i need to play this but it’s $$$ maybe soon though. these are very good endorsements
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So, Screamer
I’m in love.
The story does a good job of setting out the syllabus: Drift, Boost, SPG, Brake, Strike, Overdrive and Char-specific abilities throughout. Despite how cumbersome the terminology is, you can intuit it more than you’d expect and players discussing it online have had a good time picking it apart. There’s a lot of details to chew on like how sync and entropy feed one another in certain circumstances and how things like shielding require having a stock of entropy and sync but only cost sync. It sounds like nonsense but its rewarding to engage with.
And then we go to space for space-racing!
The story is also full of miserable melodrama which plays into the final twist. Turns out we’re racing for aliens who can’t feel emotions (in other words billionaires). The time-travel super engine each car has can transform each person’s stress-based emotional response into a unique superpower. The entire tournament is held so that a race of aliens can transmit the negative emotions created by the drama of the characters, via their engines, to an interdimensional space, to integrate them into a bunch of human clones in space so that they can invade the Earth. The tournament breaks down and your characters have to set up a bunch of bombs to blow the space station out of orbit. Not only that, but most of the characters have a bad ending. A lot of people dying, have someone they love dying, or don’t really achieve anything good. A lot of the people are just assholes and most of the good people die. There are multiple lesbian breakups. Plot aside, the way in which the game continues to generate new reasons to get on the track is quite entertaining. It gets a bit F-Zero GX story mode at times.
Every character’s unique mechanics tell the person and many tie into their story quite closely which I was surprised by. Unfortunately, this means some don’t really feel as balanced as others. Each team has one leader and two members, and the leaders generally get better abilities than everyone else. Each character also has a different number of sync and entropy slots which feels like the design is very considerate of balance and the cars feeling different even within the universal mechanics.
Brief Breakdown of every racer (mild spoilers)
Kagawa Kai (Overtuned professional street racers)
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Keiji Sato: Emotional Manipulation - Overdrive performance increases in line with the amount of Sync available. Fits Keiji’s aggressive approach to everything, the faster he’s allowed to go (generating sync) the more he can wield overdrive. Not the best skill since it requires saving up entropy and sync but it does mean you have to roleplay Keiji by holding back overdrive (anger) until it benefits you.
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Noboru Sato (leader): Former Glory - Generates Entropy while in S.G.U. and through Active Shifting. Probably the best ability in the game (that doesn’t require extreme skill) which fits Noboru being considered the best driver. Noboru can just get the most out of his car, which already has insane acceleration and top speed. A good payoff in the story since Noboru has PTSD about a previous crash for a long time. Once he overcomes it, it feels triumphant.
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Akemi Nomura: Something To Prove - Executing a KO in Overdrive freezes its timer and activates a free Shield. This means you can extend Overdrive by triggering multiple KOs. Akemi is insecure and tends to be aggressive to try and appear competent. She’s actually a Screamer fujoshi. Makes overdrive easier to maintain which speaks to her needing an easier time as she is not as skilled as her teammates.
Green Reapers (team characterised as the protagonist underdogs and so mechanically simpler than most)
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Frederic Barthelemy: Reaper’s Dance - Strike is empowered and grants additional Sync on KO. While Striking, Frederic explodes on collision with track boundaries. Frederic apparently gets off on near death experiences. High risk, sort of decent reward. Strike being empowered makes collision with the track boundaries more likely so it’s kinda stinky on most tracks.
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Hiroshi Jackson (leader): Unstable Boost - While Boosting, can make it last longer. This means that after you boost, a prompt will appear a few seconds later that allows you to trigger another boost. Double boost essentially. Hiroshi is a huge emo rageball for most of the story but he turns out to be one of the only characters who actually likes racing. Double boost just means he gets to race more so I guess it’s a reflection of his joy at racing.
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Roisin Garrity: One More Freckle - Strike costs less Entropy and can be performed continuously. Roisin is another character that is highly aggressive in personality. The problem is the strike is slightly lower range than most and doesn’t really offer any other benefit other than you can use strike to do a continuous boost. I wonder if they were going for something like Roisin uses her aggression to achieve objectives other than outright conflict since she tends to be all bark no bite and just wants to marry her Italian girlfriend.
Anaconda Corp (dysfunctional corpos, members are more competent than the leader)
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Hope Kaminsky: Interest Rate - Sync generation is increased based on available Sync, and Sync is not depleted after explosion. One of my favourite abilities. Hope doesn’t get much exposition but it’s implied that she used to have her own mega-corporation/fortune. This ability is all about waiting for a big payoff. If you use resources too early you generally won’t have a good time. If you keep the sync generating to the part of the meter where the rate of sync generation is tripled(!) you can boost almost infinitely. The rich get richer and the boost gets booster. Hope is also a long-term opportunist and turns out to be one of the more ruthless people.
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Gabriel Mertens (leader): Ruthless Heir - Generates Entropy as well as Sync after a Strike KO. If you like striking then this means you don’t have to save strikes as much if you want to achieve overdrive but this feels a little bit underpowered for a leader. Gabriel is generally a bit of a chump and I wonder if this ability really just reflects him being frustrated at his own incompetence. He could be better.
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Dirk Van Wyk: Blood Thirst - On Strike KO, activates a powered-up Strike. This means a faster and longer period of Strike is activated. Feels like a mini overdrive. Reflects the fact that Dirk is a bloodthirsty psychopath who only understands violence.
Jupiter Stormers (Astronauts/engineers who like to race and do crimes for their bosses)
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Lavinia Ricci Antinori: Hyperactive Boost - Perfect Boost is extremely powerful, but the timing required to activate it changes each time. This means that the yellow triangle will be in a different place every time you boost. Lavinia is sort of ADHD-coded and very hyper. It’s built for people who have good reactions but more often than not you’ll miss the perfect boost so it balances out. Otherwise not a remarkable ability.
