17th October 2021, 10:43 PM
(This post was last modified: 17th October 2021, 10:49 PM by A Black Falcon.)
I went back and just played a little of the game. Looking at it, when I played this game for my review back in about 2010 I only ever beat Frantic Finale on the lowest difficulty, Beginner, and the reason why became immediately apparent: as I said in my review, the ending part of this game is insanely hard! Frantic Finale is crushingly difficult and requires a great deal of practice to get even remotely close to competitive in. I finished far, far behind in last almost all of the time.
I'm sorry, but calling a game this hard something with a "low skill ceiling" is ridiculous. Difficultly is one of the most important elements that determines how much skill a game requires. I'd say that really the exact opposite is true -- the absence of boost drifting makes this game harder and require more skill to master! Instead of being able to rely on those, you instead have to memorize the tracks more and race really well to win. It's one of many factors that combine to make this feel perhaps more like a conventional racing game than is usual for the kart subgenre. I can understand why one would play this and wish for boost drifts because you expect them, and it might be interesting with them, but I do not think it loses much for their absence.
(As for the effect on speedrunning, I couldn't possibly care much less. I don't like speedrunning much and rarely watch any. While I can theoretically get the appeal of trying to break Mario Kart 64 and finish laps in five seconds, as people have done, I'd never want to do that or watch people try much. That kind of thing is not at all my idea of fun. I would much, much rather play a game correctly than try to cheat and exploit glitches. No thanks.)
However, playing the game again it did remind me of several important ways that this is indeed a pretty weird kart racer, a game which is every bit as much RC Pro-Am and Super Mario Kart as it is Mario Kart 64, really...
- It doesn't seem to have much catch-up at all! While in many kart racers the AI is designed to keep the race close, that seems to be not very true here. No, the AI just zooms ahead, leaving you miles behind in the dust. Git gud I guess.
- The very high speed of Professional mode takes some serious getting used to and amplifies the challenge significantly. This is one of the fastest kart racers around, if you even count it as a kart racer. Mario Kart games all have speed increases too, but it's only in its more recent entries that I'd say it reaches this level of speed. Learning tracks and taking corners correctly is important as it is in an RC Pro-Am game.
- The game has a drift system but not any boosts other than those from items. This gives it a pretty different feel from other kart racers and makes the game more about your core driving skill than is the case in a game like Mario Kart 64.
And in several other ways, this feels more like Super Mario Kart for the SNES than Mario Kart 64 or Diddy Kong Racing:
- You lose almost all of your speed when you go off of the track, and the tracks in the later races are narrow. This strongly emphasizes the importance of memorizing each course through lots of practice. Super Mario Kart is somewhat like this, but not Mario Kart 64 or most games in the genre in the N64 generation...
- Weapons exist and you do get better weapons in the back and worse ones in front, but they aren't as overpowered as Mario Kart 64's. Items can help but you will need to race well to win.
- This game has narrow tracks with no walls in places. It's very easy to fall off the side and have to be reset on to the track. This reminds me more of Super Mario Kart than its N64 sequel.
And there might be more as well, it's kind of odd indeed. It's frustrating but rewarding once you actually learn tracks enough to do well at them.
Overall the game is definitely not as great as Mario Kart 64, but it's pretty good. I actually have it at a higher score in my collection spreadsheet than Diddy Kong Racing, though I'd need to play both games again for a while to know if it should stay that way. (Both of Rare's N64 kart racing games get too hard at the end, they have that in common.)
I'm sorry, but calling a game this hard something with a "low skill ceiling" is ridiculous. Difficultly is one of the most important elements that determines how much skill a game requires. I'd say that really the exact opposite is true -- the absence of boost drifting makes this game harder and require more skill to master! Instead of being able to rely on those, you instead have to memorize the tracks more and race really well to win. It's one of many factors that combine to make this feel perhaps more like a conventional racing game than is usual for the kart subgenre. I can understand why one would play this and wish for boost drifts because you expect them, and it might be interesting with them, but I do not think it loses much for their absence.
(As for the effect on speedrunning, I couldn't possibly care much less. I don't like speedrunning much and rarely watch any. While I can theoretically get the appeal of trying to break Mario Kart 64 and finish laps in five seconds, as people have done, I'd never want to do that or watch people try much. That kind of thing is not at all my idea of fun. I would much, much rather play a game correctly than try to cheat and exploit glitches. No thanks.)
However, playing the game again it did remind me of several important ways that this is indeed a pretty weird kart racer, a game which is every bit as much RC Pro-Am and Super Mario Kart as it is Mario Kart 64, really...
- It doesn't seem to have much catch-up at all! While in many kart racers the AI is designed to keep the race close, that seems to be not very true here. No, the AI just zooms ahead, leaving you miles behind in the dust. Git gud I guess.
- The very high speed of Professional mode takes some serious getting used to and amplifies the challenge significantly. This is one of the fastest kart racers around, if you even count it as a kart racer. Mario Kart games all have speed increases too, but it's only in its more recent entries that I'd say it reaches this level of speed. Learning tracks and taking corners correctly is important as it is in an RC Pro-Am game.
- The game has a drift system but not any boosts other than those from items. This gives it a pretty different feel from other kart racers and makes the game more about your core driving skill than is the case in a game like Mario Kart 64.
And in several other ways, this feels more like Super Mario Kart for the SNES than Mario Kart 64 or Diddy Kong Racing:
- You lose almost all of your speed when you go off of the track, and the tracks in the later races are narrow. This strongly emphasizes the importance of memorizing each course through lots of practice. Super Mario Kart is somewhat like this, but not Mario Kart 64 or most games in the genre in the N64 generation...
- Weapons exist and you do get better weapons in the back and worse ones in front, but they aren't as overpowered as Mario Kart 64's. Items can help but you will need to race well to win.
- This game has narrow tracks with no walls in places. It's very easy to fall off the side and have to be reset on to the track. This reminds me more of Super Mario Kart than its N64 sequel.
And there might be more as well, it's kind of odd indeed. It's frustrating but rewarding once you actually learn tracks enough to do well at them.
Overall the game is definitely not as great as Mario Kart 64, but it's pretty good. I actually have it at a higher score in my collection spreadsheet than Diddy Kong Racing, though I'd need to play both games again for a while to know if it should stay that way. (Both of Rare's N64 kart racing games get too hard at the end, they have that in common.)