Because of the crazy activities of those two mischievous chipmunks Chip and Dale, the world of Walt Disney World has fallen into a state of panic. The two were playing around in the backyard area and came across the machine responsible for firing off the park’s fireworks. Being the two inquisitive squirrels that they are, the two of them went to investigate. It was not too long, however, before something went wrong. By accident, one of them knocked a couple of collected nuts into the machine – and it did not like it one bit. Soon the machine started spewing sparks and shooting its parts all over the park. It is now up to Chip, Dale and the rest of the Disney characters to head out and collect all the parts to the machine and put it back together before the fireworks display that night.

Since this takes place in Walt Disney World, many of the racing areas are actually taken from real-life rides. Things are exaggerated quite a bit, of course, but the general theme for which the places are sometimes based upon is still felt. This has resulted in Crystal Dynamics creating a whole load of imaginative tracks that are full of life. There is much to look at while racing around that it can sometimes be distracting to keep track of what is going on with the race and take in the well-designed surroundings. Every one of the tracks is different from one another, and the Disney influence is extremely obvious. The tracks are not so full of visual splendor, though, that the designers forgot to include the other pieces of the puzzle. There are many secrets to be discovered that can cut significant seconds off lap times, and are worth your while to discover.

Blasting up the replayability factor for all the tracks is that in order to complete the game you have to make it through all of the tracks multiple times to collect various items (one time through for the main machine part is not enough), and every time seems almost like a new experience; there are always new places to discover.

For running on the PlayStation, Crystal Dynamics did a bang up job with Magical Racing Tour; it looked great. With the Dreamcast version, the programmers have been able to tweak all aspects by adding graphical filters to rid of the pixelation, bump up the resolution and fix the one disappointing aspect of the PS version’s visuals: the frame rate. Most of the time it ran fine, but when it decided to hit the slow down point, it did it – hard. It would die down to the point where it became difficult to maneuver at all. The Dreamcast version rids of this problem entirely, and it results in a smoother, better looking and ultimately more enjoyable experience.

For as much creativity that went into the environments and tracks in the game, I had hoped that the weapons line up would have been a bit more interesting. It is mostly the same tried-and-true power ups that have been seen in all kart racers before it – except under a new name and look. This is not all that bad, however; that tried-and-true formula is still entertaining. I will say, though, that the frog power up included is still a huge pain. It certainly is advantageous to the person who collects it, but the icon is far too easy to obtain and it is enabled so often that it becomes an annoyance that it is even included in the first place.

Magical Racing Tour is a better-than-average kart title in the midst of way too may kart titles in the market. It nails down just about everything in the right places, and is definitely worth a look if you are interested in the genre.