Plokster
2023
Disney Speedstorm is a slightly above average kart racing game bogged down by the slimy, sleazy nature of live-service games. Despite my extreme disdain for Disney as a company, this is a game that could’ve easily been a notch below Mario Kart or Crash Team Racing if it were a full retail release. In classic Disney fashion, they instead decided to go with the option that would probably make them the most money. Forget the racetracks, you’re going to need a map to navigate just the horrendous menus alone. Be prepared to enter Microtransaction Hell as you wade through page after page densely packed with numbers, icons, progress bars, descriptions, alerts, lootcrates, currencies, timed rewards, timed sales, season passes, skins, challenges, character classes, arbitrary items, and so much more that it’ll make your head spin.
For actual game itself, it’s an okay-enough, competent kart racer. The game is fairly optimized to work and run well on any console of your choosing. The environments and characters look pretty nice overall. The controls take a bit to get used to but are otherwise slick and responsive. There’s a decently-sized character roster with more to come. There are side characters (crew members) you can link to your racers to boost their stats like Smash Ultimate spirits. There are only a handful of maps, but they’re designed with tons of alternate paths and so they can be raced in either direction, meaning you can get a lot of different tracks per map. The weapons are fairly standard, but each one has an alternate function depending on if you hold the attack button. Similar to Mario Kart Double Dash, each character gets their own special weapon. The music is pretty decent and includes remixes of popular Disney songs. The starting boost countdown is one of the most intuitive ones I’ve seen in a kart racer. They let you pick any character, unlocked or not, when playing multiplayer. Like I said, it’s fairly well-rounded kart racer that I would reluctantly add to my physical collection if it were a traditional retail release. Would I pay 60 bucks? Maybe, probably not. But the fact Disney Speedstorm is free is where they try to get you.
Every action performed in this game is deliberately designed to be a slog. Despite the large cast of racers, you start out with Mickey. As you complete the tutorial, you unlock Donald, Goofy, and Mulan. From there? You’re on your own. You have to grind daily challenges, seasonal event challenges, or just pay money to unlock characters, kart parts, crew members, and more. In order to keep up with the seasonal event, you have to upgrade your characters. It’s easy at first, but the further you delve into it, the harder the CPUs get. It becomes a struggle to keep your head above the water. At this point, upgrading becomes a chore. You need 10 character shards to unlock a character, then 20 additional shards to level them up beyond level 15. Considering that shards are practically drip-fed to you, it stops being fun pretty quickly. That’s not even including the dumb random items you need to grind to even have the option of upgrading. From here, Disney hopes you’ll open your wallet because why not! – you haven’t paid for the game so far!
In terms of minor problems, I had a few. One is that there aren’t really any traditional single player options you’d find in a kart racer: no Grand Prix or story mode, no time trials, and any sort of option for “Quick Race” is buried away under the Multiplayer menu. Time trials are technically in, but it feels like an absolute gamble because you’re racing against CPUs who are throwing weapons at you the whole time??? Also, as generally cool as the tracks are, there are only a handful of them. Despite the many layouts, you start seeing a lot of the same set pieces over and over and kind of wish you could see some new ones.
It’s somewhat saddening to see a pretty decent game with a humongous leech attached to it, though Disney doesn’t surprise me with this kind of stuff anymore. There are some minor elements here I’d like to see adopted into other kart racers; like designing tracks so they can be played backwards is awesome. I’ve seen it in Mario Kart custom tracks and think it would be a cool idea to shake up future entries a bit. I’m also a fan of daily challenges as long as they aren’t intrusive and imperative to progression; it’s just nice to have a direction to go in sometimes. If you’re a die-hard karting fan, you might get enjoyment out of this; just be prepared to hit a progression wall at any moment.
For actual game itself, it’s an okay-enough, competent kart racer. The game is fairly optimized to work and run well on any console of your choosing. The environments and characters look pretty nice overall. The controls take a bit to get used to but are otherwise slick and responsive. There’s a decently-sized character roster with more to come. There are side characters (crew members) you can link to your racers to boost their stats like Smash Ultimate spirits. There are only a handful of maps, but they’re designed with tons of alternate paths and so they can be raced in either direction, meaning you can get a lot of different tracks per map. The weapons are fairly standard, but each one has an alternate function depending on if you hold the attack button. Similar to Mario Kart Double Dash, each character gets their own special weapon. The music is pretty decent and includes remixes of popular Disney songs. The starting boost countdown is one of the most intuitive ones I’ve seen in a kart racer. They let you pick any character, unlocked or not, when playing multiplayer. Like I said, it’s fairly well-rounded kart racer that I would reluctantly add to my physical collection if it were a traditional retail release. Would I pay 60 bucks? Maybe, probably not. But the fact Disney Speedstorm is free is where they try to get you.
