Recent reviews by LUNAR ¤ WHITE

It's Tokyo Xtreme Racer. Through and through. If you're coming into this having not really dived into the newer titles, and the TXR series to you are the original Dreamcast games, or PS2 remakes/sequels, you'll be right at home.

When I first saw this appear, I tempered my excitement, because I thought it was going to be a "re-envisioning" of the franchise, like we've seen in games like Final Fantasy VII Remake; where they take what we love about the game, alter it into something so utterly completely different, then question us when we're unhappy. Games like that are so severely tampered with to the point it loses its identity and soul, and it seems to be the rule not the exception, these days. Luckily, Genki isn't following recent industry trends, and has faithfully taken TXR and simply updated the experience for a new generation of hardware.

THE GOOD:

Control feels great. Cars handle well, the same turns that you'd have to handle with care from the OG titles still feel the same.

Car licensing is here unlike the original games, which is really wonderful to see. All the cars have been faithfully recreated, and customization is as you'd expect from a TXR game with bumper, spoiler, side skirt, hood and neon options, along with liveries and tuning upgrades. Tuning upgrades are very easy to perform, and there's really no way to mess things up. If you want to go into more granular detail, gearing ratios and brake settings are there for you to play with, along with other minor settings. Minor details stand out, like being able to equip backlit license plates, etc. Real world wheel brands are here, once again making this experience feel genuine and faithful to the culture.

The track (highway) is beautifully made, and feels like a natural update to what I played on my Dreamcast, but for modern hardware. Ramps on the highway unlock as you pass them (not sure if this is based on progress or not) and the map becomes larger with time. You can find racers from the main map's menu and start behind them, or find them organically by racing around the highway; searching for their car's arrow on the map as you do. Everything in this regard is exactly as it's always been, and I appreciate that.

Gameplay is your standard and welcome "flash headlights to race guy" and then "encounter boss of said guys". You can still free roam the highways at your leisure which is very nice. I love exploring the game in that way.

Progress seems to be based on two forms of currency. You can use one form of currency for upgrades to your car, like cash. And other for upgrades to a perk system, which to my knowledge is a new addition to the franchise, and feels welcome.

THE BAD:

This game is not yet well optimized and display settings are greyed out. While I VERY much appreciate the Super Ultra Widescreen support, you can't change your resolution; being stuck at 1080p, which isn't ideal. Frame generation is also greyed out. Greyed out implies it's coming, so I'm not upset by any means, but it did seem to be an odd thing to not have ready on day one. I'm not asking for crazy resolution options, but 1440p would be nice.

Speaking of optimization, the game doesn't seem to run as well as it should given the graphic settings displayed. I don't have the world's most powerful pc, but I do have a current gen i9 Intel processor, an RTX 4070, and 64GB of RAM. I'm only able to run on HIGH settings, which is fine in theory, but there is an every so slight feel of barely detectable lag if I use the view with the rear view mirror on. I'm not sure if this is something that would happen at any setting and is a problem with the rear view mirror itself, or if the game can't handle it combined with the high settings, but it's something of note. While I love the art direction, and the graphics are definitely serviceable, a reminder, this is at 1080p, and the graphics aren't exactly pushing the industry, no offense. Why it's so resource heavy is odd to me. An example of this is if I put the game at Ultra, I can barely move my mouse around; mind you this is in the Garage, where the ONLY THING RENDERED IS THE CAR. There's no way in hell the game should be sucking resources at Ultra with my PC specs at 1080p and not be able to smoothly render out a single car in a menu. This is frankly above all the biggest issue in the game, maybe the only one that truly needs to change. I know this is early access, but I'm putting this here so the developer understands how big of a priority this should be for them.

IN CONCLUSION:

Tokyo Xtreme Racer is back, and better than ever! I feel like you have to be so cautiously optimistic these days when a beloved franchise is brought back as you never really know how the developer will handle it. But Genki has treated TXR with honor and respect, and by extension it's fans with honor and respect, and I genuinely can't thank them enough for that. The game's art direction looks the part, customization is on point, racing feels fantastic, and nothing feels like it doesn't belong in a game of this series. But performance issues need to be addressed, and optimization needs to be carried out for this game to run properly on good hardware. If I'm having some performance issues, the average Steam user's PC build will definitely struggle getting this game to run at Medium settings, which is frankly inexcusable for a game like this.

That said, I look forward to seeing the game develop and grow in time. I wasn't expecting this shadow drop release, and the vague 2025 release date we got late last year had me assuming we were going to half to wait later in the year for the game to come out. I'm extremely happy that wasn't the case.

