Future Aero Racing S Ultra

Genre: Futuristic Racing

Players: 1-4 Competitive (Local Split-Screen)

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Review:

(Note: This game is included in Adrenaline Collection Pack, along with Green Phoenix, Micro Pico Racers, and Skyland Rush. It is also included in Zerouno Games Collection Pack 1, along with all of the above games plus Bleep Bloop, Defentron, Joe Jump: Impossible Quest, and The Flea Evolution.)

Future Aero Racing S Ultra is a Futuristic Racing game released on Xbox One in 2018, ported to PC in 2019, and then brought to Nintendo Switch in 2021. This game has players racing futuristic hovercrafts on various race tracks.

The presentation in this game gets one thing very right – the sense of speed. This game moves absurdly fast, and maintains a smooth framerate, even in 4-player split-screen mode. However, this is not some great feat – the cars and tracks here are very low-poly, with unimpressive textures and a cel shading effect seemingly designed to paint the simplicity of the graphics as a stylistic choice. In the end, it doesn’t look bad, but it certainly doesn’t hold a candle to the likes of Fast RMX. These visuals are backed by a synthesized soundtrack that’s good, but not particularly noteworthy.

As for the gameplay, this game has some pretty significant problems. Your control over your racer is somewhat lacking, with sharp turns at high speeds being particularly difficult to pull off. Yet this game is extremely unforgiving of collisions – my first experience with this game was on the first course on the easiest difficulty pulling into first place at the start of a race, going into a tight turn, getting T-boned by another vehicle immediately destroying my vehicle (despite being at full health), and getting tossed into last place, where I was hopelessly doomed to stay for the rest of the race.

The thing is, despite the heavy penalty for collisions, this game heavily pushes players to constantly be using the boost button, as it’s impossible to stay competitive otherwise. This requires to dodge back and forth to energy pads not only to enjoy the boost they give, but also to recharge your own boost to use again as soon as possible. This game’s boost also doubles as a shield temporarily protecting the player from impact, so I suppose in that earlier scenario, what I should have done was to use the boost going into the corner, slamming into the wall but being saved by the boost’s protection? This all just seems so counter-intuitive.

It also bears mention that this game’s multiplayer mode isn’t unlocked until after you place in the game’s first set of three races, which in itself is difficult due to the challenges I mentioned above. Once you do get into a multiplayer race, you’re still stuck with numerous computer-controlled racers in addition to the human players, meaning that even in this mode you won’t escape from this game’s crazy high difficulty.

I suppose there’s an argument to be made that at $7, Future Aero Racing S Ultra still holds some value as a budget-priced Futuristic Racing game, but with Fast RMX priced at $20, it seems like anyone looking at this game would be better off just spending a bit more to get the best futuristic racing game on the Nintendo Switch. Or, if that’s still too pricey for you, just spend $10 to get the excellent Riptide GP: Renegade. With the Nintendo Switch’s best games in the genre being this cheap, it’s hard to see Future Aero Racing S Ultra as a “value” option. In the end, it’s just a worse game.

tl;dr – Future Aero Racing S Ultra is a Futuristic Racing game. The game has a great feeling of speed, but otherwise the graphics are pretty bad, the controls aren’t great, and the game is absurdly difficult to the point of just not being all that fun. Even for the low $7 price, this game just isn’t worth it.

Grade: C-

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