This was one of my highlights from Nintendo’s E3 earlier this year, where this fast, colourful, over-the-top arcade racer made itself known. It was already known, of course, since it’s based on the version you can find in arcades since 2017. But now it could gain a wider audience thanks to it coming to the Switch – complete with more content to make it a worthwhile purchase.

Now the game has arrived, and I’ve been enjoying it a lot. It’s pure arcade fun. Starting out with one of the regular cars, I took to the tours on normal difficulty to get a feel for how the game plays and was instantly transported back to the arcades, being sat within the seat of the likes of Fast and the Furious and Wangan Midnight: Maximum Tune, speeding along the tracks attempting to get first place.

The tracks presented here are all about recreating those thrills from the arcades, with near constant activity happening all around you – whether from the AI traffic getting in your way, explosions ripping apart the scenery, or more specific set pieces such as a dinosaur breaking apart ice as it slams down on it. And speaking of set pieces, each of the six tours is themed.

There’s nine different locations with four races per tour. Within the Night Tour, every race takes place at night, which is a great place to show off the neon you can unlock for each vehicle. A particular favourite of mine is the Dino Tour, where every location in the tour has been taken over by dinosaurs. While you can’t get attacked or even affected by those dinos, it’s great to see them running across the track or swooping through tunnels for those that can fly. And it’s even better when you are racing as a triceratops within that tour.

As for the gameplay, it’s simple enough. Accelerate to go fast, using drifts to build up a boost meter for a temporary burst of speed. The same can be gained by tricking off ramps or other cars by doing wheelies by double tapping the A button (though using R works just as well if not better). Then it’s just a case of beating the nine other racers to the end. There’s even motion controls for the steering if you want to use them. I was surprised at just how accurate they made the act of steering after getting used to them, and would definitely like to see more games utilise them.

Upon completing all the normal difficulty tours, I unlocked the hard difficulty. Rather than do the tours on hard, I went backward to the easy tours in order to get the gold on all of those. But more importantly, to finish off collecting the keys scattered around the races. Each race has three keys to find in a race. Some are easy enough to collect, while others are very easy to miss. These keys are used to unlock and purchase several of the vehicles in the game. Completing each tour for the first time will also unlock a new vehicle, though these ones are purchased through the money you earn in races.

These vehicles come in all varieties. You have the standard licenced cars from the arcade game, and then a lot more added in. Vehicles you wouldn’t expect to be racing such as a double decker bus, vehicles that aren’t even grounded such as a helicopter, and even some that aren’t even vehicles, such as the triceratops. Once I unlocked that one, I stuck with it for a while, painting it blue for the Power Rangers representation.

Painting the vehicles is free and available from the start. Other customisations are locked until you use that vehicle enough. They all have five levels, with neon, livery, body kit, and engine unlocking upon a level up. Some vehicles lack a livery, but still have five levels in order to max them out. These customisations are purely cosmetic – even those that seem like they’d have some sort of effect on the stats of that vehicle.

The game obviously isn’t for everyone, but if you were in an arcade and jumped on one of the flashy over-the-top racers rather than the likes of Daytona, this is definitely the game for you. There might be a few repeating routes to the tracks (though you won’t notice unless playing them one after the other), and some might find the graphics bad (the low-poly models can be noticeable), but such doesn’t affect enjoyment of such a fast-paced racer. Give it a shot, and you might just find a new bite-sized racer to jump on and lose yourself to.

Images Taken From:
Cruis’n Blast (Original Screenshots)