Every action performed in this game is deliberately designed to be a slog. Despite the large cast of racers, you start out with Mickey. As you complete the tutorial, you unlock Donald, Goofy, and Mulan. From there? You’re on your own. You have to grind daily challenges, seasonal event challenges, or just pay money to unlock characters, kart parts, crew members, and more. In order to keep up with the seasonal event, you have to upgrade your characters. It’s easy at first, but the further you delve into it, the harder the CPUs get. It becomes a struggle to keep your head above the water. At this point, upgrading becomes a chore. You need 10 character shards to unlock a character, then 20 additional shards to level them up beyond level 15. Considering that shards are practically drip-fed to you, it stops being fun pretty quickly. That’s not even including the dumb random items you need to grind to even have the option of upgrading. From here, Disney hopes you’ll open your wallet because why not! – you haven’t paid for the game so far!
In terms of minor problems, I had a few. One is that there aren’t really any traditional single player options you’d find in a kart racer: no Grand Prix or story mode, no time trials, and any sort of option for “Quick Race” is buried away under the Multiplayer menu. Time trials are technically in, but it feels like an absolute gamble because you’re racing against CPUs who are throwing weapons at you the whole time??? Also, as generally cool as the tracks are, there are only a handful of them. Despite the many layouts, you start seeing a lot of the same set pieces over and over and kind of wish you could see some new ones.
It’s somewhat saddening to see a pretty decent game with a humongous leech attached to it, though Disney doesn’t surprise me with this kind of stuff anymore. There are some minor elements here I’d like to see adopted into other kart racers; like designing tracks so they can be played backwards is awesome. I’ve seen it in Mario Kart custom tracks and think it would be a cool idea to shake up future entries a bit. I’m also a fan of daily challenges as long as they aren’t intrusive and imperative to progression; it’s just nice to have a direction to go in sometimes. If you’re a die-hard karting fan, you might get enjoyment out of this; just be prepared to hit a progression wall at any moment.
2011
File this one under “Perfect Sequels.”
In the late 2000’s, a magical game called LittleBigPlanet released for the PS3. On the surface, it was a cute 2.5D platformer with a simple Story Mode where you go through themed obstacle courses to make it from point A to point B. The visuals were beautiful and the sense of the world’s grand scale made your tiny hacky-sack person all the more endearing. Everything in the world looked like it was hand-crafted which made it apparent that they wanted you to tap into your imagination to fully enjoy the experience. You got to customize your little SackThing however you wanted and make them emote while you goofed around with your friends. You even got to customize the little ship that your character uses to select the levels you wanted to play.
While all of this was a great foundation, the Story Mode was simply means to an end: the developers wanted YOU to make your own levels like they did. Everything stated above is only a third of the game. Another significant part of the game is the Create Mode, which is the entire point of the hand-crafted theme that the game flaunts. In LBP, players could easily make their own levels using the powerful, yet easy-to-grasp level editor using all the goodies they collected in the Story Mode. The level editor seems overwhelming at first, but literally every aspect has a short tutorial. This might sound tedious, but each tutorial is optional, yet is narrated gently and delightfully by Stephen Fry who makes it fun to listen and learn. Afterward, you could go online and play all sorts of levels made by other users, whether it was a platformer, some sort of roleplaying map, a tech demo, a shark survival, monster truck rallies, fighting games with silly physics, PvP races, and the list goes on. Despite its primitive restrictions, people were capable of making truly magnificent things that wouldn’t seem possible at first glance, like working calculators or tic-tac-toe with an AI. Plus, the general concept of an online UGC video game was pretty novel at the time, especially on a console. Suffice to say, LBP was a fun, impressive game that really wanted you flex your creative muscles.
And then LittleBigPlanet 2 came along and obliterated LBP1 in every single aspect.
LBP2 takes everything that was great about LBP1 and cranks it up to11. Not only were there quality of life improvements across the board, but they did an exceptional job of filling in all the missing bits and pieces that you could possibly ask for. In the level editor, they added Logic Gates, which were little computer chips and other gadgets that gave you far more control over how anything and everything in your levels functioned. No longer did you have to rely on overly-complicated, yet primitive solutions to do something simple, you could just plop down a few Logic Gates and get it done in a minute. Plus, they gave you even more development tools at your disposal to make your levels more like a true video game. Enemies were easier to make, bosses were easier to make, multi-level narratives were easier to make and string together. There were lots of customizable power ups at your disposal that made creating your level around an interesting central mechanic easier. The new Story Mode was far more intricate and advanced than the old one, once again showcasing what was possible in the level editor. You could even make your own custom soundtrack with MIDI-like instruments if you wanted. You had SackBots which were NPCs you can change the behavior for, making them perform specific actions or just speak to the player. You could use a gadget called “the Controlinator” to make advanced vehicles, massive machines, or completely custom characters and bind it to your controller inputs. Players could now make things like Battleship, top-down racers, horror games, puzzles with serious depth, spectacular boss fights, collect-a-thons, survival gauntlets, and so much more. There were even people making feature length films with the new NPC system and cutscene tools, it was absolutely insane. To top it all off, if you had LBP1, you got to transfer EVERYTHING you obtained from LBP1 to LBP2. Music, clothes, building materials, objects, stickers, DLCs, your character’s outfits, everything. The amount of things you could do and how easy it was to build and play was truly mind-blowing. There's no doubt that this game has inspired people to pursue game development in their future.
