Last night I went through Choro Q HG 2 (US: Road Trip Adventure). It’s exactly what you’re looking for if you want a Pilotwings 64-esque open world adventure based on whimsy.
The US box art is decent but definitively weaker than the original JP art:
I get frustrated with post-Oblivion open world games and their density. Sometimes I just want to go somewhere and be left alone, you know? And do it in a videogame.
Wikipedia knows the score:
You get a little toy car. You can talk to other cars by bumping into them. There is a disproportionate amount of highway in the world, but I guess that makes sense in a world made for cars. It must be like playgrounds for cars. Maybe not though, because I found a kids playground and I had a car-width slide that I could drive up and slide down.
I started the game and it asks for my name and currency (“HODA”). Then I was incarnated as a blue Subaru. I had 1000 HODA in my pocket so it was ok.
The first town is modeled on rural England but named PEACH TOWN. The first citizen I met driving in the fields at night. He was Kevin and he was lost and I took him home to his mummy. Right, I was playing the PAL version.
I drove into a coffee shop. The owner was a luxuriously maroon Jaguar and he asked me to advertise his cafe. He’d pay me 10 HODA for every KM I drove. Sure. Now I had a green sign on my roof, “Coffee”.
I drove north and found myself in the Windows XP wallpaper. A couple dozen windmills, modern, gave it a clean and slightly dangerous feel. I turned south and drove through the river.
I drove across the ‘world’s biggest bridge’ (elegantly modeled) and arrived at FUJI TOWN. The sheriff and Echigoya were plotting something, said the Porsche driving in circles at the bottom of the castle moat. I should check out the lake at night. By the way, the cars blink their headlights when they talk, as they lack lips to form words.
I didn’t have time for that so I drove east and into the Great Ocean. Cars drive fine along the bottom of the ocean but their top speed is about 30% lower. I kept driving east until I was west. I found an underwater temple. A black van was circling it. When I went up to her, she said, “I love to drive around this temple. You don’t have wings? You should get some.” I found the secret entrance to the temple, in which an ancient towncar intimated he’d been there since before the temple sank. He also gave me wings and propellers, which he was kind enough to install.
Eventually I found MY TOWN. There was only one building. A real estate agent was inside and gave me a garage of my own. Now I get emails from fans who like to see me race.
Or from people I’ve met
sometimes I think my email’s hacked, though, because I get emails for other cars
