Back in the good old 16-bit days, Nintendo released a highly original, and insanely enjoyable little battle racing game that went by the name Mario Kart. In the years following the original Mario Kart's runaway success, many companies have made an attempt to capture the same magic in which that SNES title contained. Unfortunately, there have been only a very few that have been even in the same ballpark, and Chocobo Racing is not one of them.
Chocobo Racing contains all the obligatory "Kart" game features; Cute characters, plenty of diverse tracks (including the always popular 'Haunted House' and 'Rainbow Road'), powerups, hidden characters, hidden tracks, a 2 player mode and a time attack mode. What Chocobo Racing adds to the mix, is a tag-team style Relay Race as well as a rather enjoyable Story Mode. Relay Race is more or less self explanatory- players team up with 3 characters and compete, relay style. The Story Mode is presented as a cutesy "pop-up story book", complete with stand up trees, and 2D characters. The story follows the Chocobo as he travels through the counryside seeking an adventure. Every "chapter" the Chocobo meets a new character in which he has to race against, and defeat. After completing each "chapter", the defeated character will join the Chocobo on his quest.
The graphics in Chocobo Racing are decidedly first or second generation. The framerate is an adequate 30fps in both 1 and 2 player games, though there is some slowdown. The clipping distance is extremely close on most tracks, and objects have that annoying tendency of ungracefully appearing out of thin air. The textures lack color, and severly warp up close. The icing on the cake, however, are the 2D pre-rendered character/vehicles. At this point in time, there is no excuse for any developer (especially Square) to rely on pre-rendered sprites in a racing game. Both Motor Toon GP and the upcoming Crash Team Racing feature detailed texture mapped, polygonal vehicles. And both look quite a bit prettier than Chocobo Racing. There are some nice special effects and transparencies, but overall the game just looks a bit too bland.
The music and sound effects range from average to good. I really liked the cutesy renditions of some of the well known Final Fantasy tunes. But other than those, most music tracks were forgettable.
Control was actually pretty good. The Dual Shock is supported, and the analog stick works quite well.
For some strange reason only 2 of the face buttons were utilized; One for acceleration, one for brake. If you want/need to powerslide, you must press both buttons simulaneously. Seeing as 4 whole buttons aren't even used in Chocobo Racing, I would have preferred a powerslide function to be mapped to its own button. But I suppose, for the sake of keeping the game more accessible to the younger crowd, Square stuck with only 2. The R1 and L1 buttons on top of the control pad, are used to trigger powerups, or to cast one of the Final Fantasy-esque magic spells that each character is equipped with.
Speaking of younger crowds, that is most definitely what the developers had in mind when creating Chocobo Racing. I admit I had fun while playing though the Story Mode, the entire package was obviously geared towards those a few years younger than myself.
Although those looking for a deep racing title will probably not enjoy Chocobo Racing all that much, kids should have no problem taking to the candy coated visuals, cutesy characters, easy to get into gameplay, and childish story dialog.
-- Jim Cordeira