Truly my only real complaint was the seemingly endless onslaught of DLC. It was cool that you could dress your character like Solid Snake or Ratchet or Jak or even Sonic with official costumes, but the prices would add up sort of quickly. Then there were level kits, where it was fairly common for them to lock an entirely new game mechanic like anti-gravity, wall-jumping, and gliding behind a paywall. By comparison, it was usually more worth it to get level kits, as they would have a small story mode, tons of new materials to work with, new music, a new central game mechanic, and even a few costumes thrown in for only a few bucks. Otherwise, they actually gave out quite a few free things from time to time.
Despite the years of experience between all the developers at Media Molecule, having LBP1 and 2 be their first games after forming a new company is astounding. When you play these games, it’s obvious that so much thought, love, and care went into them. For quite a few years, you could tell when Media Molecule made a game just based on the consistent quality, how detailed everything was and how there tends to be an emphasis on letting your creativity flow. Their mantra for their studio was to keep the amount of staff small so everyone could be tightly-knight and focused, which is a mentality that apparently inspired Hideo Kojima of all people when making his own studio. Their focus certainly shows in their games and LBP2 is easily my favorite game to come from their studio. Quite frankly, it’s also in my top 10 favorite games of the 2010’s.
In the late 2000’s, a magical game called LittleBigPlanet released for the PS3. On the surface, it was a cute 2.5D platformer with a simple Story Mode where you go through themed obstacle courses to make it from point A to point B. The visuals were beautiful and the sense of the world’s grand scale made your tiny hacky-sack person all the more endearing. Everything in the world looked like it was hand-crafted which made it apparent that they wanted you to tap into your imagination to fully enjoy the experience. You got to customize your little SackThing however you wanted and make them emote while you goofed around with your friends. You even got to customize the little ship that your character uses to select the levels you wanted to play.
While all of this was a great foundation, the Story Mode was simply means to an end: the developers wanted YOU to make your own levels like they did. Everything stated above is only a third of the game. Another significant part of the game is the Create Mode, which is the entire point of the hand-crafted theme that the game flaunts. In LBP, players could easily make their own levels using the powerful, yet easy-to-grasp level editor using all the goodies they collected in the Story Mode. The level editor seems overwhelming at first, but literally every aspect has a short tutorial. This might sound tedious, but each tutorial is optional, yet is narrated gently and delightfully by Stephen Fry who makes it fun to listen and learn. Afterward, you could go online and play all sorts of levels made by other users, whether it was a platformer, some sort of roleplaying map, a tech demo, a shark survival, monster truck rallies, fighting games with silly physics, PvP races, and the list goes on. Despite its primitive restrictions, people were capable of making truly magnificent things that wouldn’t seem possible at first glance, like working calculators or tic-tac-toe with an AI. Plus, the general concept of an online UGC video game was pretty novel at the time, especially on a console. Suffice to say, LBP was a fun, impressive game that really wanted you flex your creative muscles.
And then LittleBigPlanet 2 came along and obliterated LBP1 in every single aspect.
LBP2 takes everything that was great about LBP1 and cranks it up to11. Not only were there quality of life improvements across the board, but they did an exceptional job of filling in all the missing bits and pieces that you could possibly ask for. In the level editor, they added Logic Gates, which were little computer chips and other gadgets that gave you far more control over how anything and everything in your levels functioned. No longer did you have to rely on overly-complicated, yet primitive solutions to do something simple, you could just plop down a few Logic Gates and get it done in a minute. Plus, they gave you even more development tools at your disposal to make your levels more like a true video game. Enemies were easier to make, bosses were easier to make, multi-level narratives were easier to make and string together. There were lots of customizable power ups at your disposal that made creating your level around an interesting central mechanic easier. The new Story Mode was far more intricate and advanced than the old one, once again showcasing what was possible in the level editor. You could even make your own custom soundtrack with MIDI-like instruments if you wanted. You had SackBots which were NPCs you can change the behavior for, making them perform specific actions or just speak to the player. You could use a gadget called “the Controlinator” to make advanced vehicles, massive machines, or completely custom characters and bind it to your controller inputs. Players could now make things like Battleship, top-down racers, horror games, puzzles with serious depth, spectacular boss fights, collect-a-thons, survival gauntlets, and so much more. There were even people making feature length films with the new NPC system and cutscene tools, it was absolutely insane. To top it all off, if you had LBP1, you got to transfer EVERYTHING you obtained from LBP1 to LBP2. Music, clothes, building materials, objects, stickers, DLCs, your character’s outfits, everything. The amount of things you could do and how easy it was to build and play was truly mind-blowing. There's no doubt that this game has inspired people to pursue game development in their future.
Truly my only real complaint was the seemingly endless onslaught of DLC. It was cool that you could dress your character like Solid Snake or Ratchet or Jak or even Sonic with official costumes, but the prices would add up sort of quickly. Then there were level kits, where it was fairly common for them to lock an entirely new game mechanic like anti-gravity, wall-jumping, and gliding behind a paywall. By comparison, it was usually more worth it to get level kits, as they would have a small story mode, tons of new materials to work with, new music, a new central game mechanic, and even a few costumes thrown in for only a few bucks. Otherwise, they actually gave out quite a few free things from time to time.
