As mentioned previously in my King’s Knight review, the company Squaresoft, or more commonly known as Square, didn’t quite become a household name in the video game market until they released the original Final Fantasy back in 1987, which prompted them to primarily develop RPGs all the way to this day. It’s no secret as to why they would go that route, given how it is the way their company was saved from going bankrupt back in the day. However, that isn’t to say that a good number of their titles before the original Final Fantasy didn’t have some kind of notoriety, as there are several of their earliest titles that are still memorable from their catalog, for several reasons, such as The 3-D Adventures of Lode Runner and, again, King’s Knight. But, out of all their earliest titles, there was one game that was more well known then all of the others, so much so to where it was featured in plenty of other products, both games and otherwise. That game would be the original Rad Racer.

Before playing it, I had very little experience with Rad Racer, only having playing the challenge portion of the game that was available to play in the Nintendo World Championship 1990 game, and having seen it primarily through the movie The Wizard. While that movie was a hot pile of garbage, it did show off several titles that I hadn’t played before that looked interesting, including Rad Racer, so, after a mere 8 months of waiting (the time between discovery and play is getting longer with each of these games, I swear), I decided to check it out, and you know what, I wish I had checked out the game sooner. For being an NES racer, it is pretty great, and while it doesn’t offer too much in the gameplay department, it does provide enough challenge and speed to where that didn’t matter too much to me.

The graphics are very impressive, not only providing a 3D-like aspect that is pretty innovative for the time, but it also provides the sense of speed that is absolutely pivotal for this type of game, with you feeling like you are going extremely fast as you see all the signs and lines on the side of the road fly past you, the music is good, providing the fast-paced feel a game like this should, but a lot of the tracks do sound extremely similar, so it isn’t something I would go out of my way to listen to again, the control is pretty basic for a racing game, only allowing for acceleration, braking, and turning, but that is enough to use for this game, and trust me, you will need to master all these to get ahead, and the gameplay is… exactly what you would expect, but that doesn’t make the game bad whatsoever.

The game is your typical racing game, where you take control of one of two cars that are basically the exact same thing, take on a set of eight tracks around the world, race your way to the end of the goal before the timer runs out, make sure to turn and brake when it is absolutely necessary so that you don’t fall behind or end up crashing, and bump against plenty of fellow racers that will try to stop you in your tracks so that you can’t make it. And that is pretty much it. The game itself isn’t really about coming in first place, but more so just making it so that you can reach the end of the track, which is enough to get you going, but there isn’t anything else that you could latch onto and have fun with, which may be a disappointment for some.

As for me, I had a really good time with it. This game may not be as creative or chaotic as a game like R.C. Pro Am for the same system, but it does provide a sense of speed that that game wishes it could even come close to achieving, and there are plenty of different environments that you can race through, making sure you see something new for every track. It does feel extremely satisfying to race through these tracks and beat em, making sure that you don’t bump into any of these other racers on the track, or at least not enough to where you can get far behind enough, as well as making sure to not crash to lose your progress. It may not be much at all for those who aren’t that into racing games, but it is a good amount of fun for the short time you get with it.

However, of course, it isn’t perfect. Despite the fact that the game isn’t that long at all, I do feel like it kind of drags on after a while. I dunno, I just feel like 8 tracks is a little much for this kind of game, especially with how hard it already is from the start if you aren’t prepared for it. And speaking of which, this is what I would like to call a “perfectionist” game, where in order to succeed in any of the races, you have to be a damn near PERFECT racer. Sure, you can bump into plenty of the cars and have plenty of time to still make it to each respective checkpoint and goal, even if you do run out of time, but if you crash at all in any of these tracks, it is pretty much guaranteed that you will lose, which does suck, and it does force you to get extremely good, but at the same time, I wish there was just a liiiiitle bit of mercy given, like allowing the player to crash like once or twice, and still have enough time to reach a checkpoint or goal. Then again, maybe that is just me.

