![]() The "Magicite" system, Chocobo GP's take on traditional items, even seems like it could be neat racing through a capsule will give the player one out of 12 spells, and racing through another capsule may give a duplicate spell that can then power up the previous one. If only the same could be said about the item balance.Ĭontrolled chaos is an important part of any casual kart racer, so the occasional last-minute shell leading to an unfair loss is not automatically a bad thing. It doesn't break any new ground, but the feel of the game is certainly on point. The player can perform tricks as they jump off of ramps, boost into hidden shortcuts and split paths, and the like. Everything one would expect from a kart racer is present, with a large variety of colorful characters to play as, dangerous items being thrown every which way, and an acceleration/drift system that is easy to learn, difficult to master. The true mark of a bad racer is bad racing, and at the very least, this game does feel extremely nice to play. That said, a few weak courses is still not enough to entirely ruin a racing game, as even the best of the best carry a few stinkers. You're far more likely to be bored by the lack of variety or annoyed by a set of overly sharp turns than you are to be consistently engaged by the tracks, which already puts this game at a steep disadvantage to its contemporaries. ![]() It's not that there isn't any winners in this bunch-Gold Saucer has some annoyingly sharp turns but is generally beautiful to look at, and the Interdimensional Rift courses are some of the most lengthy, varied, and mechanically unique in the game-but as a whole, the courses land with a resounding, unmemorable thud. (and again, who would want to race on the Short version of ANY course?!) The track variety is less of a Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and more of a Super Mario Kart, which is a positively baffling choice in 2022. Of course, this is the only track with that specific redundancy, but the rest aren't exactly remarkable either! The short and long versions of Cid's Test Track technically have different layouts, but the setpieces aren't unique and the theme is identical, so it's hard to even count these as different courses beyond the very literal fact that yes, the long version has a few more turns. Yes, technically one of those figure-eights has conveyor belts and the other has opening & closing gates, but beyond those gimmicks, they're almost entirely the same layout. You might think, "hey, those sound pretty different, at least!" What you'll then realize is that these layouts are a circle, a figure-eight, a figure-eight, and a figure-eight respectively. (Why anyone would want to race on the 'Short' version of a track is admittedly still a mystery.)īig Bridge, for instance, technically features four different layouts: Hyperspeed, Short 1, Short 2, and Technical. The only distinct locations in this entire game are Chocobo Farm, Cid's Test Track, Monster Village, Zozo, Alexandria, Big Bridge, Gold Saucer, and Interdimensional Rift, with the track count instead being padded out by Short, Long, Technical, and Superspeed variations of each location. Sure, there are 21 unique track layouts, but there are only eight unique track themes. ![]() Chocobo GP features 21 unique track layouts, a not-too-shabby amount for a newly-revived IP… or at least it would be, if there wasn't a major catch. It's bad because it's a thin, poorly-balanced experience with agonizing mechanics and gratuitous monetization.įirst, the content, or lack thereof. There's nothing inherently wrong with that! The thing is, Chocobo GP isn't bad because it's not Mario Kart. Nintendo and Square Enix are wildly different developers, so their forays into the kart racer genre are going to have some inevitable differences. ![]() Nothing is going to dethrone Mario Kart in terms of general appeal, but that does not mean that improving on the formula is impossible, as shown by critically-acclaimed contemporaries like Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed or Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled. To preface: even with 150 hours of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe under this writer's belt, it would be unfair to spend the majority of this review comparing these two titles.
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