Despite the years of experience between all the developers at Media Molecule, having LBP1 and 2 be their first games after forming a new company is astounding. When you play these games, it’s obvious that so much thought, love, and care went into them. For quite a few years, you could tell when Media Molecule made a game just based on the consistent quality, how detailed everything was and how there tends to be an emphasis on letting your creativity flow. Their mantra for their studio was to keep the amount of staff small so everyone could be tightly-knight and focused, which is a mentality that apparently inspired Hideo Kojima of all people when making his own studio. Their focus certainly shows in their games and LBP2 is easily my favorite game to come from their studio. Quite frankly, it’s also in my top 10 favorite games of the 2010’s.
2020
As far as I remember, this game was created on the concept of levels that fall apart as you play them (hence the name, Crumble). Combine this with the idea of using a grappling hook as your main method of traversal and it sounds like you would have something interesting. From my time with it though, I can't really tell what this game wants to be.
As it currently stands, it feels like it wants to be a goofy physics simulator while simultaneously wanting to be a precision platformer based around speed. If you have a lot of patience, a challenge like that may sound interesting. However, I feel that for the average player (or even the above-average player), the unpredictability of the physics and the grapple-tongue leads to a game that doesn't feel very satisfying to play. If you don't have a grappling point directly above you, you have no idea where your grapple will latch onto. As a result, it instantly kills your momentum in most situations. In a frenzy to save yourself, you'll begin attempting to climb the walls by swinging back and forth, only to realize this straight up doesn't work the vast majority of the time.
Aside from most of the levels being forgettable, there are genuinely some cool ideas and mechanics on display here and there. In the brief moments where you're going full speed and making split-second decisions, it feels awesome! I think with some adjustments and more focus, it could be a more enjoyable experience. For example, I feel having a grapple-assist that locks on to very specific points could go a long way.
Also, I took off half a star because while I was looking up info for this game, I couldn't help but notice the publisher seems to be obsessed with NFTs.
As it currently stands, it feels like it wants to be a goofy physics simulator while simultaneously wanting to be a precision platformer based around speed. If you have a lot of patience, a challenge like that may sound interesting. However, I feel that for the average player (or even the above-average player), the unpredictability of the physics and the grapple-tongue leads to a game that doesn't feel very satisfying to play. If you don't have a grappling point directly above you, you have no idea where your grapple will latch onto. As a result, it instantly kills your momentum in most situations. In a frenzy to save yourself, you'll begin attempting to climb the walls by swinging back and forth, only to realize this straight up doesn't work the vast majority of the time.
Aside from most of the levels being forgettable, there are genuinely some cool ideas and mechanics on display here and there. In the brief moments where you're going full speed and making split-second decisions, it feels awesome! I think with some adjustments and more focus, it could be a more enjoyable experience. For example, I feel having a grapple-assist that locks on to very specific points could go a long way.
Also, I took off half a star because while I was looking up info for this game, I couldn't help but notice the publisher seems to be obsessed with NFTs.
As someone who doesn’t really have nostalgia for DuckTales or the original game, DuckTales Remastered is definitely one of the better licensed games out there.
Honestly I’m pretty lukewarm when it comes to the Shantae series, but Shantae at the very least tends to have very fluid animation and well-drawn characters. WayForward brings that same skill and enthusiasm to DuckTales Remastered, perfectly translating the character designs from the original game and TV show to work in a modern video game.
For the actual game itself, it can feel the tiniest bit stiff but it’s a big improvement over the original. The levels are visually easier to navigate and all the secrets remain intact. As a whole, you can complete it in about an hour or two. If you found the original game too difficult, Remastered has difficulty modes. Easy mode has no lives and the hardest difficulty, Extreme, has to be completed in one sitting. All other settings in between introduce lives and remove health upgrades along the way.
As for presentation, Remastered has a lot of great aspects. First and foremost, Shovel Knight composer Jake Kauffman did the original soundtrack justice, as each and every track is on-par with the original. Additionally, every cutscene is fully voice acted with most of the original TV show actors reprising their roles, which adds a nice touch. For the visuals, the style is almost indirectly reminiscent of Paper Mario, with paper-thin characters traversing a 3D-rendered environment. Outside of the main gameplay, you can use the money you collect to purchase concept art from both the game and even the TV production. They have artwork for every character in the game, all enemies included. The gallery even contains the original spritework and music for direct comparison, which I really appreciate.
Overall, DuckTales Remastered is a really nice remake. It won’t blow your mind, but it does a good job of bringing a classic NES game to the modern era and remains one of the few remakes I’ll gladly play over the original.
Honestly I’m pretty lukewarm when it comes to the Shantae series, but Shantae at the very least tends to have very fluid animation and well-drawn characters. WayForward brings that same skill and enthusiasm to DuckTales Remastered, perfectly translating the character designs from the original game and TV show to work in a modern video game.
For the actual game itself, it can feel the tiniest bit stiff but it’s a big improvement over the original. The levels are visually easier to navigate and all the secrets remain intact. As a whole, you can complete it in about an hour or two. If you found the original game too difficult, Remastered has difficulty modes. Easy mode has no lives and the hardest difficulty, Extreme, has to be completed in one sitting. All other settings in between introduce lives and remove health upgrades along the way.
