It pisses me off because this game would be PERFECT for the Steam Deck in the same way Elden Ring was. The dungeons found in the open world perfectly for 30-60 minute segments of play. No way this thing gets optimized or patched for the Deck sadly I don’t think.

Something needs to be done about Unreal Engine 5. There’s no reason a game this ugly should be running at 20fps on the Steam Deck. I’m playing on PS5 and the experience has been ugly and unstable. Playable thankfully, but not pretty by any means.

The previous game had baked in lighting, so yes while it wasn’t the most technically extravagant experience, it looked good. The switch to a day/night cycle has absolutely destroyed the visual design of the game. Character models looks garish, shadows look wrong, enemies look awkwardly placed.

I’m absolutely addicted tho. It’s really fun mastering the handling of each car and the quirks of each track. It all runs perfectly on the Steam Deck, with no frame dips whatsoever.

It’s a pity that big budget racing developers have mostly abandoned the arcade racing genre. Thankfully indie developers like ViJuDa are here to pick up the slack. The addition of an camera that actually follows the fucking car elevates this game above previous Super Woden games.

Art is also really good. Characters are expressive and the style seems to be inspired by an old Japanese art style called Ukiyo-e. It’s really cool! It flattens the image giving it more of a stage play like feeling. Not entirely sure how to explain it.

What makes this shonen series different is that it understand that variety and pacing are the key components here. It’s constantly introducing new characters and also varying up the fights quite a bit. Obviously we’ll see how all this plays out in later chapters, but I’m entertained so far.

So yeah, was surprisingly cold on this one. Will probably hold off on getting another volume till I finish some other series I’m enjoying more. I could feel myself just wanting to play Tokyo Xtreme Racer the whole time while reading this lol.

Natsuki is an interesting because on one level she seems like she’s going to be an important character but is both a generic love interest and very disconnected from the actual main racing arc of the series. I’m sure later volumes further integrate her into the story, but I’m not seeing that yet.

One thing I can’t fault are the racing sequences. Shuichi Shigueno knows how to illustrate and dramatize the racing sequences very well while still maintaining a high level of detail for the cars. It’s a pity that the stakes behind those races feel so low due to how weak the characterizations are.

This issue also seems to extend to the art: objects, environments, and cars look really nice and detailed. It’s the character models that are the problem. They are very expressive and can look good, but a lot of character look way to similar, making it hard to figure out who is who.

Unfortunately the actual characters occupying this series kind of suck. The main character, Takumi, is way, WAY too bland for my tastes, and the surrounding characters are very hard to differentiate from each other. The only distinct character is Itsuki, but he seems to function as a goofy sidekick.

DS3 feels like the last game before the complexity/speed of FS bosses started getting a little out of hand.. I went back to that game after playing ER and the move-sets were a lot slower and simpler. It was enjoyable. I do think they could slow and simplify some of the move sets for later entries.

My only criticisms: some of the later tournament heats are maybe a little too long and this game desperately needs a mirror feature so I can see when opponents are about to ram me from behind. The AI is super aggressive which is very fun, but knowing where they are at all times is necessary.

Also the music and vibes are immaculate. It feels so different from any Gran Turismo or Need for Speed game for the PS1. (Not to shade those games, they still have their own cool vibe.)

It’s weird because the game gets accused of having “bad handling” and while yes it can be very frustrating to play initially, my god the feeling of just being on edge of control with the vehicles is extremely fun. It feels so good to master a track or car.