Overall, despite how difficult it can be, and how it doesn’t have much personality when compared to other racers, I would still say that Rad Racer is a pretty great time, and I would go as far to say it is probably the best racing game on the NES if you are playing for pure speed. I would definitely recommend it for fans of racing games, especially those that were released back in this era, but for others, I would say just give it a shot, see if you like it, and if not, move onto something else. It’s not really something you need to jump into immediately either. I mean, unless you are pulled in by the 3D mode the game has, as well as being able to play it with the Power Glove……….. you know, if you hate yourself that much.

Game #357

The cutest, comfiest little wiiware game.

It's a sort of city-sim adventure game where instead of going out and adventuring, you play the king.
you hire the adventurers, pay them, and send them on missions.

It's your job to make the city function as it grows and explores the surrounding lands.

at certain points in the games progression story beats are introduced leading towards a specific conclusion.

It's a game that's easily enjoyed but not easily beaten.

As a kid i pumped hours into it never getting very far, but there's no real fail state so you can kinda flounder indefinitely and still have a great time.

To actually beat it, I came back as an adult on an emulator and a guide. Actually trying to win gets a little tedious and it's not SUPER worth it, other than seeing the last phases of city progression.

The plot is very cute, but it's hardly worth the effort.

I really think this game could have been the next harvest moon if square had given it the effort.

I never truly grasped the concept of OutRun up until now.
I’ve played bits of it a few times but, by never truly playing it extensively, I only thought of it as a “sit and relax” type of game, with the only objective being driving through different scenery for as long as you could.
Well, I forgot this was an AM2 game. The focus is still the raw fun, but there was, indeed, a true objective behind the gameplay.

After getting bored of playing Kirby Triple Deluxe, I took advantage of my 3DS being still turned on and decided to give 3D OutRun a try, completely unpretentiously. And I’m glad that I did it.

Whilst not a racing game, OutRun is a driving game. You hit the gas pedal and go through different roads, trying to hit checkpoints with remaining time until the finish line, all of this while trying to dodge nearby vehicles, making sharp turns and shifting the car’s gears to reach higher and slower speeds depending on the situation at hand.

The concept and controls are very simple, but what truly hooks you in is everything else that makes this a really compelling and fun arcade experience.
It looks great, sounds great, but, most of all: it plays amazingly.

The real fun of this game comes from trying to maintain your speed whilst shifting gears and not hitting on other cars and objects by the sides of the road, and the game presents enough variety to always keep you on the edge of your seat.
And, oddly enough, by still keeping a chill, relaxed vibe behind all of it.

Not only that, but every once in a while you’ll be granted the choice of going on different paths that lead you to a different roads with their own scenery and obstacles. Going through all of these will grant you six different “endings”, and it is super fun to play your best to see them all.

On top of all that, this 3DS remaster comes in as one of, if not the best version of the game. Whilst the original Arcade port (which runs at 30 FPS) can still be unlocked by getting all six endings, it runs by default at 60 FPS, making the game run extremely fluidly and enhancing the feeling of speed present in the original. You can also unlock improvements to your car that can make the gameplay easier, but combining different parts also changes the look of the car itself. With the addition of two new music tracks, there’s more than enough variety here to keep the game as engrossing as it was back in the late 80’s.

OutRun was a very, very pleasant surprise. Now I truly get why it is the classic that it is. Games like these are the exactly the ones that remind me why I love videogames so much!

