ACA NEOGEO Riding Hero

Genre: Faux 3D Motorbike Racing

Players: 1, Online Leaderboards

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Review:

Riding Hero is a Faux 3D Motorbike Racing game originally released in 1990 in arcades and on the NEOGEO AES home console as a launch title. The original release was known for featuring “the “Multi Play” support that let multiple players go head-to-head via LAN support… which is sadly not present in this modern release

Graphically, probably the most noteworthy thing about this game compared to other Faux 3D Racers at the time is the number of racers that can be on-screen at a time, with the starting line having 7 racers at once… at least until the green light and then they all speed away.

When it comes to gameplay, Riding Hero has a few advantages over other Faux 3D games of the era. First, one of the game modes actually features some RPG elements for progression, something fairly unique within this style of Racing game. Additionally, while Riding Hero is still quite hard, it’s not punishingly, painfully hard like most games of this sort are. In fact, rather than having difficulty making turns, your biggest challenge here will likely be finding a way to get past opponents when you’re ready to overtake them.

This release of the game includes a new “Hi-Score Mode” that challenges players to get as far as they can in one run. There is also a new “Caravan Mode” that does much the same, but with the limit being five minutes. In addition, this release of the game gives players a decent array of options, including various display options, sound options, challenge modifiers, button mapping, online leaderboards, and the ability to play both English and Japanese versions of the game.

In the end, while Riding Hero isn’t a terrible Racing game, it’s not likely to elicit much excitement by modern standards, and the lack of multiplayer is terribly disappointing. There may be some players who will get some enjoyment out of this, but for $8, I expect the amount of players likely to find this game worthwhile are relatively few.

tl;dr – Riding Hero is a Faux 3D Motorbike Racing Game that is a bit more accessible than Faux 3D Racing games tend to be, but it’s still not quite on par with what we’ve come to expect by today’s standards, especially for this game’s $8 price tag. This game may appeal to some players, but most are better off skipping it.

Grade: C-

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