Nearly unplayable by modern standards. The controls are unintuitive, with your turns being either too sharp or too slippery that'll result on you careening off-track more times than you should be legally allowed; the AI is borderline cheating in so many ways, not just from the insane rubberbanding that gives you barely around 5 seconds to stay a decent distance at first place and the fact they can use infinite supplies of one item that you can't use in any capacity, but they're also somehow capable of phasing through obstacles no sweat and most of the time even allowed to hop over eachother's items completely unscathed. And then there's the little things that pile up into a mountain of regret, like Rainbow Road's color onslaught barely letting you see the item boxes on it and the fact that getting hit by certain items makes your screen spin around at sickening speeds. Outside of the fairly impressive 3D environment in a 2D engine this game managed to get away with, it's a fatal misfire in nearly every respect.

With that said, though, there's not much point to really hating this game, as horribly as it aged. It doesn't matter that the game didn't age well at the end of the day, as it was an important stepping stone into one of the most whimsical, creative and fun spin-off franchises ever made. The developers did the best they could for the most part with the limited tech they had at the time in order to create a kart racing experience like no other, and it deserves all of our respect for spawning way more uniquely fleshed out iterations of this idea later down the line. And, fortunately, this is the only particularly bad entry of the entire series, so it can only go up from here.

Tried to give this game another chance after 1-2 years idk, and... sorry, this game fucking blows.

I can really appreciate the map design and the add-ons and I can tell a lot of passion went into this project, but unfortunately that means diddly-squat when the game feels so unsatisfying to play. No matter what racer I pick or what stage I play on, the controls are insufferably slippery and there is no weight whatsoever to the kart. Nearly every time I tried to drift to turn a corner and get a mini-turbo, it wasn't without crashing into a wall or falling off the track because either the kart weighs as much as a FEATHER or the track feels like I'm driving on oil. Coupled up with the pitiful amount of single-player modes (all you get is Time Trial), it means there's absolutely no reason to play this game especially when you're alone; mainly when there's tons of other racing games that actually control better and have more gameplay variety and replay value.

Has anybody ever talked about how bad these character animations and sprites are? Not only are they hilariously disproportionate when they don't need to (I understand scaling up characters like the mfers from Toy Story but why the fuck is Moana that much bigger than Elsa??), the animations themselves try to be smooth with all the tweening but just come across as horribly stiff and unnatural most of the time with the overusage of the ease-in-out and the lack of assets for the different body parts. And what is going on with the death animations? Some of them aren't even acting as if they've been killed or knocked out.

Not gonna lie, though; the main menu music is a TUNE.

This isn't a videogame. It's a thoroughly ethereal experience that can never be replicated by human hands. From the moment the widely sized ape starts extending its arms as it glides through the most beautiful, intricately crafted landscapes, Flying Gorilla immerses you on the most breath-takingly magnificent aerial journey that games like The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask and Portal 2 could only dream of accomplishing. This mastercraft makes you feel everything; the satisfaction of collecting every single bunch of bananas that await for your grasp in the skies, the mental exercise as you guide the giant baboon away from the carefully placed obstacles, and the sheer euphoria of finally crossing the finish line after every stage; not to mention the sweeping score, composed of the heavenliest sounds ever bestowed to humanity. A more seminal work of art has never, can never, and will never be gifted to us by anyone other than the very gods.

May the lord and savior Flying Gorilla bless us all, for eternity and beyond 🙏