Best CarPG I've ever played
This game is incredible. It's really unknown, not having seen any notable following outside of Japan, but is regardless a wonderful game.
The premise is simple - the president of a world of living cars (This game came out before the Pixar movie, so it wasn't piggybacking off of it!) is bored of being president. He's decided to give presidency to whomever can beat him in a race - but they'd have to earn the right to race him by winning the World Grand Prix tournament! It's a little dumb, but I'm not asking for anything groundbreaking here.
So you enter this open world (And man, is it huge!) with many different locations to visit, some hidden goodies, and a wide variety of different cars to interact with, all with the goal to participate in - and win - different races held in several towns across the world. As you win, you receive better racing licenses to participate in more prestigious races (mostly on the same tracks, just with faster opponents) and money to spend on new parts, cosmetic or functional. You meet several people in the world, most with something they want help with, and collect stamps for helping people out.
As you get better, other cars will ask to join your racing team. A few minigames and the World Grand Prix require teammates to play. You can customize your teammates' parts to make them race better, though results are varied. Some teammates are better than others, though your teammates will learn the more they race. On certain tracks, your teammates behave somewhat erratically and can get stuck, losing valuable positions in a race. Beyond races and a minigame or two, you don't really interact with your team.
The physics of this game are out of this world - you will literally launch into the sky at random times from what seem like simple bumps if you're going too fast! It can be a little annoying at times, but honestly, I found myself laughing most of the time I was thrown into the air, it was so absurd. The handling of your car feels pretty great. The stock parts you start with aren't that good and it takes a while to really get moving, but when you start winning races and purchasing better parts, your car feels great to drive and race with. One track, the Slick Track, features a very wet road that ends up with you sliding around everywhere - drifting on it is really fun and pretty satisfying.
The minigames in this game are pretty fun, in most cases. There's Golf, where you play 9 holes with a giant golf ball that you hit by ramming into it with your car. There's a fair few races of varying design - a drag race, a race around a clover intersection on a highway, a race where you have to stop on a thin slice of land without falling off, and more. There's even - wait for it - soccer with rocket boosters. A full decade before Rocket League! The minigames in this game range from very easy to very infuriating, with some of them being almost impossible to complete for your average kid, and even up to your average hardcore gamer. It takes some real patience to figure out some of these minigames, and some of them are just downright unfair and I can't imagine having been able to complete them when I was a kid, as I'm having so much trouble with it now that I'm an adult!
One of my biggest complaints about this game is how saving works. You can have only one save file per memory card, even though the save doesn't take up much room on the card. This means having to buy an extra card if you have two people wanting to play the game and not lose all their progress. Playing multi-player requires a second card if you want good parts to race with. Multi-player wasn't really well fleshed out beyond just racing on the tracks and a few minigames, and it's wholly unbalanced if one player has a modified vehicle and the other is playing with stock parts.
Ultimately, this game does have its flaws, but the core gameplay is just plain fun. There are certainly things that could be better, but I'm still willing to give this game five stars just for how much I fell in love with driving around, the beautiful racetracks, the great music, and the ridiculous but endearing physics. The copy I purchased was in great condition and I've had no complaints about it so far. Just a really fun game.
Verified purchase: YesCondition: Pre-owned