I want to love this game.
I really, really want to love this game.
But I just... Can't... And that hurts me.
I'm going to start with the negatives:
It's buggy. It's not what you're expecting if you're here for F-Zero, Wipeout, Redout, Etc. As others have said, it has the feel of a mobile game without the microtransactions. Races are randomly generated from a (from what I've seen) pathetically small list of elements. You can have a race, a rival race, or a time trial. That's it. The tracks are honestly fantastic, they're beautiful, have really cool ideas for settings, and beyond fantastic music, they also play well, but the teleportation is barely used, and there seems to be like 8 tracks.
When I said bugs, I mean the kind that cause you to restart races. Missiles fired by you will lag behind your opponents like you're in a high ping game and regularly fail to hit, but they'll hit you perfectly fine, totally fair and square, right? When landing, sometimes you'll be teleported back by the respawn system. When you fall off, just restart, because almost ALWAYS the game will spawn you in the air, JUST off the edge of the track, causing you to fall again.
Races are also far too easy, and usually only have 3-4 racers, including you.
So, onto the positives.
As with both games now published and developed by Supergonk, the visual presentation and races are simply fantastic. They look great, they play great, they sound great. Supergonk really has this down to a T, but the fact that they seem to abandon their games with little extra content produced (which is fine, but the content is usually tiny for the asking price) makes them not worth staying unless you really like them for some reason.
The teleporting mechanic is fun, but barely used. When it is used, it's great! I love it. It's rewarding to find secrets. The car parts are plentiful and there seems to be a lot of choices. Again, great! But why no end goal? There's not much of a point in playing unless you just really like racing, and while this game is fun (WHEN IT WORKS), that's not enough for me. The random parts mean there's nothing to work towards. Just hope to god that you find a part you want at the end of a race, which granted you probably will.
Come on, Supergonk. I know you can fix the bugs. Please. That alone will bring this to a positive because I feel like you have enough here that works, but again you just move on to the next game. Don't do this. I'm genuinely a fan. :(
