or worse.

Life is a highway, and I want to ride it for five laps.

Aside from that reason, what if you're in second place and coming in on the finish line? What possible excuse could you have to restart then, you ask? The main reason to do this is because you're awarded a chance to face a boss character for winning all races in a given Tournament in first place. Winning the trial against this boss character adds them to roster to race as. 

In total, there are six characters in the base roster with three more as unlockable through winning each of the three Tournaments in first place in all races, and thus, beating the boss character to unlock them into the roster. Each character sports their own stats in three categories: weight, top speed, and acceleration. 

Get first place in all of a given Tournament's difficulty, and you'll earn the right to face a boss!
Win, and you'll add them to your repertoire of racers!

 

 

 

 

Totaling just twelve tracks might seem like a bummer, especially compared to Mario Kart, which at the time sported 16 unique tracks, and that's because it sort of is! While it is a bit disappointing to see Speed Punks with a smaller number of tracks, what is available are fun and entertaining circuits. These are five laps apiece as opposed to the typical three seen in other kart racers, and they give you enough time to enjoy each circuit before moving onto the next. Even with five laps, they don't overextend their individual welcomes or grow tedious. Well, maybe that's less true of the final track within the Hard Tournament, as that one even if it were three laps is a test of the endurance, for sure!

Regardless, the tracks are well designed, and the shortcuts within them offer some smart design too. Whether that's driving through a bush within the opening of a fence to reach a whole new part of track within the speedway that is Silver City, or shortcuts that only appear later in a given race, like a cavern's opening within the volcanic Thunder Trail--these are cleverly hidden for the most part and offer great skips ahead of one's opponents.

Of course, a kart racer, especially one with a goofy aesthetic and unrealistic approach, isn't worth putting the pedal to the metal if its selection of items isn't worthwhile. Fortunately, there's plenty here in Speed Punks to sow strife on straightaways, cause chaos at corners, and tremendous terror on the track in general. There are of course green shell and red shell equivalents with missiles and homing missiles respectively, slime puddles that serve as Speed Punks' banana peel equivalent, and yes, even a pesky blue shell equivalent, as well. However, there are also other power-ups that don't necessarily take from the Mario Kart playbook, such as machine guns, shockwaves, and a tire pop that will inflate your tires until they burst (though this can be battled against by mashing on a specific button), for starters.

Excuse me, sir. You dropped this bomb!

While the items and power-ups within Speed Punks add to the vehicular carnage and motor mayhem as one would expect, not everything brings chaos to the game in the best of ways. For one, Speed Punks' driving physics and handling constantly make you feel like you're driving on a Teflon surface. It's beyond slippery and frustratingly so. Secondly, the AI isn't the fairest of them all, let's say. They'll unload on to you with items, power-ups, and just make for an aggravating time on the track in Tournament mode.  

Fortunately, what positives I can say about Speed Punks' racing action are more numerous than its negatives. The aforementioned items are enjoyable to use, races are generally incredibly thrilling and especially rewarding if and when you emerge victorious, tracks are well designed, and the boost system is helpful in cutting corners, making shortcuts, and otherwise navigating through and speeding back up after all of the item spam you will face. 

Who's a good racer? Why, yes, you are! Yes, you are!

That notwithstanding, content-wise Speed Punks is lacking. The twelve total tracks are a paltry amount for a kart racer, no matter how well designed they come across. The amount of modes is lackluster, and the inability to play the Tournament mode with a local player is disappointing to me at the very least.

Like the Speed Punks track Millennium Park's roller coaster is much like Speed Punks and this review, as we're constantly going up and down these last few paragraphs with criticism and praise. Here we go again, as Speed Punk absolutely nails its presentation. The colors are crisp, colorful, and vibrant. The characters exude enough personality and animate well for a PS1 title, and the environments are delightful to take in and look at as you speed past them. The D&B soundtrack won't everyone's cup of tea (or is it motor oil? Ew.), but it's certainly serviceable and complements the racing mayhem well. 

Neither Speed Punks nor its developer Funcom may have survived into the present, but both their pasts offer plentiful amounts of entertainment. Speed Punks itself doesn't have the content to last most players an overly lengthy amount of time, and it can also be frustratingly difficult--sometimes for all the wrong reasons. That said, the game does deliver an all-around good time on the track, even if it's one that most players won't stick with for all too long. What it lacks in content and control, it more than makes up for in challenge and creativity. 

