So, back when I reviewed the PSP Future GPX Cyber Formula game, I said I'd get around to this one eventually, and I finally have. Unfortunately, my first impression of it wasn't a great one, as the anime license has been pretty much wasted: there's no story mode, or even endings, and the characters only appears as the names of the other drivers against whom you're racing, they have no art or voices. It's even more of a shame, since, as far as I know, this is the first time one of these games has received an English release that didn't strip the license away.
However, This little disappointment is gotten over quickly, as the game itself has a lot to like about it. As a single player (and the only multiplayer is online, no splitscreen), you can pick between the 2022 and 2023 championships. That's an amusing little detail: since the game's based on a sci-fi racing anime from the 1990s, these are the canonical years that these futuristic races take place, not the years we have been recently experiencing in the real world. Each championship offers seven races, with the typical system of getting more points the higher you place in each race, and winning by having the most points after all the races are done. All pretty standard so far.
What aren't so standard are the cars themselves. There's a lot of them to pick from, all taken from the series (and presumably also its various OVA sequels?), and they're all pretty different in their abilities, too. Basically, there's two main abilities the cars in this game can have: transformation and boosting. Transformation refers to the ability to switch between two modes: circuit mode, where the car handles normally, and aero mode, where your acceleration and top speed increase at the cost of vastly stiffer steering that has no chance of getting around most corners. But transforming can be done as often as you like and happens almost instantly, so the challenge here is judging when best to enter and exit aero mode. A couple of the cars don't have the ability to transform, and they have the higher acceleration and top speed all the time, but they're also much more difficult to handle all the time.
Boosting is much more obvious: you press a button and get a temporary massive boost to your speed. Some cars have the "two step boost" ability, whereby the boost enters a second, even faster phase after being active for a few seconds. A third ability that some cars possess, but doesnt seem to be listed on the car select screen is some kind of AI speed management system that automatically starts to lower your speed as you approach corners. I'm not actually 100% sure on that one, to be honest. I might have imagined it. These abilities make a clear and tangible difference to how each car plays, even to someone like me with knowledge or interest in more subtle automotive nuances.
I really enjoy how the game plays and feels in general, too. You drive fast around nice-looking tracks in a blue skies future. It's never really stressful, and a championship run is about thirty to forty-five minutes, so you can easily just get a little speed fix every day or two without it feels like a labourious chore. It is incredibly easy, and I haven't played through a championship yet without finishing it as the winner, but to be honest, I don't really play racing games looking for a big challenge. I just want to drive fast through nice-looking environments with very little stress or resisitance. Another weakness is the soundtrack. Though there's a cool vocal song that plays during the final race of each championship, the rest of the music is very generic, very cheap-sounding dance that just kind of blends into the background noise.
Though there are a few arcade-style racing games on modern consoles to pick from nowadays, if you want one that doesn't take on a low polygon faux-retro aesthetical affectation, it's slim pickings. In fact, I can't think of any other game like this on PS4 that also has modern-style (albeit kind of low budget) graphics. You can get an English version on the Hong Kong PSN Store for about £20-ish, and if you like this kind of racing game, I'd say it's worth a shot.
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