Wheel World

I am surprised that I did not put a review on this yet. But with 100% achievements and enjoying this game A LOT, I feel like I need to. I had seen this game randomly on youtube with an absolute BOP of a song by JOON (I Want it all) playing during it. The graphics were charming and it looked like fun despite racing games not really being my thing. So I told myself f**k it, I am getting the game. An awesome purchase I got to say that despite finishing already I will likely get back to from time to time. To just get some annoying nitpicking out of the way, there are definitely some things that I would like to see in this game to consider it a 9/10 or even 10/10. Firstly, it would be nice if the completed sets of bike parts were giving some sort of an overall bonus so it'd feel benefitial to have for example full legendary bike instead of putting together a mess of a chimera for specific races. Secondly, the game absolutely hates completionists who don't look up guides. Furthermore, it is very inconsistent with this - looking for Lunardo Boys, you have them stationary constantly and a "countdown" basically available to know how far you are. There is NO such indicator for collecting bike parts for example. And the worst one being lone wolves that are never stationary, riding around predetermined paths that cross each other and are of various lengths and you can never tell even how many are left and on which part of the map. Just adding endgame indicators/countdowns would go great length. With that nitpick out of the way, the game simply rules. The soundtrack is amazing and like half of it is already across my various playlists on spotify. The addition of lyrics during important races was an awesome decision and made it feel different every time. It fits the atmosphere so well and I found myself just riding my bike aimlessly from windmills, to forests, to farms to cities just breathing it in. The game felt very chill and not at all sweaty and competitive and I really enjoyed that. There is a bit of a switch of that in the game I was NOT expecting, so not spoiling anything here, but it suddenly added an amount of additional gameplay that I was gradually happy to have received despite the atmospheric shift. With finishing all of it (achievement wise, some little goals are still available for me) in 17 hours, I feel like this game was really worth the buck even when I bought it I believe for full price and with it going to 11 € during sales it's a no brainer. So if you like chill games with fun atmosphere and - I cannot stress this enough - absolute BANGER of a soundtrack, pick this one up and enjoy!

This is a chill game. Difficulty/challenge level is low until after you create the Legendary Bike, wherein the game serves you some pretty challenging (sometimes frustrating) races. Graphics are nice, although this art style has some issues where the lighting will dullen/darken everything--common with these cell shaded games like Wheel World/Sable/etc. Music is great, although the best tracks, with vocals, are only heard once during "boss" races and then never again. The game actually seems averse to letting you hear it's great soundtrack as it oftentimes will just have ambient sounds only. Anyways, it's a relaxing chill time. Don't go in expecting a ton of challenge nor super duper polished controls. The bike overall handles well but there's some serious skidding controls that takes getting used to. An enjoyable, chill game overall. Pleasant visuals, music, and good overall atmosphere. Low challenge until the end. Some polish and rounded corners are missing but don't detract from the experience.

Amo este juego!! Tiene un equilibrio perfecto: es una experiencia muy relajante pero al mismo tiempo difícil. La historia es interesante y viene acompañada por un apartado artístico genial, donde el estilo de dibujo y los colores encajan a la perfección. La banda sonora completa es hermosa. En fin, vale la pena. Si algo del juego te llamó la atención, no dudes en comprarlo, no te vas a arrepentir!

Overall decent, but I was ready to put it down at the end without the achievement grind. The world is good, but the racing could be a bit more enjoyable. Grab it on sale.

It's a great concept of a game but I feel like maybe only 20% of it is realised? It's *very* easy if have any experience with arcade racing games to the point where parts just don't seem to matter? I didn't finish it as I got bored that I would win every race without trying (this is not a brag I have just played a *lot* of racing games. Parts could be cool but they don't actually feel that different. Yeah, offroad wheels are better offroad but they just make offroad feel like being on the road so... cool? I dunno, I just got bored. I think a "hard mode" or something could be good and maybe an expansion on what parts actually do.

60% + Fantastic art design and first world design + Relaxing soundtrack + Lots of customisation and variety of tracks + Great sense of speed - Second world is bland and uninteresting - Many bike parts are made redundant early into the game - Little challenge, dependent on aggressive AI and objects slowing you down

The second half was actually challenging. Also transition into the second half gave me feels and shivers. Feels like playing rally-sims really helped with the controls. The soundtrack is awesome and racing with the songs is a v i b e. The Ubisoft-style open world kinda killed exploration for me.

Pretty mixed on this, but I tend to not recommend it. If you get this like 50% off, maybe worth it. On paper this sounds kinda fun. An open world game about bike racing, and some quirky stuff too. Sure, sounds fun. The game also kinda works in the first world, at least for your first hour or so. Your bike starts so bad, that you feel like there is progression. You also have some thinks to explore and find across the map, some challenges to do to earn tickets to buy more parts, and of course the main story driving you to get legendary bike parts back from the top racers. Problems become clear quickly too though. There is nothing really to do except racing, there is not really much point in exploring much. The world looks great and I am amazed they made cities that feel like cities with pedestrians, cars and other bikers everywhere. But overall, there is nothing really to do except just do the races. Progression also stops very quickly. The majority of parts are side-grades with different pros and cons. This is "good" in theory for balancing, right? But it just means you max out the most important stats after like 30 min and then never change or upgrade your bike again. Especially if you get the legendary parts, they are clearly very good and the game intends you to use them, why do any other parts even matter anymore? You also cannot make bike part sets or anything so it's not like you can quickly switch between different bikes for different circumstances. The parts sorting is also bad so finding and comparing things is already a pain anyway. I was pretty done with the game pretty quickly and figured I just finish the story, do the big races and get the legendary parts and get out. But there is a twist, SPOILER?! There is a second map after that and they want you to really grind to get another bike. Problem here, the map is super boring and dull looking - that is on purpose due to the setting, but even if you have a reason, a boring and dull map is still boring and dull. Apart from that, the map also seems very buggy and badly designed. Before this I ran into a few bugs and glitches, usually bad collision detection and physics that randomly crash you or push you unrealistically in weird directions, messing up your races - but it was usually recoverable and rare on the first map. But here on the second map it happened all the time. So many walls you touched just suddenly had you glitch into them like they stop existing and then the game makes you crash and resets you, losing you the race. So many invisible spots seem to stop you, slow you down, or crash you. The bike collisions are worse than ever, propelling you into bizarre directions randomly with no room to recover. The race tracks on the 2nd map feel much worse designed than on the first map as well, so all of this together really ruins the game. I cannot be bothered to finish it. The game barely sustained 2-3 hours of playtime on the first map, it already got boring there due to lack of depth and progression, but the 2nd map feels like a bad joke, something thrown in late in development with no polish. Really not worth it. I regret being out of the refund window, honestly. The game feels barely worth it. If you are fine with just 1-2 hours of fun at this price, maybe it is for you.