I’ll put 50 Gil on Superchicken to win. Review

I’ll put 50 Gil on Superchicken to win.

Do you remember Big Bird? Back before all that Barney and Teletubby crap,

the Bird was the big kahuna of the children’s television world. He was a major

player, with his own licensing deals, movie plans, and numerous Swiss bank accounts.

Nowadays, he’s more like the second fiddle, what with that glory-hog Elmo grabbing

all the attention. Ehhhh. . . not that I still watch, or anything.

If you’ve been playing Final Fantasy rather than watching Sesame Street,

you’ll be familiar with everyone’s favorite video game second fiddle, Chocobo.

He (or she, or it) has been around since the Famicom’s Final Fantasy III

and even has two RPGs of his own: Chocobo’s Mysterious Dungeon 1 and 2

(to be released in the US in the future). I guess Chocobo felt the urge to spread

his wings, which is the only explanation for his starring role in yet another

go-kart driving game, Chocobo Racing.

The main game within Chocobo Racing is a 1 player story mode. Chocobo is given a pair of jet powered roller skates by Cid, the inventor. Mog soon joins Chocobo, and they go on an adventure across 9 courses, searching for friends to race against. Pretty lame, but good for a few laughs. There are other modes as well, like Grand Prix, Time attack, Versus, and a Relay mode where you switch between three characters on every lap.

The characters are deformed and cartoony versions of classic Final Fantasy

characters: Chocobo, Mog, and the black and white mages. There’s also a behemoth,

a golem, a goblin, and a fat Chocobo from the Chocobo Mysterious Dungeon

games. When you beat the game, you unlock more characters from other Square

games, such as Squall, Cloud, and Cid.

Based on your game’s performance score, you are given the option of making

one custom character. You select one of the initial nine characters and distribute

points to attributes such as acceleration, drift, and maximum speed.

The control is focused on drift style racing. It plays much like Mario

Kart, but the track design forces you to make numerous sharp brake assisted

turns. Attacks and power-ups are gained by collecting power-orbs; when you collect

more of the same orb, the orb’s power increases. For example, if you collect

three “dash” orbs, you’ll be able to dash (speed up) longer. Whoo.

The graphics are colorful, but not particularly impressive. In some areas

they border on simplistic, but overall set the mood of each track nicely. The

tracks seem a bit too similar to Mario Kart (haunted castle, lava, rainbow

road, etc.), though it doesn’t get in the way.

The

music is average, with plenty of Final Fantasy oriented tunes. The best

music is when you beat the game; there’s an ending ballad that is strikingly

more beautiful than the rest of the music.

So why isn’t this game worth it? For starters, it’s way too easy. I

beat the Story mode in less than two hours. After mastering the controls, the

second time through took much less time. After that, there wasn’t anything to

compel me to keep playing the same game over and over again. The challenge of

the Story mode doesn’t increase. Times aren’t recorded. The only reason to play

it again is to unlock more secret characters.

The two player mode (that’s only two players, no more) is limited by only

ten tracks and the lack of a Battle mode. The orbs and ability attacks isn’t

always even; sometimes they feel too cheap, and the only thing that really counts

is speed and getting to the end.

Further, the custom character option could have been much better. If there

was some way to keep building up one character, the depth would have increased

tenfold.

Sadly, Chocobo Racing only amounts to yet another go-kart driving game.

The game never steps out of its Mario Kart clone roots enough to make

a lasting impression. Alas, Chocobo is not the big bird of the mascot racing

world.