Starting off with the positives, I really enjoyed the world even though the only thing you can interact with are people. The people themselves are very charming and fun to talk to. The card collecting is very enjoyable and the fact that you do most of it by exporting the whole town is a joy. The story although very bizarre kept me guessing a little bit and encapsulated how weird kids can be. Now for the bad, this game kind of punishes you for wanting to see it all. Backtracking is very tedious and some areas have no reason to take as long as they do to walk through. Later on when you need to play the card game more and more it really starts to wear down on you, it’s mostly chance until you get the better cards. Finally if you want to 100% complete the game please just turn it off and go do something better with your life. I’ve never had a game say they hope I have fun with the epilogue before, and I can see why. Other than some unique dialogue you can squeeze out after lots of effort of running back and forth and talking to people in very arbitrary orders, you also have to play the card game and win every time in order to hear it from the kids. Every single time. And don’t get me started on getting that final card, it’s almost as if the game didn’t want me to beat it. Making the main episode finish by collecting all the cards is a cruel sick joke, especially since the way to get the pieces to complete the more rare cards is the worst rng I have ever seen along with very unfair card game AI. It took about 4 hours to beat the main game and honestly 4 more hours of endless grinding of the EXACT SAME card fight over and over and over and over just to finally get enough. I will never get that time back, and it doesn’t even give you any reward for 100%.

Don't pick this one up for the story, pick it up for the gameplay. The premise is pretty interesting and it's cool to see how things unfold as you progress through the game, but the main draw of this game is definitely the dungeon crawling and team building. As you progress through the game, you unlock more classes to play with and it's fun to see how all of their abilities mesh together to create powerful teams of dragon-killers. You can try to make them all balanced, or go for different playstyles for each one. Once you get the hang of playing around with the systems, it can be really fun to shuffle the characters in your parties around to find new options and strategies to adapt to the new monsters they throw at you. I think the encounters in this game are generally pretty well-crafted. Enemy groups sometimes have certain gimmicks you have to learn how to counteract or work around, and the same thing goes for the bosses. Some of the bosses, especially later on when they expect you to have a certain mastery over the game, can be REALLY tough. It's great. The only thing that really, really egregiously sucks about this game is, when you unlock the new classes, you MUST create level 1 characters and grind them up so they're usable. There is a part relatively late in this game that will literally gate your progress if you do not have three full teams that are up to snuff. The first time you get new classes, it's a bit of a pain to level them up to what your first team is at. The second time, it will literally take hours and hours and hours and hours of grinding. I think this issue could've been alleviated if you unlocked side dungeons to explore at the same time you got the new classes, but you don't, and so you will be running down the same corridors over and over again to bring your characters up to the required level. You might wanna have a big backlog of videos on your youtube watch later list by the time you get to the grindy sections of this game. Whether that's good or bad is up to you and your mood. I don't think it's exactly a flaw, in this case, and I think it can still be fun to learn how to deal with the encounters all over again with the different setups.

Today I am pouring one out for Konami Computer Entertainment Osaka, who produced four flawed but unique N64 titles - this, the Goemon games, and Deadly Arts - before being forced to handle their parent company's IP shovelware for the next six years. Hybrid Heaven was born from KCEO's hubristic notion that they could make a better game than Metal Gear Solid, and though there's no need to argue over who won that contest, it still proves that spite can encourage surprising ambition.

The game is frequently as stilted as it is expressive. Its only unqualified success is its industrial-adjacent soundtrack, which refines the dynamic music changes KCEO explored in Goemon to give each area a mounting sense of unearthliness. It's a great complement to the lush colors and alien geometry of the underground facility, but the game is so linear, and so hemmed in by its awkward camera, that it's hard to explore the environments and indulge in the experience on your own terms. The story is an explosive B-movie yarn that seems like it has something to say, but can't clearly express any ideas more sophisticated than "clone inferiority complex." MGS this ain't.

The combat system, first off, is inherently funny because this facility is full of freakish animal-alien-human chimeras and all of them fight like mixed martial artists. Playing with spacing and timing is fun and there are some interesting risk-reward elements, but the systems rarely encourage experimentation once you've found your winning handful of moves. Why would you ever use punches over kicks? I found the game too easy on Normal but admit that any of the higher difficulties would probably have been a drawn-out slog.

Certainly not a perfect game but ripe for rediscovery. There must be at least a few MMA/JRPG/conspiracy theory enthusiasts who have a Hybrid Heaven-shaped hole in their hearts.