[SPC Says: C+]

Mario Kart World (NS2) Review

It's been a bit, hasn't it? Hope you haven't missed me too terribly much! ...Was that crickets I just heard?

Regardless, from one mascot racing game reviewed several months ago to a new one being reviewed now, we turn our collective attention to the most anticipated (and expensive) of Nintendo Switch 2 launch titles: Mario Kart World!

Race, if you want to. Race around the world.

With nearly 80 million total units sold between Mario Kart 8 on the Wii U and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on the Nintendo Switch, there seemed to be no other alternative for Nintendo than to launch its highly anticipated Nintendo Switch 2 with the latest in the powerhouse that is the Mario Kart franchise. Sure, there has decidedly been a fair amount of controversy surrounding the game's launch price, but overall, the hype for a new Mario Kart was palpable--and massively so--for many.

Enter and revving onto the raceway: Mario Kart World. Unlike past Mario Kart games that pretty much strictly followed the multi-lap or multi-section races and circuits that have been synonymous with the series since its inception on the Super Nintendo, Mario Kart World breaks new ground by offering, at least in its Grand Prix mode, a different take altogether.

Take the racing action from closed tracks to the open road!

Grand Prix numerous cups feature a traditional lap-based race to start a given cup, but what follows isn't three more multi-lap ventures as would be seen in past Mario Kart games. Instead, the rest of the cup features routes that take racers from point A, a trip TO the next track, to point B, a one-lap race around the track that serves as that route's destination. It's these series of worldwide rallies that really distinguish this Mario Kart from previous games in the franchise.

The routes are indeed wide, but that seems pretty necessary when you have 23 other racers breathing down your neck and attempting to bash, crash, and mash up your character as they all compete for first place. Then, there's the return of double item boxes, meaning chaos isn't atypical in a Mario Kart World race. While routes are seldom narrow, they generally aren't just straight affairs either. You'll follow along curves, weave through oncoming traffic, be inundated with items littering the route and enemies chucking hazards every which way. There aren't many rules of the road in Mario Kart World, except chaos being law.

Put on your racing best with various unlockable costumes for most of the roster!

Now, while many will miss the ability to race in a traditional Grand Prix where you speed through multiple laps on four courses one after the other, there is the ability to race more traditional multi-lap excursions, though this is limited to Versus mode. It would appeal to me, and no doubt other players, if Nintendo added a new series of Grand Prix events that allow for these standard multi-lap races in cups. Not only would it add more longevity to the Grand Prix mode, but it'd give players the best of both worlds. 

With 24 racers on the track, things can get wild, crazy, and occasionally crowded in an instant!

That notwithstanding, apart from the altered version of Grand Prix cups available, what really makes Mario Kart World stand out is the highly exciting, immensely involved, adrenaline-inducing Knockout Tour. These pit 24 players against each other across six sections. At the conclusion of every section, the amount of players that can proceed to the next gets smaller and smaller. If you're not above the certain position required to advance to the next section, you're eliminated. You've essentially got to place to continue to race! 

Knockout Tours are an awesome addition to Mario Kart World, and these bring you all across the game's world and various destinations. Each Knockout Tour ends with a final section taking place on a given circuit in the game. For instance, one of the early Knockout Tour cups has you finishing the tour on a familiar course from Mario Kart DS: Desert Hills! These tours certainly show how interconnected Mario Kart World's... well, WORLD, really is!

Monty Mole celebrates a stunning come-from-behind victory!

And that isn't limited to Grand Prix cups or Knockout Tours, either. One of the chillest and most enjoyable experiences I've had in a Mario Kart game is that of the Free Roam mode. You really get let loose in this open, expansive world, featuring plenty of locales and circuits interconnected by various routes, rivers, and railways located in various biomes. Everything is connected together on one large mass of land, from racetracks like Shy Guy Bazaar and Desert Hills in the westernmost desert region, to the central locations of Mario Circuit and Peach Stadium, to the easternmost lands featuring the most frigid of races: DK Pass, Starview Peak, and Sky-High Sundae. 

Some iconic divas of Mario Kart World: Princess Peach and Rosalina, heat up the icy heights of Starview Peak.

