Granew-Tou! Daibouken (Playstation)

 This game's title has a few different transliterations floating around the internet, including some which say "shima" instead of "tou". But I think a decent enough translation of the title would be something like "The Big Granew Island Adventure"? It also really looks like it could be based on an anime aimed at little kids, though I'm fairly certain it isn't.

 

What it is, though, is an interesting and unusual racing game. It combines the button-tapping of a Track and Field-type game with the attack items of a Mario Kart-type game, and puts them together on linear 3D platformer stages. The plot, as far as I can tell, concerns the eponymous island, and starts when a UFO crashes on top of its highest mountain. All the locals want to go and look at the UFO, and so a mad race to the mountaintop ensues.

 

It plays pretty much like how I described it above: you tap the circle button as fast as you can to keep up your running speed, while also using the D-pad to steer and the X button to jump. There's also various hazards to avoid on each stage, and a lot of the stages have short vehicle sections too, where you're riding hand-powered railcarts, rubber dinghies, snowboards, and so on. And of course, there are little glowing orbs that give you a random item to use against your opponents. There's items that let you shoot fireballs and tornados, stop time, form an ice puddle on the floor and more.

 

The races are all very short and very hectic, and I can see how this game would be a ton of fun with a multitap and three human opponents. It's still pretty good as just a single-player game, too. Because the races are as short as they are, the few seconds advantage a well-aimed item can get you really do make a lot of difference. The only big flaw I can point out in how the game plays is that the platforming in the later stages does start to get more annoying than challenging, especially since it feels like the camera's working against you. Other than that though, this is a good little bit of silly fun.

 

I think this is a pretty easy game to recommend. It's a fairly unique combination of ideas, and there's no language barrier, either. Possibly due to the aforementioned transliteration trouble, I haven't been able to find any copies for sale online, so I can't tell you how affordable it is. But buying legitimate copies of decades-out-of-print games is really just a novelty, anyway, right?