So is it worth $30? Definitely. Providing you have a decently built PC and temper display expectations, you have a gem of an example of a TXR game, here. And while normally I wait for games to go on sale, I urge you to part with your money today at full price, as games like this are becoming all but forgotten. Arcade games in general are more and more a fading memory as the years roll by, and we need to support what few original developers from that era we can to continue moving forward with the games we love. I have FULL faith Genki will do us right with polishing the title and completing the later half of this game's content. And I'm so proud to say I was here to be along for the ride.

This is the result of a developer who actually makes a game for people who make games; not social activists and creeps pushing politics and agendas into everything.

Character art direction? Beautiful. Level design? Impeccable! Control / Abilities? Tight, balanced, and well more fleshed out than Overwatch allowing far more capabilities and strategies for each character on the battlefield.

Getting into a match is as quick as clicking connect. Menus are clean and easy to navigate. Battle Pass is only 5 bucks and never expires (!!!). This is a PRO CUSTOMER / PRO GAMER game... FINALLY! Even if Overwatch wasn't your jam, I implore you to give it a go. It's free, doesn't berate you ever to pay for the game or cosmetics, and is far more indepth than any other game in the space.

And this is all without even mentioning the Marvel license which I'm personally not even really that into. I know the main characters, but I don't even know what comic my main is from. It's just that fun I don't care. Heck, I had vowed to stop supporting Disney since TLJ at all costs, but I did cave with this after all these years simply because I want to show with my wallet where the industry needs to go; polished, non dlc in your face, complete, bug free games without agendas!

It's kinda weird how Chinese and Korean games have gone from cheap gotcha games to now titles that make AAA western and Japanese titles look like trash. But, that's capitalism baby. Whoever makes the best product, is who gets my cash. And China and Korea are cookin it big time right now, and their frankly what's keeping this hobby alive.

You can't lose with this. I honestly haven't had this much fun in a game for years. Thank you dev team for knocking this WELL out of the park!

This game honestly took me by surprise. It's a very well polished, simple team v team shooter, that feels like multiplayer Halo and Valorant kinda mixed together. The 2D/3D mechanic really spices up mobility, defense strategy and I feel there's more I can do with it creatively the more I play the game.

Art direction is on point, and the game performs spectacularly. No super ultra wide or anything, just 16:9 to make sure everyone is on a level playing field, which is fine. But the game isn't resource heavy at all, runs with no issues, and there's no hitching, frame drops, connection issues or crashes in my time playing so far.

Control is super tight and simple. L Control activates 2D mode, right mouse is ads, q is your ability, e is how you climb and 1-3 changes weapons. Simple stuff.

This is one of those games where when you die you know why you died. There's no cheap deaths, there's no ♥♥♥♥♥♥ alts popping every 2 seconds ala Overwatch. It's very skill based. Gameplay is team v team deathmatch or escort payload missions, both of which are fun to play. The maps are very simple, but laid out well. Maps give a variety of positions for line of sight, and you can definitely get better on maps the more you play. The only cheese going on is spawning issues, where the computer often spawns you amist a full enemy team, which is aggravating. Past that, it's the only issue there.

Every other issue is with DLC. There's THREE currencies in the game, which feels very mobile game-like, which I hate. There's also ZERO indication on how these are earned, making you poke around the store, play the game, and thumb through Season Pass rewards to understand roughly what you're doing. If you want to pay for a costume outright, it's EXTREMELY expensive, sometimes being 30 bucks as you end up having to buy more crystals than the costume costs as the amounts of crystals in each pack don't line up with the cost of items in store, which is BEYOND aggravating and feels scummy like Fortnite. Characters also have to be unlocked, which requires purchasing as well. I didn't initially realize you could test characters out in the shooting range (make a custom match, and it's there as an option). This would have been VERY good information to tell the player, and because of that ended up spending money on a character to unlock them I ultimately didn't like at all. I feel this was done to be manipulative to new users before they realize how the game works, and compelling them to spend more money than is necessary at first to get started.

Past the DLC issues, and geez I hope they iron those issues out (!), the game is solid. No performance issues, very basic but indepth team shooter that feels very fun. Please note, you need to be level 5 before you can invite a buddy... all friends in the party have to be level 5. So make sure your friends are level 5 before you try and group up.

Solid pickup. I hope the devs polish the UI / Store. If they do, the game is something I could see myself sticking with for years to come. Definitely fills a hole in the market left open by Halo and Valorant, which this personally feels more satisfying than atm.

Don't need to play it too long to let you know it's an astounding port. Online works perfectly, the amount of visual options are plentiful and they actually look good (scanlines don't look dark, and actually make the picture look much better unlike many of these compilation type games), emulation of the games is perfect with no issues I've noticed at all so far, control is perfect with no missed inputs or input lag..