It's not just aimlessly driving around, either, in Free-Roam, though you are more than welcome to do so--in fact, encouraged to do just that! There are multiple goodies to be discovered within Mario Kart World's boundaries. P-Switches that upon driving over them put you into a racing or platforming-based challenge of some kind are abound within Mario Kart World's Free Roam world. There are over 300 of these! Aside from challenges that test your racing and driving mettle, there are Peach Medallions, hidden coins scattered throughout the world, requiring a sharp eye, keen exploration, and the know-how to reach them. 200 of these await to be discovered by players. Finally, within the perimeters of each circuit are multiple panels a la Super Mario Kart that are mostly hidden in devious places or require some extra effort to ride over. 150 of these populate the world.

Now, that sort of gets into grinding my gears about the unlockables. While it would have been nice to gain characters, vehicles, and costumes from meeting certain conditions of collectibles gathered and challenges completed, all you obtain from Mario Kart World's Free Roam mode is that of an absolutely staggering assortment of stickers. However, seeing that only one sticker can be applied to your profile and thus a vehicle at a time, and some vehicles hide where said sticker is placed, this sticker feature seems half-baked at best. That said, that didn't stop me from wanting to explore and discover more of the world, engaging with Free Roam's content in the form of the P-Switch challenges, hidden Peach Medallions, and the panels.

Just a portion of map within Mario Kart World.

However, that's another issue altogether. There is no real way of tracking which P-Switch challenges you've completed or Peach Medallions collected via the map. You get a basic total of all collectibles, but no marker on the map to display which have been completed/collected. While P-Switches in the wild will change from blue to grey for completed challenges, and Peach Medallions will go from glowing gold to turning transparent upon collection, it's near impossible to otherwise track them. I can understand Nintendo wanting to not turn the map into a checklist for players and make exploration more organic, but I imagine there must have been a better method to helping wanted completionists to collect and complete to their heart's content. 

Other things like there being no compass in Free Roam, requiring players to constantly press the Y button to bring up the full map just to see what direction their character is facing, and the inability to unlock characters in a non-random, non-Kamek way, makes for a frustrating experience as well. There is also no stats for how many coins you've collected overall, distance driven, times Lakitu rescued you--all things that were in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (added features post-release, sure), but why aren't they already in Mario Kart World?

Mario Kart World takes the philosophy "you can't teach an old series new tricks" and absolutely runs it over and then backs up over its carcass. World is teeming with new tricks, quite literally, to change up the competitive portion of the series immensely with this installment. From being able to charge up a jumping boost along straightaways to riding up the sides of walls, to rail-grinding, Mario Kart World's gotta brand-new bag, indeed. The maneuverability and acrobatics on display in races allow for greater opportunities to reach new places, pull off some insane shortcuts, and make for just an even more enjoyable and exhilarating time on the track.

Speaking of tracks, while the overall amount of standard, traditional circuits is understandably lower than previous modern Mario Kart games, sitting at just 30 total, these are engaging and exciting all the same. Various tracks from Mario Kart games' past return in a much more morphed and transformed form, such as Wario Shipyard from Mario Kart 7 (which shows off the water tech and the new ability to ride ON water as opposed to the decidedly sluggish underwater racing of recent past entries), the absolutely thrilling Airship Fortress from Mario Kart DS, and the glow-up that is Mario Kart: Double Dash's Dino Dino Jungle, going from a bog-standard dinosaur-filled jungle to more of a Jurassic Park-styled laboratory. 

Explosions in the air to fit right in with the explosive racing action going on!

The new tracks stand out well, too, especially some of my absolute favorites from the bunch, including Crown City (both of its circuits), DK Spaceport (which is multiple sections each winding up an arcade Donkey Kong-inspired tower filled with barrels, contraptions, and a mecha DK), and of course, the track de resistance, the all-new Rainbow Road, which needs to raced on to be believed, as it's my most beloved incarnation of Mario Kart's final track, period!

DK's new mug seems mighty happy and right at home here at DK Spaceport!

 Mario Kart World, of course, features online play, allowing up to yourself and 23 other players to race in standard-to-custom lobbies. Unfortunately, there are still limits to this. In custom lobbies with friends, you are unable to limit who can join friend-wise. Additionally, Knockout Tour with a combination of randoms and your friends is not possible either. I sort of understand the reason for this, as multiple friends together could target randoms to give each other an edge in competitive play, but it'll no doubt be a bummer for some. Otherwise, Knockout Tour with friends is limited to the CPU. (More on the CPU in just a little bit, by the way.) 

