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HIGH-MAC
18-03-2009, 07:09
It is time to investigate a true classic that is so often overlooked in favor of other obvious and self-evidently true milestones in the tragic chronicles of the SEGA Saturn, and it is to be..LUDICROUS SPEED!

(Warning: Wall o' Text arriving soon)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iX6vFL8dl5M

Touge King The Spirits, as High Velocity as we know it in America (but no PAL territories, sorry!), is a mountain racing arcade racer, and it's also one with considerable features. Aside from having a regular versus mode (with both horizontal and vertical perspectives (the vertical perspective will occasionally merge the two screens together, creating a sense of confusion like no other)), it has an extensive single player mode, with 3 mountain courses. All of these are of exceptional design, but that is to be considered for a game as great as this. What is more interesting is that there are 6 races (or rather, heats) for each side of the road in a course (left/right), and they all have to do with learning different techniques, all being essential by the final course.

The game also has varying different cars, and the ability to heavily tune their internal workings. Aside from changing the color of the car, you can tinker with the performance of the car's engine, suspension, tires, and etc. This adds a great deal of replayability to the game in itself, as the tuning aspect can affect how you race substantially. This, and the differing challenges faced in each heat, really adds a deal of replay value to the game.

How does the game fare in its controls and physics? Quite well, in fact, easily substituting, if not replacing, the need for a daily dose of Daytona USA. The game handles well and is relatively simple to get used to, just like any good arcade racer (Ridge Racer notwithstanding, as its handling is horrific and magical at the same time. So yes, that is up to debate and preference.). The challenge is also fairly suited to the courses and, like any good arcade racer, will give you ample moments to gain the lead. Despite this, do not think the game is easy, as it features some tricky corners and sections in its courses. Overall, in the end, the gameplay is superb and absolutely top quality.

How about the presentation, the graphics and sound? Be ready for a treat, assuming you haven't watched that video yet. The graphics amaze in more than one way. For one thing, pop-up is insanely rare, and usually only happens in the areas that are the most wide-spread out. This, as a result, is a truly amazing accomplishment for the Saturn, considering the date when the game was released (November the 10th in 1995, according to Satakore.com (Courtesy of Madroms and Astal.)). Furthermore, the game has very vibrant and sweet coloring, mostly due to the lack of full screen dithering, an effect put to widespread in PlayStation games, causing their colors to be rather bland (According to GamePilgrimage, http://www.gamepilgrimage.com/). Transparencies are also in good supply, albeit some being dithered as well, but that's always good. Finally, the actual polygons themselves are very solid and well constructed, much to the chagrin of PlayStation fanboys everywhere, content with comparing Ridge Racer to poor Daytona USA.

The sound, of course, is solid and great. Although much of the typical arcade racer fare is prominent in the actual soundtrack, the SFX is top notch, easily reflecting the capabilities of the Yamaha sound chip stuck well inside the Saturn's core.

This racer not only manages to prove that the Saturn is, indeed, capable of everything that Ridge Racer can accomplish on the PSX, but that it has the better game anyway(in my personal opinion), in almost everything concerning the game itself (Ridge Racer does have the better soundtrack, I'll concede. Most of the other elements, however, I would choose High Velocity for.). It is also very fun and ultimately a far more enjoyable game in general, compared to ol' Ridge Racer. But, alas, this is where the review must end.

Ironically, the game was published by Atlus, more famous for developing and publishing obscure (and more famous ones as well) JRPGs, and developed by them and Cave (you know, that radioactive remnant of Toaplan that developed shumps, along with Raizing). This is a rather interesting example of how game companies can branch out into unfamiliar territory in the most ridiculous ways possible.

(More info on this game, and its superior sequel, can be found at http://www.segagagadomain.com/welcome-news.htm (Segagaga Domain))

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Either way, feedback for this article would be appreciated (make it civilized, please), and your comments are also perfectly welcome. (And please, if you spot any inaccuracies in the article, you can state that as well. I'm rather new to this, actually.)

