Mickey's Speedway USA

[A Black Falcon]

Thanks to how much PS1 fans wildly overrate that decent but unexciting game, CTR is probably one of the most overrated games of its generation.  But anyway, that's another subject.

If I gave the impression that I care some huge amount about drift turbos, I didn't intend that.  I went into a little detail on it but I felt I barely mentioned it.  It was still definitely worth a mention though, so I did.

It's probably the thing that stood out the most to me because other than that it's a good review that summarizes the game pretty well... but it's a fairly significant 'other than that'.  It's nice ot know that you don't care a huge amount about drift turbos, but you you sounded pretty negative to me.  I know, drift turbos and such add skill to games.  I just probably don't like drift boosts enough to consider not having them a negative... heh.

On a related but much higher skill note, snaking in F-Zero GX and such?  Yes, I theoretically know that it makes the game much easier if you learn those techniques, but I never have learned how to do them.  Drift turbos are generally easy enough and can be fun -- most recently, they're in Cruis'n Blast and are satisfying and fun there -- but I don't know if I've ever said 'that game is less good because it doesn't have them'...

Now, this doesn't kill the game at all, but sliding turbos as innovated by Mario Kart 64 added so much to the sub-genre that this is the only one since then I can think of that forgoes the convention.  As a result, the skill cap is lower than it could be (nearer to Super Mario Kart than Diddy Kong Racing).  You'll master this game quick, but then there's very little room to grow.

I don't think this is true.  I know you meant to only talk about controls here, but I would say that difficulty is a part of how much skill a game requires.  Certainly the game is simple, but mastering the Professional difficulty and its speed requires quite a bit of skill!  You may think you'll master the game easily while playing it in the slow speeds, but it's a very different game once it's fast.  It isn't DKR hard, thankfully (Diddy Kong Racing is probably too hard at the end...), but it's a good challenge and mastery will require a lot of practice.

 

When I said "everything you need is here and nothing more" that wasn't a comment on the game's challenge.  It was a comment on what the game offers.  It's easy at first and gets very hard, which I did mention.  I wasn't attempting to write a combative review, just my observations. 

I agree of course that the game is fairly simple, but I thought that with the way you say that, you wish the game had more complex controls and boost drifting or something like that... but while more budget might have been good in this definitely not top-tier-budget game, given how it only has one kind of kart, no hub, fairly bland tracks for the most part until the very last ones, and such, I don't think the driving needs any more mechanics than it has.  Features, sure, but not game mechanics.  Just a difference of opinion clearly.