Apart from picking races in either circuit or route forms, choosing from one of eight arenas to combat friends and rivals in the Battle mode, and even enjoying Free Roam together (but without the ability to complete P-Switch challenges online), there are a considerable amount of online modes to enjoy with or without the company of your friends. Even waiting around in lobbies has been improved by having everyone drive around the Free Roam mode as they wait. If you're playing with friends, you can select their icon from the map to instantly transport to them. A nice and welcomed feature indeed!

Farewell, gliding--hello, flying!

When not playing against real players, the thorn that is the CPU really sticks into your side. It appears from doing some online sleuthing and just attempting it myself, the CPU uses a dynamic difficulty at the time of this review. What I mean by this is that your CPU opponents will adjust their skill level to yours. Do you find yourself drifting and getting boosts a bunch, or wall riding or grinding rails like a pro? Well, then, the CPU will get fiercer and fight you tooth and nail. Or maybe, tire and axle would be more apropos... Either way, it really felt like the less I played like I usually do, the easier the game became. I was three-starring cups with relative ease when I was letting up, not boosting, not drifting, and wall riding as much as I would otherwise want to do. Needless to say, this is a pretty awful design decision. It makes playing well a punishment for the player, and makes it feel genuinely artificial for difficulty and rather cheap at that.

My complaints aside with the CPU and some of the methods for unlocking content within Mario Kart World, what the game really, absolutely, positively, definitely gets right is with regard to its presentation. Goodness, is this game a stunner in its visuals, from the huge draw distance, to driving across the map without a loading screen in sight, to the amazingly expressive characters on display, and without question, the insanely good soundtrack. Many have made jokes (perhaps overly so to the point of them needing new material) that this is an $80 soundtrack with a game, but at the same time, the amount of stellar music within Mario Kart World is jaw-dropping. 

Koopa Troopa's copping some 'tude towards Baby Daisy.

From the original, new tunes played within the game's circuits and menus, to the voluminous remixes and re-arrangements that span the Mario and Mario Kart series' illustrious histories, this is far and beyond my favorite Mario Kart soundtrack yet. That's saying something too, since Mario Kart 8 was phenomenal for many reasons, as well as in a musical regard. I felt like that one Leonardo DiCaprio meme of him pointing at the screen whenever a new remix that I heard and recognized played. And let me tell you--there are some DEEP cuts thrown in, too. I won't spoil them--but to listen is to believe.

I guess the elephant in the room remains with us: is Mario Kart World worth $80 full price? That's a subjective question, of course, and no doubt or at least I hope that Nintendo will continue adding value to the game for the rest of the Switch 2's life. Why? Because with the current state of the game, I'm really wanting more from it. There are plenty of features missing from the base game. Don't get me wrong--this is a much better package than Mario Kart 8 was at its respective launch on the Wii U, but comparing it to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe at its launch followed by the Booster Course Pass additions (which seems like cheating)? Yeah... 

That said, Mario Kart World as it stands, makes a good case for itself a launch title for the Nintendo Switch 2. The foundation is there for more in the way of expansions, and the base game itself is more than entertaining and enjoyable, whether alone, with randoms, or with friends. New ways to race and new moves and tricks at Mario and friends' disposal add more depth to the racing while also keeping that accessibility that the Mario Kart series is known for. The Free Roam is my favorite Mario Kart solo content yet, essentially taking Mario Kart DS's Mission Mode and putting it within a contextual world. The base roster, costumes, and vehicles are fantastic, even if unlocking the majority of them is lacking in fun, and the game itself is just wonderful. Mario Kart World may not have made a stellar case for itself in beefing up its price, but it does make a magnificent case for continuing Mario Kart as being the premiere mascot racing franchise around.

[SPC Says: B+] 

Chocobo Racing (PS1) Retro Review

Birds, Behemoths, Bahamut--oh my! It's time for a retro review of the racing variety with Chocobo Racing. This take on the Mario Kart-esque racer in the world of Final Fantasy from 1999 saw a successor on the Nintendo Switch with Chocobo GP. But, how does the original hold up after all of these years? Let's take to the track to find out!

"Kweh"-zy racing in the realm of Final Fantasy

I previously took a look at Chocobo GP, which I ended up enjoying even with its various issues, which you can read about in my review from a few years ago. However, despite playing Chocobo GP and liking it, I never played the original game in the series: Chocobo Racing. Back in the PlayStation 1/Nintendo 64 era, no doubt every major franchise wanted a piece of the Mario Kart pie--or at least wanted to expand outside of their typical genres. Final Fantasy was no different, and thus, a racing game starring the cute, cuddly, golden Chocobo sped onto the PlayStation 1 and into many owners of Sony's console's hearts.