It's just an all around astounding collection. Could you wait for a sale? Sure. But why would you? We've been waiting for these games forever, especially with online options. Show Capcom and other companies like them that this is what we want; vote with your wallets, and you'll get more of this type of stuff.

To whatever madlad within Capcom that orchestrated this, you're in my debt. A word to the wise? Don't wait too long. You never know how long licensing agreements will last...

I wrote a review before as a first impression, but I'm re-writing it as I've had more time with the game.

Initially I wasn't exactly feeling the control, as I'm a fan of the sliding mechanics for slipperly non-grip cars in F-Zero X. Combined with what felt like a lack of ability to fly off normal or tube tracks if you go to fast. Because of the initial weird feeling of the no-grip car (Neelson knock off) I had moved onto high grip cars. This just made the game feel even worse. I found myself hitting walls more often, and when you hit walls in this game it tends to turn your car. And I generally wasn't having fun.

But I pushed through. The game does so much well in the sound and visuals department, and the new mechanics like flying, dive bombing ect were intriguing. I ended my first night hoping the game would get better but being a bit disappointed. Going into it today, I went back to the Neelson clone character, and I've since had a change of heart on the game.

Do I wish it controlled more like X? Yes, I do. I think initially being this looked more like a sequel to X, visually, I went into it with that mindset. But I feel like the controls more similarly feel like GX, where the sliding mechanics were nerfed. That said, my control issues in turns went away once I spend more time with the non-grip car, and I started to really have fun with the game.

Once I hit the half pipe track, and I realized you could indeed fly up off the track and dive bomb back down on it, that really clicked for me. The more and more I replayed tracks, the quicker and quicker I became, and I've since gotten very familiar with the mechanics and feel, and it's just a ton of fun. The visual and audio F-Zero cues now are merging with a game who's controls work for me, and it feels like the same fun factor as I had getting into F-Zero X back in the day. Especially once having turned on the hold boost to hyper slide, though I'm still not a master at sliding without seemingly losing a bit of time. It at least feels good, especially in hairpin turns.

Is it as good? The characters, while well drawn, aren't nearly as memorable, and some don't even look like they belong in the same game universe. I still don't know what the track names are; I do wish they were displayed on the intro segment before you race. Little things, like before the race starts, the boost being like a light switch, on or off, with no 'boot up' animation to the cars, feels a little dull, as does the complete lack of rumble in the game. It just needs that little bit of polish to take this from great to a must have.

This is an impressive F-Zero clone and frankly by far the best I've played on steam. Frankly, it's a great game in its own right and solves many issues I have had with F-Zero like the RB dive bomb feeling much more accurate than just nose diving down (plus the speed boost from doing so smoothly feels great!). The flight segments are a nice way to show growth in the F-Zero formula, something Nintendo apparently never felt the need to do. And it really has gelled into something amazing. I just want some of the rougher spots smoothed out, and hopefully that'll translate into an instant classic.

That said, even if it stayed in its current state, I have to thank Aaron for his dedication to this franchise. I've been waiting for over 20 years for a sequel that'll likely never come, and if it does will likely never be as good as the first two games. The visual style looks like the comics from the manual of the SNES classic and the character art from the game on X. It's a great evolution in many ways.

Thank you.

I've shared my initial first impressions. Thank you for making it super ultra wide compatible!:
https://youtu.be/yZsJ683aWa0

Can't play the game due to crashing at the first night course in the career mode.

After the first hairpin turn, as soon as you take the slight left in the road, it crashes. Literally every time. I have a new 13th gen Intel i7 and a new AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE gpu, both of which more than capable to handling your game. Not sure what's going on, but it is obviously a bug as it's happening the EXACT section of the track each and every time.

I wanted to play this as it plays just like the Colin Mcrae games I used to play so much on Xbox and PS2, but as it sits it's worthless for me. Please be aware you should test this game past the first night course soon after you buy the game, in case it's also bugged for you. Not sure if possible, but if the dev could reach out when this is fixed, I'd like to rebuy and try again...

It's not every day I come across a gem of a game like this. I'm so forever grateful for having seen this on BrutalMoose's YT channel.

The aesthetics of this game tick all my boxes; it feels like an early 2000's PC game or an original Xbox title or something. But that doesn't mean it looks bad. The attention to detail in this game is off the charts. I can't believe one guy has thought of all these things I've almost forgotten. So many details from the arcades to everything in the mall. I just simply can't stop playing.

