One thing that becomes abundently clear early on is that this kart racer is not a Mario Kart clone. I only managed to get to stage 7, but in that time I only had a single race. In fact every single stage is a different type of game, and honestly I respect it for that. They make these wide open stages to accommodate the playstyle too.
And then there's the items which they didn't just paint over the standard MK items like a lot of Kart Racers, these items feel truly unique. I didn't even learn what every one of them did.
And the roster is massive and each has fun voicelines that add personality to them. The fanservice in this game is insane.
So why the low rating? It's the damn physics. Nothing feels good in this game. Whenever you get hit your kart reacts as if it's made of cardboard. The irony is if this was a straight kart racer it'd probably get a bare pass as a PS1 game because the controls themselves are fair for the era, but the type of gameplay here involves way too many precise movements.
And unlike the standard cup format of Mario Kart, or any racing game, this game has you try to win all 14 stages in a row, with only 5 continues. Honestly I could probably even let the game slide if it just separated into cups of 3-4 stages, but the difficulty of the physics, combined with the fact you need to learn a new gameplay objective every single stage makes getting 14 wins in a row pretty damn hard. Like I said I only got up to stage 7 so I can't say what the last half of the game is like. And it's such a shame because they really tried so hard to make this game stand out from the competition and went full force with the South Park brand.
And then there's the items which they didn't just paint over the standard MK items like a lot of Kart Racers, these items feel truly unique. I didn't even learn what every one of them did.
And the roster is massive and each has fun voicelines that add personality to them. The fanservice in this game is insane.
So why the low rating? It's the damn physics. Nothing feels good in this game. Whenever you get hit your kart reacts as if it's made of cardboard. The irony is if this was a straight kart racer it'd probably get a bare pass as a PS1 game because the controls themselves are fair for the era, but the type of gameplay here involves way too many precise movements.
And unlike the standard cup format of Mario Kart, or any racing game, this game has you try to win all 14 stages in a row, with only 5 continues. Honestly I could probably even let the game slide if it just separated into cups of 3-4 stages, but the difficulty of the physics, combined with the fact you need to learn a new gameplay objective every single stage makes getting 14 wins in a row pretty damn hard. Like I said I only got up to stage 7 so I can't say what the last half of the game is like. And it's such a shame because they really tried so hard to make this game stand out from the competition and went full force with the South Park brand.