As for presentation, Remastered has a lot of great aspects. First and foremost, Shovel Knight composer Jake Kauffman did the original soundtrack justice, as each and every track is on-par with the original. Additionally, every cutscene is fully voice acted with most of the original TV show actors reprising their roles, which adds a nice touch. For the visuals, the style is almost indirectly reminiscent of Paper Mario, with paper-thin characters traversing a 3D-rendered environment. Outside of the main gameplay, you can use the money you collect to purchase concept art from both the game and even the TV production. They have artwork for every character in the game, all enemies included. The gallery even contains the original spritework and music for direct comparison, which I really appreciate.
Overall, DuckTales Remastered is a really nice remake. It won’t blow your mind, but it does a good job of bringing a classic NES game to the modern era and remains one of the few remakes I’ll gladly play over the original.
SRB2Kart wasn't the best racing game ever. However, for a piece of free software made by fans that's basically running on the DOOM engine, it's safe to say it's more than impressive. At its core, SRB2Kart is essentially free Mario Kart for your PC, with some noticeable differences, of course. Anyone could pick it up, and while they may not understand it at first, it wouldn't take long before they start getting a good grip on the basics. Download a few funny mods, get some friends in a call, and you'll be playing as Peter Griffin on Coconut Mall in just a few minutes. In a way, the experience feels somewhat cobbled together, but it's so simple and fun, which makes for a chill experience with an amazing amount of replayability.
Dr. Robotnik's Ring Racers, in its current form, is a fantastic game that is otherwise hidden beneath a heap of questionable choices. In what seems like a quest to be a full-fledged, retail-quality game, Ring Racers starts with the base of SRB2Kart, bloats it exponentially, and locks away features that were available from the get-go. For most SRB2Kart fans, it's unfortunate, given how the actual vibe and presentation of the game is so expertly crafted, professional, and most of all: fun.
When you first boot it up, you're greeted with a lengthy, unskippable sequence as they let you adjust your game settings. Even though it's a little slow, I like this intro a lot; Tails' and Robotnik's friendship is cute, the sequence overall looks and sounds great, and it sets the tone to show how much more sophisticated the whole package is compared to its predecessor.
From there, you are sucker-punched into a nearly hour-long^ tutorial as the game slings a seemingly never-ending barrage of mechanics and dialog at you. An entire Ring economy, melee attacks, spin dashes, fast-falling, easy-braking, trick pads, trick directions, hill physics, and so much more; it involves a lot more thinking than the average kart racer. It's pretty overwhelming. After completing the tutorial (with no real understanding of what I went through), I jumped into a Grand Prix cup only to get my ass handed to me on a silver platter while on Easy Mode. After a few tries, I got brought to the Unlocks Screen after winning. Once again, I got sucker-punched when I made the realization that Online Mode is an unlockable; I have to convince my friends to traverse the same gauntlet I just endured if they want to play online with me. Of course, you can use cheats to bypass this, but I don't think this should be the default experience. They're really going to scare off more casual players with this sort of first impression.
Aside from the racing mechanics and tutorial, there's a lot of other unpleasant changes: The controls don't feel as tight, mods are unlocked after you complete 4 cups, alternate character colors have to be found on each track, Time Trials are locked behind collecting character colors, the CPUs seem to rubber-band like crazy even on Easy Mode, CPUs love using the melee attacks so it feels like you get battered around more than you do in Mario Kart, the "use weapon" button has 4 different functions, and the list goes on^.
I feel like a dick complaining about it considering this is a free game that had thousands of hours put into its development. I almost feel I’m being unfair to it. As a standalone entry, it has more than enough potential to be great. I can clearly see the vision: rather than making an experimental game that feels like a disjointed mod of a mod of a mod, they instead wanted to deliver a more robust and cohesive package – a game that truly feels like a "real game” you could pick from a store shelf. A finished game that is unmistakably unique. The spritework, the tracks, the menus, and the custom music are all gorgeous and you can tell so much passion and dedication went into it all of it. As someone who attempted to make content for the original game, I can assure you making nearly anything for this engine is not an easy process.
However, due to the fact it's a sequel, it unfortunately comes with a lot of preconceived notions, like not having to unlock Online Mode, character colors, or whatever. It's very difficult to divorce it from its predecessor: a game widely popularized for being both accessible and highly customizable from the start. As a result, it's hard to not feel a bit unsatisfied with how the gameplay and progression turned out. Many players' expectations were defied, and mostly not for the better. I think they severely underestimated the value of how easy it was to pick up and play SRB2Kart on a whim.
So far, I'm more comfortable labeling Ring Racers as an alternative way to play SRB2Kart (primarily for hardcore veterans) rather than a replacement or even an upgrade. With this in mind, I do find myself wanting to play more of it despite the many frustrations. I'm not won over by this game just yet, but there's definitely something interesting here. I think I would be okay with a good portion of the changes if the CPUs weren't so merciless, but there's still some heavy adjustments to be made beyond that.
I don't have a rating on this yet because I would like to see how this game shapes up over time from feedback.
^: As of v2.1, you can exit the tutorial once you reach a fairly early point. They've also made Online, Mods, and Time Attack unlock much earlier. I'm very glad they're responsive to some of the feedback already.