The first arcade would have been worth the price of admission, but you're given multiple arcades, plus other locations to visit and a whole island to explore! Fun non-arcade activities like Putt Putt or RC boats keep things fresh, and many of the games are downright addicting. I've sunk multiple hours on a single machine in one sitting, I must admit!

It feels like a time capsule, and I honestly feel so at peace being in this world. I really don't know what it is. I can describe all of the aspects that are great about this game, but the entire package means a lot more to me than the sum of its parts. It feels genuinely special, and I can say I'll be playing this quite a bit. I genuinely cherish this. Heck, I love it so much, I bought it for my friend three hours later!

I do wish there was multi-player. I recognize most of these activities are single player in nature, but it would just be cool to be able to walk around with a friend and discover things together and watch the other play a game and cheer them on. Past that, the game is near perfection! I own an Intel A770 Predator OC GPU, not something that was listed for compatibility, but it works great. Only graphic glitch is the car's headlamps look like vector lines instead of a beam of light. So if you have an Intel GPU (a graphics card, not integrated CPU graphics...) and you're wondering how it'll perform with this game, you'll be fine!

If you're on the fence, if you aren't sure if this is worth the money, just get it. Thank me later. You can do a LOT worse on Steam for under 10 dollars!

Steam Deck review... written on a Steam Deck:

I bought this game a couple years ago. I was initially hesitant to buy it for a couple reasons. Reviews seemed to have a lot of complaints, and two because as much as I liked to play the original Rollcage games when I was a kid, they weren't exactly the easiest games to control. I ended up playing them back then more for the atmosphere and the unique idea of the gameplay.

After purchase, the game sank into my endless pit of backlog, and I never got to play it. Fast forward to today. I now have a Steam Deck, and I've been playing a lot of games I wouldn't have normally played on my desktop. Part of this is due to playing games that are compatible with the system, but the other part of it is with a portable, I'm more tempted to play quick, pick up and play games.

Enter... GRIP.

The game starts you off with a tutorial that doesn't exactly explain everything, such as boosting, jumping or resetting your car. It left me a bit confused and I had to go to my pause menu to see what I was missing. Controls on the Steam Deck boil down to joystick for steering, triggers for acceleration and braking, bumpers for primary and secondary weapon pickups, A for jump, B for reset, X for handbrake and Y for boost. I personally wish Boost was on B, but that's a minor complaint.

The first thing you'll notice is this is an extremely fast game. Almost too fast. You always feel like you're on the edge of losing control. As a huge fan of F-Zero and Wipeout, I feel this has the speed of F-Zero with a more similar atmosphere to Wipeout.

That said, this game is entirely it's own, with the track being more of an obstacle for your vehicle than the previous two games. You will likely initially find yourself launching off walls, getting turned around, slamming into buildings etc. And I'll be honest, I'm not quite a master at this game yet. That said, if you give it a couple races, you'll at the very least get a better grip (ha!) on the game, and you'll do better and better with each map.

Yes, as some have pointed out, the AI can catch up ruthlessly sometimes, however I preferred this to being 10 miles out in the lead, bored out of my mind. Powerups/weapons are littered around the track ala Mario Kart, and boost pads ala F-Zero/Wipeout can also be found. The Y button boost can be particularly useful if you hit a wall and need to get up to speed quicker to get back to the pack, or for keeping your lead from bumper biters behind you.

One thing I was pleasantly surprised with, and was a huge worry for me, is the game isn't as unfair as the original Rollcage series. I remember getting turned around all the time in that game when performing normal turns and jumps, only to have the car slide out from under me at almost every turn, flipping me around and leaving me behind the competition.

Luckily, the physics are much more refined in this game, and because of that significantly less frustrating. It doesn't necessarily mean you'll have the skills at first to place 1st, but with practice (and a little luck) you will, and it's extremely rewarding when that happens.

Graphically, you'll be floored. I'm sure this is a great looking game on a desktop PC, but this is seriously nothing but unbelievable on the Deck. This looks like a game running on a next gen machine on your tiny handheld. It does tend to eat battery life, so you might want to play on a charger for this one, but the game's weather, particle effects, reflections on the painted car surfaces, environments and ground are not something I thought I'd ever see on a portable gaming machine. Frankly speaking, if these graphics were on my desktop's monitor, I'd be pleased.

The game has plenty of tracks and cars to choose from, each car having different stats. I wasn't able to figure out how to change the decal color from bright green. I changed each of the three colors in the color menu, but none changed the decal's color. That's a minor gripe, but little UI things like that I feel could be polished up.

That said, I'm getting better with each race, and I am frankly disappointed that the community got this one so wrong. I'm having a great time with this game, and I wish I started playing when I first purchased it instead of waiting until now. That said, experiencing this game for the first time on the Stream Deck has been an absolute joy, so I suppose it worked out for the best.

