There are pros and cons for this, of course. You can’t overpower the car and grind to unlock the best parts as you have to beat each boss first. There are 60 levels, and aside from the races, you’ll encounter boss levels, which seem to be evenly matched each time. A nice touch if you’re a completionist, but as the game is so linear in approach – one track after the next, it’s highly likely you’ll unlock them all by merely showing up. Other than these upgrades, you also earn in-game achievements. Yes, I’m not afraid to admit that I used the technique to secure a few wins when under powered. I found a smaller car would get knocked about a little, but easier to manoeuvre about and bounce off the bigger cars if not as fast as them. It’s not much of an incentive, but you do unlock body parts so can chop and change the appearance of the car. There are a good amount of styles to unlock (which are cosmetic only), and an abundance of colours, but interestingly, the colours are mostly locked and a cheap reward for a win. Unlocking them is the first step, the second is having the money to pay for it.Īdditionally, you can customise your vehicle. They’re all self-explanatory, the latter allowing you to draft behind other vehicles then overtake.
The upgrades include engine, gears, tyres, exhaust and aerodynamics. Sadly, you have to go through a very linear line-up of tracks and win before you can get the goodies. Each race will award you with coins that you can spend on upgrades, but you have to unlock the parts in the first place through progression. However, these traps work in your favour too, as if you’re leading the pack, you can drive past these which will automatically fire off in your opponents’ path.īut what about the sliding? That’s not necessarily poor handling on Super Arcade Racing’s part, merely the stats of your car. You can’t always see the track ahead of you and frequently hit objects that hinder your progress – an event that triggers the story in the first place as you crash into some logs. Alas, it also has the same sort of handling at the same games it gives the nod to as they often slide all over the place, and as you only have the viewpoint from above. You could argue that this was like playing an emulated game on the Switch as it hits the spot when it comes to paying homage to the spirit of 16-bit racers. If you played these sort of games back in the day as I did, you’d immediately feel some nostalgia. His only clue to the whereabouts, he enters the tournament to discover…the truth! Hot in pursuit of the criminals, they manage to get away, Mick totals his car, but finds a flyer for an underground racing circuit. At the start of the game, his brother, Martin, is kidnapped by unknown assailants and flee pretty quickly.
You play as Mick, who has unfortunately become the victim of a glueing incident as he permanently wears a helmet. It plays out very much like the original games it emulates with chirpy tunes, pixelated graphics and a corny storyline that’s straight-to-video. Almost like a throwback to classic top down racers like Supercars, Spyhunter or the original Grand Theft Auto, Super Arcade Racing is a retro perspective on racing.