Also I suppose Time Attack was not actually hidden behind finding character colors? I can't find a concrete answer, so I apologize for perpetuating misinfo if this is the case.
Dr. Robotnik's Ring Racers, in its current form, is a fantastic game that is otherwise hidden beneath a heap of questionable choices. In what seems like a quest to be a full-fledged, retail-quality game, Ring Racers starts with the base of SRB2Kart, bloats it exponentially, and locks away features that were available from the get-go. For most SRB2Kart fans, it's unfortunate, given how the actual vibe and presentation of the game is so expertly crafted, professional, and most of all: fun.
When you first boot it up, you're greeted with a lengthy, unskippable sequence as they let you adjust your game settings. Even though it's a little slow, I like this intro a lot; Tails' and Robotnik's friendship is cute, the sequence overall looks and sounds great, and it sets the tone to show how much more sophisticated the whole package is compared to its predecessor.
From there, you are sucker-punched into a nearly hour-long^ tutorial as the game slings a seemingly never-ending barrage of mechanics and dialog at you. An entire Ring economy, melee attacks, spin dashes, fast-falling, easy-braking, trick pads, trick directions, hill physics, and so much more; it involves a lot more thinking than the average kart racer. It's pretty overwhelming. After completing the tutorial (with no real understanding of what I went through), I jumped into a Grand Prix cup only to get my ass handed to me on a silver platter while on Easy Mode. After a few tries, I got brought to the Unlocks Screen after winning. Once again, I got sucker-punched when I made the realization that Online Mode is an unlockable; I have to convince my friends to traverse the same gauntlet I just endured if they want to play online with me. Of course, you can use cheats to bypass this, but I don't think this should be the default experience. They're really going to scare off more casual players with this sort of first impression.
Aside from the racing mechanics and tutorial, there's a lot of other unpleasant changes: The controls don't feel as tight, mods are unlocked after you complete 4 cups, alternate character colors have to be found on each track, Time Trials are locked behind collecting character colors, the CPUs seem to rubber-band like crazy even on Easy Mode, CPUs love using the melee attacks so it feels like you get battered around more than you do in Mario Kart, the "use weapon" button has 4 different functions, and the list goes on^.
I feel like a dick complaining about it considering this is a free game that had thousands of hours put into its development. I almost feel I’m being unfair to it. As a standalone entry, it has more than enough potential to be great. I can clearly see the vision: rather than making an experimental game that feels like a disjointed mod of a mod of a mod, they instead wanted to deliver a more robust and cohesive package – a game that truly feels like a "real game” you could pick from a store shelf. A finished game that is unmistakably unique. The spritework, the tracks, the menus, and the custom music are all gorgeous and you can tell so much passion and dedication went into it all of it. As someone who attempted to make content for the original game, I can assure you making nearly anything for this engine is not an easy process.
However, due to the fact it's a sequel, it unfortunately comes with a lot of preconceived notions, like not having to unlock Online Mode, character colors, or whatever. It's very difficult to divorce it from its predecessor: a game widely popularized for being both accessible and highly customizable from the start. As a result, it's hard to not feel a bit unsatisfied with how the gameplay and progression turned out. Many players' expectations were defied, and mostly not for the better. I think they severely underestimated the value of how easy it was to pick up and play SRB2Kart on a whim.
So far, I'm more comfortable labeling Ring Racers as an alternative way to play SRB2Kart (primarily for hardcore veterans) rather than a replacement or even an upgrade. With this in mind, I do find myself wanting to play more of it despite the many frustrations. I'm not won over by this game just yet, but there's definitely something interesting here. I think I would be okay with a good portion of the changes if the CPUs weren't so merciless, but there's still some heavy adjustments to be made beyond that.
I don't have a rating on this yet because I would like to see how this game shapes up over time from feedback.
^: As of v2.1, you can exit the tutorial once you reach a fairly early point. They've also made Online, Mods, and Time Attack unlock much earlier. I'm very glad they're responsive to some of the feedback already.
Also I suppose Time Attack was not actually hidden behind finding character colors? I can't find a concrete answer, so I apologize for perpetuating misinfo if this is the case.
About a month ago, a day or two after its release, I wrote a review for Dr. Robotnik's Ring Racers. Quite frankly I feel that's too early to review almost any piece of media, but I did it for two reasons. One, I wanted to record my first impressions. Second, many people, spanning multiple websites, were giving very short, no-nuance takes akin to "it's dogshit, don't play it." This sort of upset me, because while the game was far from perfect, there was definitely something special here. I didn't get into specifics but I more wanted to tackle why people, myself included, were a bit disappointed. You can read my previous review here, but to save time, it boils down to this: there's a world of difference between Sonic Robo Blast 2 Kart (the previous entry) and Ring Racers. SRB2Kart plays more along the lines of Mario Kart while Ring Racers is an entirely different beast on its own. Additionally, SRB2Kart's notoriety for being a game you can quickly boot up and play any character on any course with friends was initially thrown out the window in Ring Racers' release, leading people to be a bit aggravated before they even hit the track. Once they completed the hour-long tutorial, finally hit the track, and saw how merciless the CPUs were, it was a whole new story. Many people were immediately turned away and I don't quite blame them.