~HIGH-MAC~

sonicfanRICH
18-03-2009, 08:45
I don't think the player in the video has played many racing games...

Looks like a fun racing game though.

Dr Shaneman
18-03-2009, 11:57
Looks like something I wouldn't mind playing.

Killer French Bread
18-03-2009, 13:53
Looks like a poor man's Ridge Racer 4.

HIGH-MAC
18-03-2009, 18:25
Looks like a poor man's Ridge Racer 4.This game was released a couple months after Ridge Racer. Probably not the best Saturn racer, but it was gorgeous for its time.

The Type 4 comparison really doesn't work here, as that game was released in 1999 (1998 in Japan).

Yes, that guy cannot play a racer, which is a shame, as I could play just about any racer..even Ridge Racer. (I mean, if I exaggerated any details by mistake, you could at least point them out. That happens quite a bit.)

Killer French Bread
18-03-2009, 23:10
Well I wasn't taking anything else into consideration other than the fact it has that similar flat shading style to Type 4 and a drift steering system. I don't really see how when it was released is relevant, but whatevs. And it was the sedate pace it was running at that prompted the critical comment. I'm sure it is a fun game but, in my brain head at least, if it isn't as fast as Ridge it will always be a poor relation.

HIGH-MAC
18-03-2009, 23:28
Well I wasn't taking anything else into consideration other than the fact it has that similar flat shading style to Type 4 and a drift steering system. I don't really see how when it was released is relevant, but whatevs. And it was the sedate pace it was running at that prompted the critical comment. I'm sure it is a fun game but, in my brain head at least, if it isn't as fast as Ridge it will always be a poor relation.I'm not sure if the game employs any use if gourard shading, like in Ridge Racer Type 4, but I can see where you are coming from with the argument. It must be said that this game is different in style as well, with Ridge Racer T4 being very drift-oriented and chaoticly swift in nature, while High Velocity has a more relaxed and technical feel to its design. Personally, if anything goes without saying, Ridge Racer games typically don't fare well in actual gameplay themselves, but that is not the point to make here. King The Spirits is mainly a technical and more relaxing racer, in comparison to Ridge Racer, due to its setting, which requires that you take cornering more into consideration than outright speed.

It is more of a tuning-based racer in the end, but it is one of better racers on the Saturn, in terms of gameplay. The main value arrives in the form of great replay value and gorgeous graphical sublimity. Great fun, nonetheless, but don't expect it to be similar to the team-based powerslide fest that is Ridge Racer (Rage Racer and Type 4 specifically). If you can afford it, there is a vastly improved sequel released a couple years later, just before Rage Racer, and it is also very interesting. Overall, though, this one is still the most practical to find.

Killer French Bread
18-03-2009, 23:32
Personally, if anything goes without saying, Ridge Racer games typically don't fare well in actual gameplay themselves, but that is not the point to make here.


Ooh, carefull what your saying there! You're talking to someone who has whiled away countless hours trying to get that perfect lap with the 13th racing kid.;)

Oh, and as for the shading bit, I'm sure you have it spot on. I was just employing my peasant-o-vision to look for similarities and the bold colours seemed to stand out.

HIGH-MAC
18-03-2009, 23:41
Ooh, carefull what your saying there! You're talking to someone who has whiled away countless hours trying to get that perfect lap with the 13th racing kid.;)

Oh, and as for the shading bit, I'm sure you have it spot on. I was just employing my peasant-o-vision to look for similarities and the bold colours seemed to stand out.Typically. I already know that Ridge Racer T4 is easily the best drifter on the PlayStation. However, the first three games all had ridiculous collision detection and the first two certainly applied that crazy handling. It makes the first game and Revolution really annoying to play, because there is just no physics method to them. Rage Racer, from what I hear, isn't too much better in its execution, although it does look really purty. I also admire that Namco tried to add some depth that had been lacking with most of the Ridge Racer games up until then.

