Okay so after playing Fast RMX for just over 2 days straight I felt I should make a quick review of this game. First of all allow me to say that for those who just want the thrill of hurtling around a track at high speed Fast RMX provides, the craft handle well and the tracks are nicely designed with enough loops and cylinders to keep the action exciting. However, as someone who is fond of the Wipeout and F-Zero franchises I can say that this alone is not enough. For this review I will discuss the game's only 2 single player modes individually and explain the positives and negatives of each:
First of all the game's traditional Grand Prix mode, in this mode you have a selection of 3 difficulty levels, each with 10 cups and each cup having 3 tracks. In this mode, the game is built around its colour-changing feature, which is a neat idea but perhaps could have been implemented better. Littered around the track are a series of orbs that glow red and blue, these can be picked up to fill a boost meter, with craft further behind earning more boost energy from each orb. I like this mechanic as it allows craft further behind to catch up with those in front, but doesn't mess with the racers in front in the way that racers like Mario Kart do, its still all about skill. With that said, my biggest gripe with this mode is the fact that taking a single head on hit from any obstacle causes your craft to blow up and sets you back. This wouldn't be a problem if the tracks were designed such that the obstacles were easy to avoid but unfortunately this game suffers from having way too many hazards, both intentional and unintentional, littering the track. This means it is way too easy to turn a corner and slam into a wall at full speed and having no time to react. In F-Zero, this obstacle would likely be a bomb which blows up, damaging you and slowing you down but not destroying your craft. I said before that obstacles can be intentional and unintentional, what I mean by this is that whilst there are very obvious obstacles in the middle of the track, literally everything in the environment can be a hazard, this means that if you shoot off a jump too fast and collide with the roof of a tunnel, your craft blows up. If you speed past a low overhang and just barely scrape it, your craft blows up. Despite this, the artificial intelligence isn't made too unfair, and are just as likely to blow up as you are, and as someone who has nearly 100%ed the grand prix mode I can say it is definitely still functional and also fun. Most of my praise for this game goes to this mode, whilst it isn't perfect it definitely isn't cheap, and I like that you can come second or third in a grand prix and still unlock the next cup. Grand Prix mode is a lot of fun, and its flaws are made up for by the sensation of speed and overall good level design.
And that leads me onto the second mode of the game, Hero Mode, and if the first review tells you anything its that I have a significantly lower opinion of this second mode. First of all, this mode is attempting to ape F-Zero, in which it tries hard but gets nearly everything wrong. Like F-Zero, in this mode you have a boost meter that also works as a health meter, which is full at the start of the race, and empties as you boost. Just like in Grand Prix, the coloured orbs also fill the boost meter as well as the coloured strips on the track. Where this mode falls flat is that you can refill your boost meter from these orbs, or at least you could if the other racers weren't near perfect. Too many times I've found myself on easy difficulty boosting along a nearly perfect line, then having to wait whilst I find another orb to charge my boost, and then having the other racers boost on past me and get ahead. I don't know if this is due to rubber band AI, but having then to boost off my last remaining energy means I slam into a wall, causing my ship to blow up and making me have to start the entire race over again. This may just be me, but I find the AI to be straight up obnoxious in this mode, and the fact that I can boost down a perfectly straight path and yet the AI STILL manages to catch up to me is downright infuriating. In F-Zero, the boost meters are placed in specific areas of the track, meaning a level of strategy is required to know when to boost and when to hold off, whilst in Fast RMX the AI is free to nick all of the boost energy before you can get to it, leaving you alone and behind. And to add insult to injury, whilst Grand Prix mode is happy for you to come in third place, Hero mode fails you if you cross the finish line in anything other than 1st place. This I would claim to be one of the least fun modes of any racing game I've ever played, and the fact that its trying so hard to mimic my favorite racing game of all time, F-Zero GX, is just somewhat insulting.
So that's my feelings on Fast RMX, I would mention the multiplayer mode but as of yet I haven't managed to get it to work properly, hopefully soon I'll be able to give it a try because I think its where I'll likely spend most of my future time with the game.