However, after letting it sit for a bit and letting the developers tweak it, Ring Racers as of v2.2 has reached a state where I would say it's actually playable. Rather than write out improvements in a big paragraph, I feel it would be easier to list them:
- CPUs cheat significantly less. I'll touch more upon this later.
- Online Mode, Mods, and Time Attack can be unlocked significantly earlier.
- You can exit the tutorial much earlier.
- An "Auto-Ring" feature that manages your rings during races so you don't have to worry as much about them.
- Slope gravity has been reduced, making pretty much every course generally easier to race on.
- Spin-dash has been buffed, making it a more viable option during races.
- Trick jumps now require 2 inputs so that you don't accidentally send yourself off a cliff before you realize you're in a trick sequence.
- Unlocking things has become easier, as they award a Chao Key every 5 races instead of 14.
With all of these changes, Ring Racers is more accessible to the average player than it was before. Although, I feel I would be dishonest if I labeled this game as "accessible" as a main descriptor. It definitely feels like the developers are a little adamant about ensuring Ring Racers stays as difficult as they can get away with. It still remains the most technical and possibly the most difficult kart racer you'll ever play. Whether that's good or bad is entirely up to you, but I can say with a fair amount of certainty that Ring Racers is an acquired taste. Similar to above, below is a list of personal gripes I still have with it:
- CPUs still literally cheat. They are able to attain speeds that human players will never experience for themselves. At points, it feels more RNG-based than Mario Kart; you can play a perfect race and still lose because a CPU randomly got a burst of speed or was randomly given an invincibility power up at the last second. They've toned it down significantly since launch, but it still feels kinda bad at times. Playing online with other players is much more satisfying, because at least the chaos there is natural.
- The bonus stages are brutally trial-and-error and you only have a few tries. If you lose, you have to play a prix cup from the beginning to try again. This can be aggravating, as you'll have to play a game of chance and see if the CPUs behave enough for you to get a good score.
- There are a lot of tracks in this game that just don't feel very good to play on or are poorly designed in general, to a point where it can feel like a joke. Some rely on annoying gimmicks, some are too small, some are too long, some aren't very readable in terms of direction, some require extreme precision and so on.
- The drifting still feels a bit off. The arc of each drift always ends up being waaay tighter than you think it'll be.
Despite all of this, Ring Racers still has a lot of great aspects. I love wacky kart racers, so thankfully for me, this game checks a lot of boxes and brings even more to the table to keep the experience interesting:
- The menus are super sleek, stylish, readable, functional and tie the whole game together in a way that makes it feel like a complete package. It’s a huge step up from SRB2Kart.
- The artwork in general is great. Every track is memorable just through the aesthetics alone.
- Characters are a big part of a kart racer for me personally. With over 60 characters, there's a lot of cool, silly, and fun picks and they all look great. There are a few questionable roster-drops (Omega, Gamma, Vector, Miku, etc.) but supposedly more are on the way from what I've heard.
- The way unlockables are implemented is really fun. The unlock system is identical to that of Kirby Air Ride and Super Smash Bros, which makes it fun to chip away at. Not only that, but while many of the unlockables are obtained via standard methods, there are a ton of unlockables that are playground-rumor-level of obtuse to figure out, which can turn the whole game into a neat scavenger hunt.
- The entire soundtrack is great, as they included strange yet fitting choices from games such as Touhou, Rayman 3, and even Looney Tunes: Sheep Raider. There's also tons well-known Sonic tracks and even lots of fan remixes used with permission.
- Capturing gifs, video, and replays are all built-in. You can even spectate time trial ghosts to see how they pull off certain stunts.
- To top it all off, this game still allows mods, much like SRB2Kart. This means you can still have goofy races, like racing as King Harkinian on Waluigi Pinball. The only drawback is that SRB2Kart mods are not compatible with Ring Racers, so someone still has to make them.
When you put aside some of the glaring flaws, there’s a phenomenal kart racer here, which is what originally kept me going through the rough launch. I'm still greatly enjoying my time with Ring Racers. Even with all of the changes though, it can still be a hard sell to friends due to the amount of mechanics and the difficulty of the CPUs. With some more tweaks, this could easily stand among the best kart racers of all time, which is really saying something considering it’s completely free. If you haven't played it and turned off by the all of the issues people were talking about, I really recommend giving it a try before dropping it; you really don't have much to lose.
However, after letting it sit for a bit and letting the developers tweak it, Ring Racers as of v2.2 has reached a state where I would say it's actually playable. Rather than write out improvements in a big paragraph, I feel it would be easier to list them:
- CPUs cheat significantly less. I'll touch more upon this later.
- Online Mode, Mods, and Time Attack can be unlocked significantly earlier.
- You can exit the tutorial much earlier.
- An "Auto-Ring" feature that manages your rings during races so you don't have to worry as much about them.
- Slope gravity has been reduced, making pretty much every course generally easier to race on.
- Spin-dash has been buffed, making it a more viable option during races.
- Trick jumps now require 2 inputs so that you don't accidentally send yourself off a cliff before you realize you're in a trick sequence.
