It seems like every gaming IP from the late 90's/early 00's ended up with a kart racer. Even some non-gaming IPs got kart racers. Anybody remember Homie Rollerz? Maybe I'll play that one later.
I guess you can thank Mario Kart for all of that. I mean, hey, it worked for Nintendo, why wouldn't it work for everyone else? Because all developers take the time and care in creating their spinoffs as Nintendo while also having a similarly large cast of memorable characters to pull from, right? Yeah, a lot of these racers turn out to be not great, they're kind of like movie licensed games that are cranked out just to to make a quick buck. And it's not just second rate developers that are guilty either. Sega has since redeemed themselves, but Sonic R wasn't a very good game at all. That said, not every kart racer is a bad Mario Kart clone. Crash Team Racing is a very good game, one I'll likely review in the near future. Even though one turned out well and the other didn't, I think most people would agree that Crash Bandicoot and Sonic the Hedgehog were excellent candidates for a kart racing spinoff. Even as a kid, I remember not being shocked to see them get that treatment. One franchise I was shocked to see made into a kart racer was Final Fantasy.
The first thing I noticed was the amount of gameplay modes. You have a grand prix, versus mode, time attack, relay race and story mode. That's a pretty good variety, even if they are all just racing at the end of the day. The meat of the game comes from the story mode, which you must complete to unlock hidden characters. The story puts you in control of Chocobo, who finds himself on a quest to find magecite stones. Throughout his quest, he will be joined by a Moogle, Goblin, Golem, Black Mage, White Mage, Chubby Chocobo and Behemoth, all of which are easily recognizable for Final Fantasy fans. The plot unfolds via a pop-up storybook, which is pretty cool and makes it stand out from the gaggle of generic kart racers out there. You start the game with only Chocobo and Moogle, but can unlock the other characters as you beat them. I guess it makes sense and if you really wanted to play as the others from the jump, you could always play Grand Prix. I should also mention there are tons of unlockables, which you can access by beating the story mode multiple times. This is a good idea in theory, but to unlock everything, you will need to complete the story something like eight times, which is very tedious. Not to worry, there are codes to unlock just about everything as you will quickly tire of story mode after one or two playthroughs. Credit for the unlockables though, they included classic FF characters like Cloud, Squall, Bahamut and Cactuar. Aya Brea from Parasite Eve is also playable and I always think it's funny when they find a way to shoehorn characters from games that are most definitely not kid-friendly into more family appropriate titles like this.
The actual racing is pretty standard, X accelerates, O breaks, the shoulder buttons are used to fire weapons, activate special abilities and drift. The slide mechanics here aren't really anything unique or special and they aren't a major part of Chocobo Racing like they are in other kart racers. You have light, medium and heavy characters, who, again, behave exactly like those weights do in similar titles. Light characters are slower with better acceleration and turning, medium characters are even across the board and heavy characters have high top speed but poor handling. On one hand, it kind of makes it feel like you're just playing Mario Kart with a new coat of paint. On the other, its familiar and this kind of became the baseline for the genre. The big differentiator with Chocobo Racing is its magecite system and I think its pretty solid. First, each character has a unique special move that charges gradually throughout the race. While these moves are unique to characters, they can be mixed and matched. I do think some of the abilities are stronger than the others, but because you have your choice of which one to use it prevents balance issues. In addition, there are a variety of magecite stones throughout the track that provide abilities based on various Final Fantasy Spells. You have fire, ice, thunder, time, mini, death and ultima, all of which can be upgraded up to three times. You can carry up to three different stones, which is fairly unique to a game like this. It also makes the combat aspect more important than it is in other kart racers. Could you imagine if you could hold a lightening bolt and blue shell and special move in Mario Kart? It would completely change the way you play the game.
I think my biggest issue with Chocobo Racing is the track design. While they look pretty good graphically and fit the bright, colorful motif of the game, they are incredibly straightforward and bland in execution. There are few, if any, shortcuts and there aren't any real hazards on the tracks you have to avoid. While some racing games go overboard with places you can fall off the track, Chocobo Racing only has a few of these in the more difficult courses. I guess it makes sense, the game is designed for a younger audience, but so are most kart racers. There are only a handful of courses, with only one unlockable. There are actually more characters than there are tracks, which is kind of weird. It would be nice to see at least a few tracks related to the unlockable characters. The only track that really stands out is the Black Mage's haunted house, it has a unique layout and some interesting obstacles to deal with. I have talked before about how sense of speed is what makes racing games for me, but I think track design is a close second. Chocobo Racing is pretty solid in the sense of speed department, but it really falls flat on its face with course design.
This may be the weirdest criticism I've ever levied on a game, but Chocobo Racing had way too many menus. You go from choosing a mode to a character to a special to opponent difficulty to a course to loading ghost data to being asked if you want to save course data and finally to a race. This isn't a problem in the story mode, but it was really, really noticeable while playing grand prix and versus. It's kind of a nitpick, but it really is a problem in a game like this where you want to just pick up and play. I also felt like the loading times were very long, even for a PS1 game. Again, it really messes with the pacing of a game that's built around quick, sub-five-minute races. Obviously long loading times are a problem no matter what, but they are a bit less problematic in more deliberately paced games where you aren't coming to a loading screen every few minutes.
Overall, it just doesn't feel like Chocobo Racing is as well designed as Mario Kart or even Crash Team Racing. The graphics and sound are solid, but nothing to really write home about. I do like the whimsical, more family friendly style and it's nice to see a game with Final Fantasy characters designed with younger gamers in mind. The controls are solid, but they don't feel as tight or fluid as the controls its contemporaries offer. I don't know that I would actively seek out Chocobo Racing, but I do think it's worth a playthrough. It was a fun, solid (if unspectacular) kart racer with some interesting concepts that differentiate it just enough from the Mario Karts and CTRs of the world. Final Fantasy fans, especially those trying to introduce non-RPG players to the franchise, will definitely find something to like.
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