Chocobo Racing features ten characters to race as. As you play through the story mode (recommended for first-time players), you unlock new characters, slowly get introduced to the Magicite system (more on that shortly), and learn the ins and outs of the game while experiencing cute and charming cutscenes in a children's pop-up book-like presentation. The story mode, effectively a tutorial, isn't a lengthy endeavor by any stretch of the imagination, taking about an hour or so to complete. Though playing through it multiple times (and no worries--you can thankfully skip cutscenes on repeated playthroughs) unlocks new characters to race as, including the then-most current Final Fantasy protagonist: Squall Leonhart. 

That's no chicken on wheels--it's Chocobo!

Each character introduces a different ability that can be utilized while racing: Chocobo has a turbo to grant a swift boost of speed, Moogle can fly over terrain that would otherwise slow any other racer down, White Mage's Shield will absorb most magic, and Goblin can pilfer another player's magic with his Mug ability, just to name a handful of abilities each character possesses. Understandably, different characters contain unique stats in numerous categories, as well, from acceleration, to handling, to top speed.

Rather than use basic items to cause chaos on the track, competitors within Chocobo Racing utilize magical crystals known as Magicite, which serve as the various items in the game and give an additional Final Fantasy touch to the game. These can either help you or hinder other opponents. If you've played Diddy Kong Racing, Chocobo Racing's Magicite uses a similar system of collecting up to three of the same colored Magicite to strengthen your magical moves to unleash all kinds of craziness onto your opponents. 

"Mini" thanks for this particular magic used on Black Mage,
as it causes him to shrink in size and slow down in the process.

For example, Fire simply shoots out a flame without any homing capabilities, while Fire2 ends up homing in on the character directly in front of you--red shell-style--while collecting three Fire Magicite in a row enables you to use Fire3, which takes on Mario Kart's blue shell and homes in on first place to cook their proverbial goose. 

While the abundance of Magicite and this upgrade system are both novel approaches to the kart racing genre and perfectly fits in with the Final Fantasy realm, it also causes maybe too much chaos on the track. When you have multiple magic that can affect everyone in and out of the running, you're constantly getting pelted and hit with something while racing. This can be greatly annoying, understandably, and makes for moments where you can be ahead by a large distance only to have magic be the deciding factor in losing your lead in a frustrating fashion. That said, the many methods to get back into races means that they stay exciting and anyone can win.

With so much Magicite and magic on the track, races can become quite chaotic in a hurry!

Unlike something like Mario Kart or even the aforementioned Diddy Kong Racing, the amount of tracks is nowhere near as large. You won't have sixteen unique circuits to race and blaze a trail on. Instead, about ten total tracks are on offer in Chocobo Racing. That said, the variety of the tracks and what is available is enjoyable. You have your tutorial track: Cid's Test Track, what is essentially a basic oval with some easy curves to learn the ropes (or the turns of, I guess, in this case). Things get more interesting with races through the serene Moogle Forest, the industrial, mountainous paths of Goblin Mines (and sadly one of the only tracks in the game with what I would call an actual shortcut), and the tight, right angles and tricky turns of the haunted rooms and corridors of Black Mage's Mansion. By the last tracks, you'll need to be a master of both cornering and turning, or else you'll find yourself repeatedly smashing into walls or worse yet, tumbling off the track.

Go, go, Golem! The fun has just begun at the Goblin Mines, so it's anyone's race!

A lot of kart racers don't really encourage the use of braking. Generally, you drift around corners to maintain your speed. Chocobo Racing isn't one of these types of racers. Instead, tapping (note: not holding) the brake button around tight turns and corners is absolutely mandatory for success. If you're skidding around turns while maintaining speed, you're doing it right. That notwithstanding, that's easier said than done, and it took a ton of forgetting muscle memory and how to play other kart racers to become somewhat skilled with Chocobo Racing. Be prepared to bash your head into a wall (and quite literally within the game) as you try to unlearn how you played other racers! 

