Story:
Retro Kart Rush is a racing game that has no story elements to it. You just race and that’s it. However, I will say that I would have liked to see some kind of story as to how a bunch of anthropomorphic animals decided to race each other in go-karts.
Gameplay:
The game consists of two game modes and two ways to race. You can choose to either take on the time trial and see how fast you can get around a selected track. The other mode consists of either Cup race or Single race. Cup race has you racing one of eight cups with each cup race having three tracks. Meanwhile, the single race allows you to pick a desired track to race on like a traditional cart racer.
The game lets you select one of six animal racers to race as, with each having its own weight class. The weight class will determine how the racer performs. The Featherweight class will be light and fast, heavyweight will be slow, and middleweight is somewhere in between. There are three additional racers that are unlocked by collecting and spending stars, one under each weight class.
Choosing to play the time trial is a good way to get the layout of each track, test out the different weight classes of the racers, and earn stars. Earning stars can be done in either the time trials by getting the best time, or by winning cup races. Once you earn the stars, you can spend them to unlock one of the three racers.
Speaking of the tracks, there are a whopping 18 different tracks you can race on. Each with its own hazards from pits you can fall in, to barrels and enemies on the track that you will need to avoid. Each track has a surprising amount of detail and environment.
You can play the game single-player or together with a friend, though there is no indication of this outside of the store description. You see, the only way you can play with a friend is if you happen to have two controllers connected. There isn’t a multiplayer or split screen mode or selection, the second player is just magically able to select a racer if they happen to have their controller connected to the console you’re playing the game on.
Graphics and Performance:
Graphically the game isn’t all that impressive and is flat. I am not just saying that it looks bland, it literally looks flat. The racers don’t have any real dimension to them and are 2D with the tracks themselves having a 2.5D look to them. Once you start a race, the track is in 3D but with the camera angle behind the racer being angled the way that it is, it makes it look flat and almost isometric.
With as flat as the game looks, you would think that the game performs well on the Switch. Well…for the most part, it does. You see, the game has a smooth and solid frame rate until you have more than 2 racers on the screen, yes I said more than 2. Once you have three or more racers (of which there are seven racers total), the game sneezes. Yes, I said sneezes, not freezes. You see when this happens, the game slowly slows down, grinds to a halt for a split second, and then becomes smooth again. Kinda like what happens when someone sneezes. Though it’s a rather impressive display of poor optimization, it happens a lot making the game not all that enjoyable.
Sound:
Given how the rest of the game is, I figured the sound would be repetitive, annoying, and just downright awful. I was pleasantly surprised by the sound in this game. The sound effects can be exactly as I just described, but the background music is where this game surprises and delights. You don’t have some happy-go-lucky sounding music here which I would have expected. Instead, you get a hard-hitting techno style that sounds really good. The kind of music you could listen to just because and really get into. It almost feels out of place for the game, but with the music being the single redeeming quality of this game, that is perfectly OK with me.
Conclusion:
Retro Kart Rush is a game that I really had high hopes for. I don’t care for the original Super Mario Kart on SNES. But given the power of the Nintendo Switch and current hardware, I thought that the game could look really impressive with that art direction. I thought that maybe we would get 2D racers that would race on 3D tracks. Almost a Paper Mario-like take on a racing game. Or at the very least, we would get something that plays like the game that this game pays tribute to at a buttery smooth frame rate. Clearly, my expectations for this game were much too high. This game is an utter disappointment in nearly every aspect.
There are much better racing games out there, even at this price point. Unless you’re purposely looking for a bad racing game to play, I would suggest looking elsewhere to get your kart racing fix.
Disclaimer: A review key was provided
In addition to writing articles, Ryan Byers also creates content for his YouTube channel called "Obscure Games and Consoles", collects video games, and dabbles in video game development.