- Unlocking things has become easier, as they award a Chao Key every 5 races instead of 14.
With all of these changes, Ring Racers is more accessible to the average player than it was before. Although, I feel I would be dishonest if I labeled this game as "accessible" as a main descriptor. It definitely feels like the developers are a little adamant about ensuring Ring Racers stays as difficult as they can get away with. It still remains the most technical and possibly the most difficult kart racer you'll ever play. Whether that's good or bad is entirely up to you, but I can say with a fair amount of certainty that Ring Racers is an acquired taste. Similar to above, below is a list of personal gripes I still have with it:
- CPUs still literally cheat. They are able to attain speeds that human players will never experience for themselves. At points, it feels more RNG-based than Mario Kart; you can play a perfect race and still lose because a CPU randomly got a burst of speed or was randomly given an invincibility power up at the last second. They've toned it down significantly since launch, but it still feels kinda bad at times. Playing online with other players is much more satisfying, because at least the chaos there is natural.
- The bonus stages are brutally trial-and-error and you only have a few tries. If you lose, you have to play a prix cup from the beginning to try again. This can be aggravating, as you'll have to play a game of chance and see if the CPUs behave enough for you to get a good score.
- There are a lot of tracks in this game that just don't feel very good to play on or are poorly designed in general, to a point where it can feel like a joke. Some rely on annoying gimmicks, some are too small, some are too long, some aren't very readable in terms of direction, some require extreme precision and so on.
- The drifting still feels a bit off. The arc of each drift always ends up being waaay tighter than you think it'll be.
Despite all of this, Ring Racers still has a lot of great aspects. I love wacky kart racers, so thankfully for me, this game checks a lot of boxes and brings even more to the table to keep the experience interesting:
- The menus are super sleek, stylish, readable, functional and tie the whole game together in a way that makes it feel like a complete package. It’s a huge step up from SRB2Kart.
- The artwork in general is great. Every track is memorable just through the aesthetics alone.
- Characters are a big part of a kart racer for me personally. With over 60 characters, there's a lot of cool, silly, and fun picks and they all look great. There are a few questionable roster-drops (Omega, Gamma, Vector, Miku, etc.) but supposedly more are on the way from what I've heard.
- The way unlockables are implemented is really fun. The unlock system is identical to that of Kirby Air Ride and Super Smash Bros, which makes it fun to chip away at. Not only that, but while many of the unlockables are obtained via standard methods, there are a ton of unlockables that are playground-rumor-level of obtuse to figure out, which can turn the whole game into a neat scavenger hunt.
- The entire soundtrack is great, as they included strange yet fitting choices from games such as Touhou, Rayman 3, and even Looney Tunes: Sheep Raider. There's also tons well-known Sonic tracks and even lots of fan remixes used with permission.
- Capturing gifs, video, and replays are all built-in. You can even spectate time trial ghosts to see how they pull off certain stunts.
- To top it all off, this game still allows mods, much like SRB2Kart. This means you can still have goofy races, like racing as King Harkinian on Waluigi Pinball. The only drawback is that SRB2Kart mods are not compatible with Ring Racers, so someone still has to make them.
When you put aside some of the glaring flaws, there’s a phenomenal kart racer here, which is what originally kept me going through the rough launch. I'm still greatly enjoying my time with Ring Racers. Even with all of the changes though, it can still be a hard sell to friends due to the amount of mechanics and the difficulty of the CPUs. With some more tweaks, this could easily stand among the best kart racers of all time, which is really saying something considering it’s completely free. If you haven't played it and turned off by the all of the issues people were talking about, I really recommend giving it a try before dropping it; you really don't have much to lose.
Made during the period where it was considered cool to hate Undertale due to its overwhelming success, Overtale decides to poke fun at it in a silly, lighthearted way rather than out of spite. Even then, it doesn't really have that much to do with Undertale, as it tells its own original story and uses the word "Undertale" in the same exact way Star Wars uses "the Force".
Though the writing is heavily comprised of dated jokes and memes, this game's humor was 1:1 with my own sense of humor back in 2016, where I saw it on a Twitch stream and was laughing pretty much the whole time. The other half of the writing is surprisingly decent, as it tells a lovingly stupid, absurdist story with strangely likable characters. The RPGmaker combat is well-balanced and offers enough challenge without being too difficult.
If you have the sense of humor that enables you to enjoy things like Aqua Teen Hunger Force or YouTube Poops, you'll probably really enjoy this game. Otherwise you may struggle to find its charm. I first played this in 2024 and still found it fairly funny.
Though the writing is heavily comprised of dated jokes and memes, this game's humor was 1:1 with my own sense of humor back in 2016, where I saw it on a Twitch stream and was laughing pretty much the whole time. The other half of the writing is surprisingly decent, as it tells a lovingly stupid, absurdist story with strangely likable characters. The RPGmaker combat is well-balanced and offers enough challenge without being too difficult.
If you have the sense of humor that enables you to enjoy things like Aqua Teen Hunger Force or YouTube Poops, you'll probably really enjoy this game. Otherwise you may struggle to find its charm. I first played this in 2024 and still found it fairly funny.