High Velocity certainly might use gourard shading, but that I don't know, and websites like Game Pilgrimage, who make really good graphical comparisons with Saturn and PlayStation games, are too lazy to identify any of those techniques in the coding. Nonetheless, the vibrant colors are exemplified in both games, and both are great games in their own right.

Also, Ridge Racer is a great racer. Just not the best racer in my book, and I haven't played the arcade Inital D games from SEGA yet. They should be the best drifters, from what I hear, but I haven't found a cabinet yet.

Killer French Bread
19-03-2009, 00:02
I'm a Revolution fan myself. Type 4 bored me, tried to hard to please people like yourself who expected more simulation elements instead of balls out, gun it racing and lost all the intensity I liked.

I suppose you're expecting the wrong thing from the games. The physics and steering aren't meant to be realistic and are actually very precise and predictable once you get used to them, if you are comparing it to a sim it will always look like the dogs dinner, it's not really a fair comparison. The handling is about getting into a drift as you enter the corner, if you are drifting you can never hit the sides of the road so it encourages you to go as fast as possible and be arrogant enough to flip in ito every apex before emerging from the turn going even faster. You can even do 360s in the best cars and come out untouched. Totally unrealistic, but that's what makes it good.

Admitedly it's a simple game, but the combination of a brilliant soundtrack, fast and colourful graphics and all or nothing gameplay,....well ya can't beat it!



Sorry to digress the thread btw, but I'm a bit of a Ridge Racer fanatic.

HIGH-MAC
19-03-2009, 00:48
I'm a Revolution fan myself. Type 4 bored me, tried to hard to please people like yourself who expected more simulation elements instead of balls out, gun it racing and lost all the intensity I liked.

I suppose you're expecting the wrong thing from the games. The physics and steering aren't meant to be realistic and are actually very precise and predictable once you get used to them, if you are comparing it to a sim it will always look like the dogs dinner, it's not really a fair comparison. The handling is about getting into a drift as you enter the corner, if you are drifting you can never hit the sides of the road so it encourages you to go as fast as possible and be arrogant enough to flip in ito every apex before emerging from the turn going even faster. You can even do 360s in the best cars and come out untouched. Totally unrealistic, but that's what makes it good.

Admitedly it's a simple game, but the combination of a brilliant soundtrack, fast and colourful graphics and all or nothing gameplay,....well ya can't beat it!



Sorry to digress the thread btw, but I'm a bit of a Ridge Racer fanatic.I don't expect a full-blown simulation from either game, Ridge Racer or High Velocity. However, I would like to note that Daytona USA had a basic sense of physics implemented into the game, while still managing to keep the intelligent and rewarding powersliding (Drifting itself can really only be said to apply to really long and spread-out powerslides, IMO) that Ridge Racer easily implements. It is this simple sense of traction and realism that manages to give that game a respectable deal of synchronity with the other aspects of arcade racing, allowing for fast and frantic racing to be combined with simple physics that give the game a sense of challenge that I just cannot identify in a Ridge Racer game.

What I expect from an arcade racer is not always the simulation aspects involved in the tuning and pit-in process of a racer, but that simple traction and momentum that comes from just a bare-bones physics engine. This is where I believe Ridge Racer falters in its design and execution; it just doesn't have that sense of traction and accurate collision like you get in other games. It is a simply fantastic game for all out speed and complete disregard for the finer aspects of arcade racing, IMO, but games like High Velocity and Daytona USA succeed because they have a physics engine that seamlessly works with the core gameplay and design to give you a better sense of traction and realism, without being too involved or debilitating to the arcade racing mechanics. I am rather surprised that High Velocity features such interesting tuning options, but they aren't a pre-requisite to playing the game well. If you know how to play an arcade racer well, it should apply across a whole field of arcade racers.

