Best TG16/PCE Racer?

[runinruder]

Reviews of many of the games mentioned and some others...

Final Lap Twin
Victory Run
Power Drift
Moto Roader
Moto Roader II
Legend of Dekoboko
Chase H.Q.
S.C.I.
Knight Rider Special
Out Run
Road Spirits
Racing Damashii
F1 Circus
F1 Circus '91
F1 Circus '92
F1 Circus Special

[RR1980]

F1 Circus has to be amazing right seeing that it's the highest selling PCE game eva!?

[sheath]

Holy crap, can even be considered a racing game?  The F1 Circus games look interesting, I think I've actually tried to play one of them in emulation and that just didn't work out for me.  I'll need to give them another shot.

[Arkhan]

Don't be fooled by Final Lap Twin's bland/simple/poor title screen and menus; the actual racing graphics look pretty good and the RPG mode is tons of fun. The overhead world view in RPG mode leaves a bit to be desired, though.

kinda like the Tennis quest mode.  Its all derpy.

I love the "THIS IS CHICAGO" text, on an island.

I didn't know Chicago was an island.

[blueraven]

Holy crap, can

even be considered a racing game?  The F1 Circus games look interesting, I think I've actually tried to play one of them in emulation and that just didn't work out for me.  I'll need to give them another shot.

Yeah you're in the cockpit. It's a drag racing game.

(reminds me of Dragster 2600)

[sheath]

It seemed like Zero 4's action occurs almost exclusively in the menus, the overhead and first person racing scenes don't seem like there's much "playing" going on. 

Moto Roader II looks like a good one to me, I'm still thumbing through the games runinruder posted.  I didn't expect a barrage! 

[awack]

Hmm, has anybody noticed which racer has the best animated sprite scaling (think tech demo)?  The PCE's speed from ROM would probably mean that there would need to be a larger HuCard for any racer to show more animated scaling.  I suppose there isn't a good Super CD-ROM 2 or above racer for the system?

I cant think of anything better than Outrun, it has 2 more frames per car than the genesis port, but 2 less on many road side objects.

[sheath]

Just to follow up, I've landed complete Turbochips for Victory Run and Final Lap Twin now.  I've played them both briefly and they both seem to have enough going on that I would need to sit down with them to get a thorough experience out of them.  I like that, plus I can play Final Lap Twin two player if anybody ever wants to.  

I haven't even seen Outrun PCE on ebay since I started looking last year, I hope it doesn't go for too much when it does show up.  I've almost bit the bullet on Power Drift a couple of times now, but it went for a buck or two more than I want to spend on it.  I'm eyeing Racing Spirits too, that one looks great.

-edit-

I just finished about an hour of quest mode in Final Lap Twin.  I'm really enjoying it so far.  I like how your dad gives you $300 every time you lose.  Also, I saw a video review of this before I bought it that said the jumps didn't do anything.  The jumps speed the car up and are the only way aside from turbo fuel that can get the car to break top speed, but it actually stays at a higher speed with the jumps.  I bought all of the upgrades from the first town and wrote down the password.  Now it's time to see if I can beat the first champ, that dude just took off the first time I raced him!

[vestcoat]

Outrun is cheap.  If you're getting antsy, japangamestock and other online stores usually have copies that aren't excessively expensive, IIRC.

I tried out Road Spirits via emulation and was bored to tears.  It's by far the easiest PCE racer I've played.  Never having played the game before, I was cruising through level after level undefeated until my computer crashed (better take a look at that graphics card!).  I don't know how many levels there are, but I wasn't detecting much of a difficulty curve.   

[sheath]

I'll have to take a look at japangamestock, I haven't bought from them before, their prices do look reasonable.  I haven't seen Road Spirits, I was referring to Racing Damashi/Tamashii/Spirits the 2-player motorcycle racer.  Road Spirits looks like it has some decent animation for the car scaling but it doesn't look like anything special.

Thanks for the heads up on the game store.  It also turns out that I haven't seen Outrun come up because it's being spelled Out Run. 

[Tatsujin]

When it comes to racer ports, especially arcade super scaler stuff like out run, power drift, H.Q. and stuff, I have to recommend to go on with any available 32-bit ports. As funny some 8-/16-bit ports may have been back in the days, most of 'em are not nearly up to the awesomeness later 32-Bit systems could provide.

But nevertheless, out run, victory run, final lap twin are must haves on the PCE.

[nat]

I haven't even seen Outrun PCE on ebay since I started looking last year, I hope it doesn't go for too much when it does show up. 

That's, uh, odd considering there is almost always multiple copies of it for sale at any given moment. Right now that doesn't seem to be the case, but there is still one available from everyone's favorite seller, hit-japan.

[SignOfZeta]

Final Lap Twin is the winner, no question. Spring for the US ver. (assuming its not going for $900 or some shit now) since the RPG mode is the really fun part of the game.

I also like Victory Run. I think the JP victory Run is worth it for the cover alone.



So much action there.

[Tatsujin]

Right there with Victroy Fun. And it's also cheap (in price) as hell, as well.

[Dyna138]

I love OutRun for the branching paths which give the game some replay its also quite a good conversion on the PCE. Final Lap Twin is also one of my favorites thanks to the RPG mode.