Review #291: Chocobo Racing

 Square really could do no wrong back then!

 Based off the Chocobo Dungeon series, Chocobo Racing was Squaresoft's attempt at a mascot racing. Mind you, even if you're not interested in Chocobo Dungeon, there's plenty to amuse Final Fantasy fans, from the magic spells to even Squall and Cloud as playable racers! It's an interesting experiment that could've used a little more time in the oven.

 The game offers a 9-Chapter Story Mode that serves as a sort of tutorial, with each chapter introducing a new racer, and a new spell type, to ease you into the game. It's also incredibly tedious since you have to play it 10 times in order to unlock all characters, at least the game lets you turn 'Handicap' on in order to make you faster and help you cruise through this mode. After each full playthrough you are allowed to customize one of the non-secret characters, and the stat points you are awarded depend on how fast you were. There's also Grand Prix, for up to two players, but there's no 'cups' instead playing 4 tracks(Either player selected or random), Time Attack, VS(Which is a strictly 2 racer race) and Relay Race, which I found rather interesting, as you pick 3 different characters and switch every lap! It's a decent amount of modes, and if after going through the story mode 10 times you're stilling feeling up to it, you can finish every course in Grand Prix in order to unlock a faster vehicle class(Think the 50 cc, 100 cc and 150 cc classes in Mario Kart) and then Mirror mode.

 Racer selection is more than decent, there's 8 'basic' characters, and 10 unlockable ones, and 10 different 'abilities'. Abilities are separate from 'spells' and run on a gauge that's constantly refilling as you race. Sadly, some of these are definitely more useful than others, take 'Megaflare', which makes all your rivals spin out, or dash, which grants you a rather long boost. Then there's 'Flap' which allows you to fly... which a few characters do by default, and only allow you to dodge a couple of spells. As for the characters, I don't think they are well balanced. As previously mentioned, some characters fly by default, allowing them to ignore a few spells, and some of the secret characters are joke characters, which are too slow to be able to compete with the others, or even making it through a certain obstacle in one of the tracks.

 The Weapon pick ups work a bit like Diddy Kong Racing. You will find line of orbs spread throughout each track, and picking an orb grants you different spells. You can pick an specific spell by its color, or grab a '?' orb in order to get a random spell. Furthermore, you can carry multiple spells at the same time(Though if someone smashes into you they will steal the last orb you picked), and you can level up a spell up to three times by picking up three straight orbs of the same type.

 The game is also prone to the same pitfall of every single Mascot racer: It's not much fun while playing alone. Playing with friends is fun, but unlocking everything means going through the single player mode. TEN TIMES. And frankly, it seems as if all of them love to gang up on you, as a matter of fact, whenever the CPU Goblin is on the race, forget about storing spells for later use, as it seems like he ONLY steals, by using his ability, orbs from you. After my first time through this mode, I just turned 'handicap' on, in the options menu, and cruised through it, I was not gonna stand through the whole ordeal again. Oh, and by the by, SAVE your custom character after your second time through the mode, otherwise Squall won't challenge you.

 I had fun with the game, but there's too little of it. There's only 10 tracks, and they are not very memorable, sans the Black Wizard one, which is really fun. It also feels like they run out of time, money or both, as it feels somewhat incomplete. Only 9 characters(8 basic ones plus Bahamut) get an ending, and only ten of them(The basic ones, Bahamut and Squall) get character portraits, as a matter of fact, the only time you get a 'Warning, a Challenger approaches'(Like Smash Bros!) is with Squall, the game doesn't even let you know that you unlocked more characters after him, or even how to access them! Which is done by holding different combinations of the shoulder buttons over Squall, in case you were wondering. Heck, you can even unlock Aya Brea... except that 'she' is only a Police Car.

 The game is pretty fun to play, and it offers neat ideas(Carrying spells, enhancing them, abilities) to the genre, but sadly, it's pretty lacking. There's only 10 stages, less than the competition, and even then, they are not very memorable. Still, it's fun for a couple of rounds.
 6.5 out of 10