Outside of the story mode, which players who wish to unlock all characters will want to spend the most time in (as repetitive and somewhat tedious as that can be), there is Grand Prix mode, which works differently than most games with such a feature in it. Instead of choosing a cup with preexisting selections of tracks, you choose your difficulty, and then you choose four tracks ahead of time for your own personally constructed cup. It's a novel approach, and makes sense for this game to use, as again, Chocobo Racing isn't exactly packed with tracks. There are also Time Trials to take on, the ability to customize characters after completing the story mode, and versus play for local (duh) multiplayer fun.

Squaresoft certainly took advantage of the PlayStation hardware, much like it did with practically every other release it developed and published on Sony's freshman system. Right from the starting line, the impressive prerendered cutscene opening that is as cool to watch as it is humorous, greets prospective players. From there, everything from the Magicite used to the Bombs that count down the start of races give a uniquely Final Fantasy touch to them. While draw distance is a major bummer, with clear signs of backgrounds and geometry popping in the closer you approach them, everything else about Chocobo Racing looks great for the hardware. 

Each character has their own mode of transportation, which adds to their personality and charm.

Of course, what would a Final Fantasy spin-off that gives a nod to the games that came before it be without incorporating Nobuo Uematsu's legendary themes? Fortunately we don't have to find out that answer with Chocobo Racing, as the arrangements from Kenji Ito do more than their fair share of making Final Fantasy fans feel at home. From the Mysidia track's ending theme from Final Fantasy V to Goblin Mines' Mt. Gulg theme from the OG Final Fantasy, the versions of Nobuo Uematsu's utilized compositions were given proper tender, loving care and the respect they deserve. 

Overall, Chocobo Racing does deliver competent arcade "kart" (for lack of a better term) racing action. The Magicite system, while novel and appropriate for the Final Fantasy franchise, does lean heavily on the spammy side, making for some truly frustrating races against the more fiendish CPU opponents. Really, I'd like to say that was improved in its Chocobo GP sequel, but... At any rate, if you're able to track down a copy of Chocobo Racing, or if the game ever arrives on PSN via a PS Classic release, it's worth checking out for either a Final Fantasy fan or enjoyers or cartoony racing games. Just make sure to tell your opponents to get out of your kweh! ...I mean, "way". Sorry. Ahem.

[SPC Says: C+]

Seafrog (PC) Review

May is here, and with it, we're now less than a month away from two special occasions, both occurring on June 5th: the Nintendo Switch 2's launch and SuperPhillip Central's 17th anniversary!

Before we dive into a new Nintendo console generation and celebrate 17 years of gaming together on SPC, I do have lots of content coming your way.

Let's start off with Seafrog, a recently released Metroidvania with a super-cute visual style and some sick tricking potential. Here's the SuperPhillip Central review.

Stick to the pond, Froggy.

The indie space has no shortage of clever concepts and meshing of genres and gameplay types. Seafrog fits the bill marvelously here. Combining the gameplay stylings of something like OlliOlli World meeting Metroid, Seafrog is a 2.5D platformer that takes players along for a seafaring adventure. While the game has a ton of heart, charm, and creativity to it, Seafrog's execution is unfortunately where it stumbles quite a bit.

The story behind Seafrog sees our protagonist, a wrench-wielding frog who uses said wrench as a makeshift skateboard, and his companion--the hologram head of a pirate captain--are adrift at sea. Suddenly, they go topside over a giant waterfall into a mass of water, something of a ship graveyard with various vessels in close proximity. Fortunately, refashioning and fixing up one of the ships allows our heroes to jettison themselves to each vessel remaining, via cannon. The catch? The cannon on their ship can only fire so far, so massive amounts of gold nuggets need to become acquired to power it up so it can shoot them to further away ships, and thus, eventually, a cannon to blast them out of the ship graveyard itself!

Ridin' on a wrench--the only way to travel!

Seafrog's gameplay has you skating, grinding rails, leaping up halfpipes to get big air, and performing tricks while you do all of it. Bailing isn't a thing, as like a cat, our frog protagonist (...frog-tagonist, maybe?) automatically lands on his wrench even if he's upside-down with only an inch between him and the ground--he always lands right-side up. That said, it's quite easy to get frustrated with the physics and platforming. For one, taking damage while in mid-jump/in midair results in the seafaring frog's body to become totally limp and for the player to completely lose control of the character as he falls. This means you're stuck watching this, getting increasingly more annoyed the higher you fall down from--seeing all the time, effort, and energy it took to get up there--wasted. It'd be great to be able to maneuver and try to course-correct, but sadly, this is not a thing.

