|
|
Game Information
|
Preview
|
Review |
Screenshots
|
Forum |
»Konami Krazy Racers
"Not your average Mario Kart clone."
Many people see Konami Krazy Racers as a ripoff of Mario Kart,
but it’s not; it’s a mere copycat, same as Crash Team Racing and other
copycats. Krazy Racers borrows a lot from the Mario Kart series,
including the use of franchise characters and weapons littered all over
the various tracks. But the one thing that made it feel like a copycat
of Mario Kart was the visual style; it was pretty much a carbon copy of
Mario Kart Super Circuit. However, I would hardly call that a
bad thing. The Mario Kart series is the best kart racing series around,
and I am glad that other developers are copying Mario Kart instead of
creating their own style of kart racing (which is often disastrous).
And besides, who wants a new staple?
Konami Krazy Racers features a varied cast of Konami characters.
The first eight available for use are Dracula (Castlevania), Ninja
(Metal Gear), Goemon (Mystical Ninja Goemon), Moai (Gradius), Nyami
(Poppin' Music), Pastel (Twinbee), Pawapuro-kun (Power Pro Baseball)
and Takosuke (Parodius). In addition to these eight, there are four
other secret characters acquired through finding hidden gems found four
in four different levels. The gameplay is relatively simple; A to
accelerate, B to brake, R to jump, L to use an item and Select to view
area behind you.
The focus of Krazy Racers is to race, if this did not dawn
on you already. Each race has exactly eight racers that race around a
variety of tracks (most of them being three laps long). Each track has
a variety of obstacles littered throughout it that effect all racers;
for instance, in one track, you have to avoid driving into a body of
water, because it will drastically slow you down. You will also find
red and blue cones littered throughout the track. Driving through a red
cone will give you a randomly selected item, while driving through a
blue cone will only give you a speed boost item. There are a large
variety of items that can be acquired from a red cone, including
missiles, a cloaking machine, a bomb, etc. Not using items is out of
the question, unless you’re looking for a challenge. The AI-controlled
racers will use items constantly, and if you are hit by a missile,
unless you’re far ahead of the pack, you’re going to get a major delay.
The controls are pretty solid; they’re almost as good as Mario Kart’s
although they are not quite as tight. For instance, while making a
turn, it is more difficult than normal to take the turn, even while
braking. Additionally, each character has unique traits. While Mario
Kart ranks characters in speed, acceleration, and weight, Krazy Racers
factors in speed, acceleration, and handling. And although some
characters are harder to master than others, you can be good with any
character. And if you need a challenge, there’s much more to do other
than win races. The basic challenges are to increase difficulty level
from Easy to either Normal or Hard and to attempt to complete all of
the Driving Tests, but also the four secret characters mentioned
before. Whether or not you know which stage the diamond is in is only
half of it; finding it, Hell, reaching it can be tough (but not too
tough!).
Krazy Racers' visuals, like Super Circuit's, are quite detailed 2D (although not nearly as detailed). Krazy Racers
uses a technique called Mode 7 to give the illusion of 3D on the
tracks, and uses super deformed character designs to make them more
cartoonish, giving them extremely large heads, often larger than the
bodies themselves. The audio is pretty nice as well. The songs help
make the game more enjoyable, although they are not very catchy. Sound
effects are pretty uninteresting and unimportant, except for the voices
which I actually find bearable unlike Mario Kart: Double Dash's.
But one thing that Krazy Racers is equal to Super Circuit
in is replay value. There are three additional modes to Krazy GP, Time
Attack and Free Run – Bomb Chaser, Chicken and VS. mode. Bomb Chaser
and Chicken involve four racers. Bomb Chaser is essentially a game of
tag – one of the four racers starts out with the bomb, and if they bump
into another racer, this causes the bomb to be transferred to that
racer, and Chicken is as you would expect it – four racers race to the
end of a track, to see who gets the closest to the end of the track
without going past it. This is an entertaining diversion, but the meat
of the replay is the VS mode, where four players can link with each
other and play a race (and only one cartridge required to boot).
Overall, Konami Krazy Racers is an excellent game, and any
Mario Kart fan will appreciate it, even if they think of it as a
ripoff. It has as much polishing, variety and pure fun as Mario Kart Super Circuit did, but manages to feel fresh with a new cast of characters. However, if you had to choose between them, choose Mario Kart Super Circuit. Regardless of my preference to Krazy Racers, Super Circuit just does the genre better.
Article by: Alttp
Posted on: Nov. 2nd, 2006 |
|
|
|
Review Recap |
| Gameplay |
| The gameplay manages to borrow from Mario Kart, but still feels as if it is halfway original. The weapons could use some work, though. |
 |
|
|
Graphics |
| Not the best, but good on its own merits. |
 |
|
|
Sound |
| Good audio quality and songs, but nothing exceptional. |
|
|
|
Replay Value |
| Just like Mario Kart, I couldn't put this down. Konami Krazy Racers is a highly replayable game, although the Battle modes could have been made more entertaining. |
 |
|
|
Comments |
|
|
|
|
|
 |