Ridge Racer, in my opinion, is the true, untamed core of the arcade racing genre: simple and rawly employed speed, with a gimmick usually attached (Both Ridge Racer and Daytona USA feature powersliding/drifting as a core gameplay gimmick, although Daytona USA focuses more on the overtaking portions (Ridge Racer focuses more on the powersliding/drifting sections)). I guess it is just difficult to get used to Ridge Racer's steering and handling, but it just doesn't have the feel and rigidity of other arcade racers, such as SEGA's own entries into the genre. At least not to me. I would like arcade racers to always feature something more than the core, just to make things a bit more accessible for some players (including me).

I am a racer fanatic as well, and I certainly enjoy playing my fair share of Ridge Racer, but I find the SEGA racers to be more refined in their execution. One racer that nailed the genre at the time was Virtua Racing for it was accessible and still filled with depth simultaneously, something that I don't think the Namco racers of old have achieved with ease and quality. (So yes, I like more technicality in my racers, and you seem to equally enjoy the more primal aspects in them.)

~HIGH-MAC~

Killer French Bread
19-03-2009, 01:26
That's an insightful the point you make about identifying with a certain level of traction to at least give it a vague grounding in everyday physics and my lack of intrest in that, because I can't drive, and when I consider all my favourite racing games, Wipeout, Outrun and the Ridge series, none of them have anything even close to what you could descride as even rudimentary realism when it comes to handling. Also the stuff I most often play and have an afinity with continues that theme and are all quick fix, intense, stripped down games you can play for 5 minutes at a time (but I'll usually play them for hours!), beat 'em ups, shmups, puzzlers, things like that.

I suppose that reveals in me that I don't look at a racing game as a driving experience, but more as a general arcade, twich reaction, sense heightening trial to overcome that I would mentally categorise as something analogous to all my other gaming genre favourites. I see steering in Ridge Racer as nothing more than a gaming mechanic to learn, the same as the shooting mechanic in Rez or the matching mechanic in Puyo Pop. If I like it then the fact it is a driving game is an irrelevant footnote.

If I compare the handling in Ridge Racer to Daytona, I prefer the Ridge Racer system because is a cleaner, more straight foward thing to deal with, and the sense of momentum and grip isn't a consideration. I don't have any experience of what that is like in a car and don't miss it, or appreciate it when I am presented it. Therein lies our difference, I suspect!

HIGH-MAC
19-03-2009, 02:08
That's an insightful the point you make about identifying with a certain level of traction to at least give it a vague grounding in everyday physics and my lack of intrest in that, because I can't drive, and when I consider all my favourite racing games, Wipeout, Outrun and the Ridge series, none of them have anything even close to what you could descride as even rudimentary realism when it comes to handling. Also the stuff I most often play and have an afinity with continues that theme and are all quick fix, intense, stripped down games you can play for 5 minutes at a time (but I'll usually play them for hours!), beat 'em ups, shmups, puzzlers, things like that.

I suppose that reveals in me that I don't look at a racing game as a driving experience, but more as a general arcade, twich reaction, sense heightening trial to overcome that I would mentally categorise as something analogous to all my other gaming genre favourites. I see steering in Ridge Racer as nothing more than a gaming mechanic to learn, the same as the shooting mechanic in Rez or the matching mechanic in Puyo Pop. If I like it then the fact it is a driving game is an irrelevant footnote.

If I compare the handling in Ridge Racer to Daytona, I prefer the Ridge Racer system because is a cleaner, more straight foward thing to deal with, and the sense of momentum and grip isn't a consideration. I don't have any experience of what that is like in a car and don't miss it, or appreciate it when I am presented it. Therein lies our difference, I suspect!I never wanted to downplay your love of games that are easy to pick up and play from the get-go. Believe it or not, I love OutRun and any other racer like it. That game captures a driving essence that is not to be found in other games, at least not commonly. I prefer Daytona's handling just because it seems to at least a basic system of realism applied, one that is not too harsh or involving. And I also enjoy a good game of WipEout, if only because it is a geniunely fun and easy to play futuristic racer. However, I see right through your sarcasm and satire, and I am not trying to mock your style or to downplay your love for easy and accessible games. If you didn't catch on the gameplay of Daytona USA, simply because you want a simple game, I can understand, but to myself, Daytona is just as simplistic as Ridge Racer in actually learning how to use the system. However, I feel that Daytona USA has more depth in its racing engine than Ridge Racer, and that is my honest opinion.

