The good: Top Racer 2 and Top Racer 3000 are perfect highlights of the collection, perfectly optimized from the SNES era, the music and sound effects stands out very well during that era, enough replay value concerning multiplayer and single player.
The bad: Top Racer and Top Racer Crossroads difficulty is poorly balanced on all modes, the split screen on Top Racer and Top Racer Crossroads can be distracting than immersive, completing the game for cheats can be grinding and tedious.
When Horizon Chase Turbo came out, there's none other games that allows for reflexes to be more important that just speed. While half the game is great, the other half is not as good due to a few issues but because it came from the SNES era, it plays out as it originally intended. Still, this game is worth the trouble.
All four games have something in common with a few differences. Your goal is to get to the finish line. What makes it challenging is not just the framerate, but you may have to pit to refill petrol to keep on racing. You have a limited amount of turbos to catch up to first place if you manage not to hit the signs and cars that might block your way.
Top Racer and Top Racer Crossroads is the basic way to play the series. You choose a car and the options before you start the race. It's highly recommended to use cars that doesn't drain too much petrol before hitting the finish line, wasting time and catching up which is quite the challenge. Top Racer 2 is similar without the split screen. What makes it harder is there's no pit stop, upgrading gears is more important for fuel. Worse, if your car gets hit too much, indicated by the top left, makes your car slow down, costing you the race. Top Racer 3000 takes place in the future, adding weapons for the first time, though it aims more at racing than knocking cars down. Like the F-Zero series, a strip of colour lane, red for energy and blue for repair plays a role as well as having multiple routes, requiring a sharp eye and strategy to deal with it.
As recommended, Top Racer 2 and Top Racer 3000 is highly recommended because of how well the game handles itself without being too easy or too difficult. Top Racer and Top Racer Crossroads is good but quite challenging due to the split screen and fuel management. But overall, the collection would've felt complete if there are issues that could've make these games more accessible.
The difficulty is not well balanced. Even on amateur difficulty, on a six lap races, you have to figure when it's the best time to pit and try to reach the required level to progress through to the championship. Lacking easy difficulty, it's a trial and error to win the championship. Plus, getting to the cheats on all games can be a pain. You'll need plenty of practice to win all the races.
The graphics, no matter what setting you use, the SNES graphics shines pretty well though the frame rate is a minor let down. The sound and music also work well from that era and it still works well for today's standard. There's enough for a multiplayer and single player replay value since Nintendo introduce four players from Nintendo 64 era onwards. There's also online but I'll let you be a judge on that.
There's nothing with the collection. All the games work well, and it's done with respect which helped Horizon Chase Turbo become a reality. If only some issues are properly ironed out and make it easier and more balanced on all difficulty, it will make the collection more accessible for everyone. As for the choices, I recommend Top Racer 2 and Top Racer 3000 since it highlights how a racing game is done while hardcore fans should go with Top Racer and Top Racer Crossroads with the split screen challenge. Anyway, enjoy the Top Racer Collection. By the way, due to copyright issues, it use to be called the Top Gear series until BBC took that title away, using the Japanese title instead.