Arcade Archives Rave Racer

Genre: Arcade Racing

Players: 1, Online Leaderboards

The Nintendo Switch 2 Difference

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Review:

Rave Racer is an Arcade-style Racing game originally released in arcades in 1995, marking the third entry in the Ridge Racer game series. While the series is often seen as being tied to the PlayStation franchise after this game’s release on the original PlayStation in 1995, numerous entries in the franchise have made it onto Nintendo platforms, starting with Ridge Racer 64 in 2000.

Rave Racer features a number of improvements compared to earlier games in the series. The drift mechanic has been reworked to be easier to utilize by pressing accelerate and brake at the same time (though the original method of tapping accelerate while turning still works too). In addition, this release increases the number of total tracks… to 3 maps plus one variation and mirrored versions. Yeahhh, that’s an improvement, to be sure, but it’s still not great.

On the other hand, there are a number of issues here as well. The checkpoint system in this game seems overly-aggressive – I tend to believe that if the game makes you time out while you’re still in fourth place, that’s absurd. Also, I hate this game’s soundtrack. Who thought it would be a good idea to include a yodeling song here? Finally, while the original arcade version of the game included support for up to eight players with multiple cabinets, there is no such feature here, and in fact no multiplayer option at all.

This release of the game includes a new “Hi-Score Mode” that challenges players to score as much as they can in one run before seeing a game over screen. 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 includes both Japanese and English versions of the game, in both its SD ROM and DX ROM formats. In addition, there are various display options, sound options, button mapping, online leaderboards, and save states.

Finally, I should note that this release supports gyroscopic motion control, which is nice… but when I tried it I found it wasn’t to my liking, and is even on in the game’s menus, which is irritating. Also, I did not see any option to adjust the gyroscopic controls in the game’s menus, and even finding the option to just shut it off was difficult.

Overall, Rave Racer is in multiple ways a step forward for the Ridge Racer franchise, and a fantastic Arcade-style Racing game. But not all of the changes are positive ones, the lack of any sort of multiplayer even when the original release supported multiplayer, and the bloated $15 price tag when the game is 30 years old and still light on content all add up to a game that’s very difficult to recommend when you could take that $15 and put it towards a modern game that will last you much longer instead.

tl;dr – Rave Racer is a great Arcade-style Racing game in the Ridge Racer franchise, but it’s woefully lacking content, is missing the original release’s multiplayer, and at $15 for a game that’s 30 years old it seems horribly overpriced. This is a great game, but there just isn’t enough here to justify the price.

Grade: C-

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The Nintendo Switch 2 Difference

Arcade Archives 2 Rave Racer

Genre: Arcade Racing

Players: 1, Online Leaderboards

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Review:

When the Arcade Archives series jumped to Nintendo Switch 2, it did so with a “2” added to the title, and an extra $2 added to the price tag over the cost of the Nintendo Switch release. An while these games don’t have a “Nintendo Switch 2 Edition” upgrade, players who purchased the Nintendo Switch release of the game first will be able to buy the Arcade Archives 2 release on Nintendo Switch 2 discounted to only $3, making this effectively a $3 upgrade. So the question is, what do you get for that $3?

As far as I can tell, not much. I didn’t notice any difference in resolution or framerates, and the only extra feature I saw was a new Time Attack mode where players try to complete the entire game in as short a time as possible.

Beyond this, the only difference I noticed was slightly-improved loading times. On Nintendo Switch, the game takes 7 seconds to load to the main menu and 1 second to start the game, while on Nintendo Switch 2, those times are cut to 6 seconds and 0 seconds (loading up the game is pretty much instant).

Better? Sure. But $2-$3 better? Nuh-uh. If you’re trying to decide whether to get the original Arcade Archives release or the Arcade Archives 2 release, I’d honestly say to save yourself a few bucks and get the original Arcade Archives version… and that’s if you think this overpriced game is even worth it at that price.

tl;dr – Rave Racer is a great Arcade-style Racing game in the Ridge Racer franchise, but it’s woefully lacking content, is missing the original release’s multiplayer, and at $15 for a game that’s 30 years old it seems horribly overpriced. This is a great game, but there just isn’t enough here to justify the price.

Grade: C-

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