That notwithstanding, Seafrog does otherwise feel and play nicely. The Zen-like flow you can get from chaining together combos, jumps, and wallrides is as feverishly addicting as something out of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater or OlliOlli World. The areas in the game are set up in a way that feel natural to explore and keep a combo going. Really, Seafrog doesn't bail when it comes to the controls or feeling as if the game has a good flow to its gameplay. It succeeds here.

Platforming challenges like these abound within Seafrog's four ships.

There are four main ships within Seafrog, and the game is designed as a Metroid-structured game. The more new abilities you gain, the deeper inside the various ships you can go and explore. The gameplay loop essentially has you exploring a ship you enter, tightening up loose bolts that serve as your means to get into the next hull, or hub of rooms. The deeper you go in each ship, the more challenging the platforming and tasks become, but the more rewards in the form of new abilities and those ever-important gold nuggets are there for the taking.

"Bawk" at its name all you want, but the Chunky Chicken is one hazardous place!

However, rather than automatically learning new abilities you stumble across, most of them you're required to equip via MOD chip. Not only do you have precious few slots for these chips, which replace other helpful functions like gaining additional health or boost speed, but every time you need to switch the chips out, it's a drawn out process of equipping and un-equipping them from the inventory menu. 

Regardless, outside of this niggling annoyance of futzing around with equipping MOD chips, they have their uses. and thankfully, not every new ability that you learn throughout the game comes in the form of a MOD chip either. Whether it's a midair boost that thrusts Seafrog forward to cross otherwise impossible gaps, riding along the sides of specially marked walls, or bouncing off of circular bumpers, there is quite a bit to teach our hero. I guess it shows that you can teach an old frog new tricks. ...Ahem.

Being a Metroidvania, as you can imagine there is some backtracking to be found in Seafrog. In fact, I would argue there is way too much of it by virtue of only being able to hold one item at a time, whether that be a key to unlock a door, a gear to activate a mechanism, or what have you. Understandably, this gets quite frustrating when you stumble upon item after item, but can't carry them without dropping your currently held one. A pocket system of some kind would have worked wonders and brought down these "moments of tedium that quickly into long stretches of obnoxious backtracking" immensely.

Furthermore, perhaps feeling the need to take something from Hollow Knight, death is punished by having all of our skatin' and thrashin' frog's current stash of nuggets stolen from what is essentially his corpse by a gremlin character. You, upon returning to the land of the living, must track this creature down, chase his goofy butt down, and attack him enough times to have your nuggets returned to you. This feels like a shoehorned inclusion to the game that serves no real purpose but to annoy the player. If you want your gotten gains back, the process of tracking down the gremlin means you must return all the way back to where you died. Fine enough, but seeing as every time you die, you start back at your ship, instead of a more convenient spot--it adds up, both the tedium and the irritation.

Our froggy friend grinds on this rail with perfect eggs-ecution!

The map isn't necessarily the most helpful to look at, just being a bunch of squares and rectangles depicting concepts of rooms, and not the actual shapes of the rooms themselves. With how "samey" a lot of each ship can seem, it's easy to forget where certain points of interest are. There is fast-traveling, which is very welcome, though the issue with the map really shows how difficult it can be to know and remember where to transport yourself to.

On the presentation side of Seafrog, we have graphics reminiscent of something out of the PS1-era, chiefly resembling something like Mega Man Legends. You can't go wrong with that kind of art style, and Seafrog doesn't go wrong with it either! It's fluid and it looks fantastic. The same goes with the frame-rate, which held up while playing Seafrog on my Steam Deck. The game is currently, as of the time of this review, listed as "Unknown" with regard to its verification status, but it truly runs well on Valve's portable. While the visuals look fabulous in Seafrog, the sound design is simply serviceable at best and completely forgettable otherwise. It's merely "there".

I entered into Seafrog with high expectations, but in the end, no matter how creative and charming this game presented itself could belie as anything else but a frustrating experience. Between moments of severe backtracking (whether because of repeated deaths or fetching items), the confusing map system, or the camera locking up, preventing me from seeing my character as he was far off screen--requiring quitting out--there are too many downsides to Seafrog to wholeheartedly recommend. That bums me out, as I really wanted to love this game. Instead, Seafrog threw a wrench into my plans, and not the fun kind that he skates on, either!

[SPC Says: C-]

A code was provided to SuperPhillip Central for the purpose of this review.