the magic of this game for me is how am3 clued in on the idea that racing games are all about the turns and chose to make a rally game, where every turn is so heavily telegraphed and conquering them without losing too much speed or taking a bump makes everything else melt away. every turn in this game is so rich and unique thanks to the subtle way the terrain affects your car's performance, and there's not a single distraction from them the whole time. gaining a few extra mph or avoiding a downshift on a given turn can make or break your run; it's truly addictive.

it's really all because of the physics system, which somehow straddles the line between arcade-y exaggerated kinematics and a more sim-like, cohesive engine. sega rally's slightly older sibling daytona usa is a perfect comparison point: daytona's drifts are a legitimate technique with recommended inputs and a cool animation, while sega rally's drifts are the flexible outcome of a wide variety of different inputs. just letting off the gas yields completely different results than downshifting once or twice before cutting the wheel. the amount of time you spend leaning into the turn changes the drift as well, especially as every wasted second in the drift is a loss of many mph you could've kept otherwise. at the same time making mistakes and adapting is a key to success in this game. being able to stomach a big speed loss and quickly shift into the correct gear to get back on track is essential, as simply knowing what to do on a given turn is never enough to ensure that you never lose speed on it. this is especially true since the grip changes so significantly between areas that the amount of time it takes to turn a certain angle varies between virtually every surface. this dynanism ensures the repetition of grinding arcade mode never becomes fatiguing even after hours of play.

this latter point is especially important as sega rally takes a cool three minutes to beat on a successful run. it's an insanely tightly packed experience that kept me retrying far past the point of frustration given its high difficulty, which perhaps makes it one of the most fun three minutes you can spend gaming anywhere. all three tracks are completely unique beginning to end, with legitimate design techniques that escalate over the course of the runtime. the difficulty curve is tremendous and absolutely pulls no punches, especially in mountain. having a nasty hairpin followed by a 4th gear swerve through a congested neighborhood and then launching into back-to-back right angles on wide muddy road is delectable whiplash even when smoothly handled. that secret lakeside stage hits the mark as well; it gives the player 70 seconds to navigate a twisty marshland mushed beneath the wheels that won't hestitate to throw you into a tailspin. my face lit up when I realized another track was in store after a lovely credits sequence filled with gorgeous nature views scrolled by, and even as I ate shit I couldn't help but feel accomplished for even reaching it.

I beat this initially on ps2, which is an excellent port esp if you have access to component cables and can play in 480p. it runs at a crisp 60fps as well, though oddly enough it runs in 4:3 with black borders in anamorphic widescreen. nevertheless, it's a great way to play an authentic arcade version of this game. this entails an utter lack of side content as well though, which is appropriate given that this version was a bonus, but it's still disappointing. I also played through the saturn version; in fact, I actually played the saturn version much more before picking up the ps2 version in the last couple of days. I noticed pretty quickly that winning on ps2 had an extremly tight margin of error, while simply working through all three maps on saturn was much easier and getting first place in the championship was much more difficult. I imagine this was a balancing tactic for the home market, but it does make accessing and unlocking lakeside a bit harder to get. the saturn version itself is no slouch, and it plays perfectly beyond a lack of analog control. for me I love seeing a technical showpiece on a 32-bit console, and sega rally is one of the best looking 240p racers you can find. I even found the 30fps framerate to be consistent, even if I obviously prefer 60 in the arcade. it's worth trying each out just for fun, and I found my knowledge from the arcade transferred perfectly to saturn, indicating the accuracy of the port without question.

it's really hard to describe how good this without just recommending the game outright. the car feels like putty in your hands with how much you can squash and stretch and how you can snap it like a rubber band around corners. that it manages to make the car feel so buoyant while maintaining a semblance of accuracy is an absolute miracle. it also shares basically every good trait about other sega racing games: the blue sky aesthetic, great music, sick cars, and jaw-dropping early 90s graphics. it's sadly not packed with content, but thankfully there's later entries that expand the course set and car selection drastically. unquestionable classic for me that indicates sega's raw technical might in the early 3D space.

Please do not deplore yourself.
Even if the world does not forgive you, I will forgive you.

Please do not deplore yourself.
Even if you do not forgive the world, I will forgive you.

So please tell me.
What will it take for you, to forgive me?

Posting isn't praxis, and people who have just discovered leftism need to work the notion that it is out of their system in less embarrassing ways than this.

It's way, way, way, way too many words to make the incredibly brave claim that capitalism is bad and influences the art that we make. No fucking shit. Literally any understanding of material reality would dictate that. The only way that you could believe this to be in any way a shocking, revelatory statement is if you are so simultaneously self-important and clueless that you think nobody else has caught on yet. Unfortunately for us, the developer of Tender Frog House fits neatly into both categories.

I always feel a little bad shitting on the people behind the game rather than the final piece itself, but this has earned the ire. What a complete waste of time. Why say in this many bland, empty, boring words what so many other, better pieces of art already have? Do you really, truly believe "comfy" games to be such a damnable, corrupting plague that you need to crusade against them? Are they honestly the true progenitors and perpetrators of the worst aspects of late capitalism, or are you just making broad gestures towards an easy target? Considering how Molochian the gaming space already is at corporate levels, with the constant, unresolved, evidenced accusations of sexual, mental, physical, and fiscal abuse, why make frog games the subject that needs to be tackled? I think most of what you'll see at any of those Comfy Game Showcases seem creatively bankrupt and boring, but to say that they're the agents of Mammon on par with the rest of the industry is silly. Go outside.

Anyway, the only actual proof provided for any of the claims in this game is when Sister Cow says that the only interesting thing about her is the fact that she's mentally ill, and then she immediately pulls a quote from Capitalist Realism.