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Aisha Waghmare (leader): JSI Defense System - The first time Aisha is KOed or explodes, automatically activates an emergency Shield. This is possibly the worst leader ability. It is not that hard to shield on reaction so getting one (and only one) for free just doesn’t really feel like much of a benefit. Reflects the fact that Aisha is extremely defensive and closed off.
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Gregor Falkenstein: Echo Evolution - Can evolve the Echo System by using Sync. Boost, Strike, and Overdrive are more powerful and last longer when evolved. This means you can progressively enhance these abilities up to two times over a race’s duration. One of the more interesting abilities where there’s a passive benefit that pays off in the long term. Fully upgraded Gregor is one of the best characters with no drawbacks but it takes time to get there. Speaks to the fact that Gregor only cares about efficiency and is an unassuming long-term planner.
Strike Force Romanda (Hype is a meter exclusive to the Strike Force Romanda team that works differently for each member. The Jpop group who we never really hear or see perform)
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Hina Yamano: Go Go SFR - Hype is gained while Drifting. At 100%, gain a cheaper, enhanced Strike. Hina is an aggressive tomboy who swears a lot and wants to punch people. Hype gives her strike. Her car handling also facilitates drifting more than most racers. Punch buggy.
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Ritsuko Imai (leader): Take Your Heart - Hype is gained on position changes. At 100%, gain Sync over time. This is an interesting one since it greatly depends on mode. Ritsuko performs better in races with multiple racers where position changes are more likely. She struggles in duels which reflects her inability to confront people directly and requires support from her team to achieve things. The sync gain is not that good but since you’re getting it for free from something that will naturally happen anyway, it’s decent.
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Akane Hyuga: Strike Forcers’ Favorite - Hype is gained passively, by Active Shift and in SGU. At 100%, gain a free, enhanced Boost. There’s an implication that Akane is the fan favourite of the pop group they’re in and so secretly has the best ability. She gets better boosts pretty frequently from not having to do anything special. She is the most stable and competent of the personalities on the team and is implied to be the best racer. She is confronted by Keiji at one point and retaliates with a very Sukeban-flavoured tirade. May have been a street-racer prior.
Tournament Crew (Spoilers)
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Fermi: Herding Instinct - Cannot enter Overdrive, but Boost and Strike last longer. Since Fermi is a dog, they can’t overdrive which requires sustained emotional focus. They only care about treats. They have extremely good handling and the car they drive is the first prototype for the echo so it follows the mecha-prototype logic where a prototype is actually a better-tuned version of the final product. A very fun car to drive, leans fully into the joy of the drift which feels right for the comic relief, super-intelligent corgi.
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Mr. A (leader): Proto-Echo - Heat replaces Sync. Holding Boost and using Shield increases Heat. Overdrive resets Heat. High Heat (represented when the meter turns red) makes the car vulnerable. Max Heat makes the car instantly explode. Cannot activate Strike. This is a totally different setup from every other racer. The way the in-game description phrases it suggests that this was the original prototype for the game itself, but it is so risk reward heavy it’s extremely hard to master. Fitting for the final boss of the game. It’s also an interesting system because Mr. A is essentially one of the aliens and so doesn’t have any kind of emotional stress to draw from. The car itself is more alien and acts more like a rocket tuned for racing.
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The Announcer: Style Empress - Performing Sync or Entropy actions increases Style. Making mistakes like colliding with track boundaries or being KOed decreases Style. Higher Style leads to higher Sync generation. Style is represented by a letter-grading system. The announcer doesn’t get much characterisation but is implied to be one of the best racers ever. Their abilities are the apotheosis of perfect play. Devil May Cry style system in arcade racing form. I’ve only tried a bit but is very hard to maintain max style empress.
There’s some gripes I have:
· I wish every character had more than one bark for their strike activation as it can get repetitive but I suppose it’s fighting game logic, we need a consistent tell.
· Overdrive is an interesting mechanic. Basically, a controllable, high-risk bullet bill. I feel like the skill ceiling ends with overdrive mastery but it is very difficult to use it well and it takes so long to build up to that it really feels like an all or nothing thing. You have to have a full meter of strike and can activate it for a very long boost which autokills anything you collide with but once the initial shield fades, you die if you hit the track. In high tension situations I generally opt not to use it, especially on corner heavy tracks but it feels like the game is urging me to.
· Some track collision is a bit awkward. Many tracks have hidden shortcuts which require careful alignment or turns into a narrow lane. Grazing the edge of these entry points can sometimes lock the car in place and it feels like the only super janky thing in the game.
Otherwise there’s just a lot to explore here. The story is completely unnecessary but works well to outline each character’s ideas. One of the final tracks is a giant baby park circuit which just says 'go nuts, enjoy eternal max speed, you earned it’. Score challenge mode is like a fighting game-style arcade mode with races, ‘kill as many racers in overdrive’ challenges, duels, and boss races. Overdrive mode is a great mode, kinda like Wipeout’s zone where you have to survive overdrive for as long as possible except touching the track sides is instant death. It’s fun to unlock cosmetics and other bits because it’s a reason to race more. I haven’t touched photo mode or online (I pray there’s no hackers) and I don’t really want to play what else I have lined up as much as Screamer.
Overall, there’s so much evidence of the developers having fun with the mechanics and ideas and remixing lots of different racing stuff together. You don’t see a lot of racing games with a vision that deviates from the norm. It’s been said a lot but it really feels like a 90s/early 2000s experiment in the best way. When it comes together it feels perfect. If there’s any justice this would be receiving nominations for best action, best direction, game of the year, best shit. It won’t, and so we must scream.
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Mirror mode!
1 Like
GAME ROCKS
5 Likes