I hope the game did well enough for the dev team to warrant a sequel. Until then, though, I have quite a bit to play through, and I encourage anyone with a Deck to try it out, as well.

Terrible.

It thinks it's funny, but if you've played Portal before you'd know the humor in this game is severely low effort.

Gameplay, if you even call it that, makes most classic NES games look like futuristic concepts you won't see in your lifetime.

When the credits rolled just a half hour later, I was genuinely surprised to see how many people worked on this. I now know why we don't have Half Life 3. If it took this many people to make this "game", it would take half the world to actually make something of note.

I know it's free, but seriously this effort is almost more insulting than doing nothing at all.

SNK IS FINALLY BACK.

SNK has been floundering for so long. We've had the trash that was released in the PS2/Xbox era, and that lead into KOF XIII and XIV which in my opinion were very stale and lifeless compared to the originals. Finally entering the current era of games like Heroines which can only be described as crimes against an IP.

Going in, despite the nice trailers, I was very apprehensive. It's been a long time since I've seen SNK really shine. Well, if you're on the fence, get off of it, because this puts Capcom and frankly every other current fighting franchise dev to shame.

If you're worried about 3D graphics vs the classic 2D sprites, worry not. Unlike the 3D in XIV, everything has soul and life. Animations are fluid and polished, the color palette is bright and vibrant, and humorous and skimpy outfits are offered off the bat without the need of expensive DLC to unlock them (COUGH: Capcom). Speaking of DLC, most of us are sick and tired of the crud Capcom is pulling with their Arcade/Champion/Super/Turbo crap piled onto endless DLC for literally everything under the sun. SFV Champion Edition is rated Mixed for a reason. KOF has never had this problem with multiple different versions for one game, and I don't see that starting here. DLC will be for characters, and clothes will be included with those packs, as they should. The first DLC character pack is already astounding taking the already high amount of fighters (39) to 45 with an additional 6 characters, including fan favorites like Geese and long-gone stars like B. Jennet.

But how's the fighting? Basically perfect! Control is spot on, characters are extremely varied and don't feel like cheap model swaps like many fighting games (Smash Bros for example). Counters are well executed and feel so good to pull off, while special moves are allowed to be used at any power meter level, not forcing you to only use it once 100% full. Games are quick, fun, and old school laugh out loud/punch the guy on the sofa next to you, level of fun.

I played with a buddy online tonight for over 3 hours. I legit have played every main fighting game release for the last decade, and this is the first time I've had as much fun as I did when I was a teen back in the PS1/Saturn era. This game is a serious competition title, but is jovial and lighthearted enough to not take itself too seriously. Music, character designs, move sets, backgrounds all keep you entertained and keep the convo and trash talk flowing to the point where it's always "just one more game". My wife in the master bedroom a hallway down was surprised to hear me screaming and hollering so loud with the fun we had, as she's never heard me so animated over a video game before.

Long story short, it's incredibly fun and refreshing. I feel rewarded for playing the game. This isn't a comprehensive review, and I recognize that. Netcode is great btw, story mode is good enough ... it's a story mode, and you have all the usual options. The new characters look kinda stupid but the girl with ghost hands and a spray painted getup is so freakin fun to use, that it keeps the game fresh. The guy named Dinosaur is our new "wtf" character, and his ability to produce some truly surprising move sets is great and keeps even seasoned vets on their toes.

All in all, it's a truly great time. I honestly thought of SNK as the "life support" company, producing crappy arcade 1UP like machines and games like Heroines to keep the lights on, with zero respect for the characters they own or the IPs they reside in. But this game truly gives me not only hope, but genuine excitement for the future of SNK. It's honestly like there's an entirely new dev team at the helm here, and if that was true I really wouldn't be surprised. It feels like a seasoned team of industry vets who were also huge fanboys of the originals were hired to make this game. That passion and soul comes off it's practically dripping off the screen at every moment.

So, much to my surprise, I'd like to humbly thank SNK for this game, and the efforts done to not only do this well mechanically, but unlike the Samurai Shodown game that came out a couple years ago, to do this in a way that refreshes what was becoming a stale IP. I'm so glad to finally be proud again of SNK, and I wish them all the best in the near future.

Please buy the game, it deserves it. I NEVER say this in my reviews, in fact most are negative, but seriously 10/10 for me, here. I have no complaints.

PS: If you have a nice rig like me (3090 and 5950X Ryzen 9) this has RTX support. Yeah, would NEVER have expected that lol, and it looks fantastic. Again, the little things that make this game really feel like it went the extra mile.