Kassei - Road Cycling

I CAN'T RECOMMEND THIS: If you want a realtime cycling strategy game, there are old versions of Pro Cycling Manager at half the price. I wasn't sure what to expect from this. There are no reviews or discussion threads at all, and the only searchable mentions of this game online seem to be database sites basically verifying that this game exists. The game is nigh-unplayable. There seems to be some resource management at play (as if you max out a rider's slider they will eventually lose pace and fall back), but [u]there are no indicators for what your stamina levels are[/u] if you're not in view of another rider for direct comparison, as there are no landmarks or indicators of where any POV is in relation to anything else, and the direct top-down view means you're only seeing about 10m(?) ahead and behind the current followed rider. It's excruciatingly slow for what little information you're given, as once a rider is out on their own there is nothing happening besides occasional wobbles where [i]I want to assume there may be simulated corners[/i], but as there's no way to track where opposing riders (or even your own!) are in relation to one another, slamming maximum game speed is a bad idea as you have little time to react when AI riders start to sprint for the finish. I'm not even sure if there's any strategy to sticking with a group as at a glance there don't seem to be any slipstream mechanics which are normally a core pillar of cycling game strategy! I also found it nigh impossible to focus on more than one or two riders, as the lack of any information and short FOV means that whenever someone's not directly visible you have no idea how far ahead or behind they are, and keeping everyone on the same pace requires high levels of management with there being no way to automatically hold position. Allegedly there are also separate Sprint and Mountain classifications, but I have no idea how those would work as there's no way to tell where a sprint or climb is (unless it's wholly dictated by what colour the sides of the stage are, and only relevant to the stage finishes) and no way to tell which of your riders is better for which events, as I didn't see a single stat indicator. Additionally I poked my head into Season mode and found it incomprehensible. The training screen gives no indication of when which races run, and for some reason you can cycle past your selected team's roster and start editing other teams' training schedules???