(Warning: Wall o' Text arriving in short order)

One point I can make is that I do enjoy playing shumps, arcade racers, and arcade games in general, mainly because of their simplicity. OutRun, to this day, is still my favorite game in which you are capable of drifting. However, OutRun is not a racer, but a driving experience. It is possible to have arcade mechanics applied to a game that would normally qualify as a simulator-esque game and still get an equally enjoyable combination. Daytona's system does just that. And if you want just pure thrills, sure, take Ridge Racer out for a spin, but when I want more depth, I will choose a game that takes simple mechanics of play and infuses it with deeper customization, such as tuning or a power-up system (aka Gradius). Galaga is a great fixed shooter, that goes without saying, but why not infuse it with some more depth? That is how we got the first of such games:1942. It introduced power-ups as we know them today, while retaining the simplicity and strategy typically found in a fixed shooter of the Golden Age. OutRun infuses a simplistic gaming mechanic derived from games such as Turbo! and Pole Position, and then infuses it with the lack of adversary racers or major obstacles, just a simplistic, yet surprisingly deep driving game. It does have a basic sense of how a Ferrari (come on, you know that car is a Testarossa) sports car would operate, and applies that to the basic drifting mechanics of the game, giving depth that is still accessible. Perhaps my defonition of simplicty combined with hidden depth is fundamentally different from yours, but this is purely my opinion.

Games such as F-Zero and WipEout, on the other hand, do not require such physics, as their pure essence is all that is required. But even maze puzzlers, such as Pac-Man and Pengo, have secret strategies and fundamental concepts that allow for more indepth play. It could be the usage of a level-by-level route that is taken to trick the AI, for an example; this applies well to both maze games.

The point that I make is not too hard to grasp: I like simple games, simple enough to play for short period and then let go of, yet combined with a slightly more complicated design mechanism, allowing for more indepth strategy and overall play. It is why people seperate games such as Daytona USA from Ridge Racer: While one game contains the raw thrill of speedy powersliding/drifting, the other contains a deeper mechanism that offers more long-term strategy, in the process of powersliding/drifting, overtaking, and course mastery.

Overall, however, it comes down to which games executes what they do best, and Ridge Racer, in its market of pure arcade racing, is easily, if not the best, among the best. Daytona USA has what I consider more indepth gaming mechanisms, while still retaining much of what Ridge Racer has, and is why Daytona deserves to be considered a different breed of arcade racer. Ridge Racer is for the pure thrill of racing, while Daytona USA is a game that must be mastered, which easily has the potential to award the player with the pure feeling of achievement, which can garner even more fun than a game that is fun off the bat. It depends on your style: technical yet simple, demanding yet accessible, but ultimately incredibly fun at the point of mastery, or simple, accesible, and fun throughout the whole experience.

I prefer the achievement of knowing that I have mastered a game's mechanics, that I have learned them to the extent of being a well-qualified player at that game, and while fun throughout the experience can be just as good for me, I still prefer working tenaciously toward a goal, before relaxing with a well-earned sense of achievement at the end, just as, if not more, redeeming.

At this point, indeed, we are just explaining our reasons for stylistic preferences on both of our sides. Simple and elegant is in both of our styles, but one is more indepth and the other is more accessible. Both are, in my opinion, equally enjoyable, as long as you know which games are best at what they do. And Ridge Racer and Daytona USA (As well as High Velocity) are some of, if not the, the greatest racers in their category of racer mechanics.

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tl;dr I like a tinny amount of realism in my arcade racers, but not too much; just enough to add that extra depth to the game. And I like pure arcade racers as well.

Let's end this argument and get back to the topic of this..well, topic.

END OF LINE..Really.