Victory Heat Rally is a brand new racing game developed by Skydevilpalm, and published by Playtonic Games. The game is a retro racing game that's a throw back to the likes of the original Mario Kart, and arcade racers like Outrun and Super Hang-On, but with some modern twists.
Previously Netto's Game Room writer Jeremy Schepper spoke with Skydevilpalm to learn more about the project, but I personally didn't know a thing about it. So when Playtonic Games was kind enough to provide us with a review copy before release, we both agreed that it would make more sense if I were the one to take the reigns on this one.
That being said, despite having no previous knowledge of this title, I am a huge fan of racing games, and Jeremy's interview did pique my interest! I'm someone who grew up playing classic racing games like Top Gear (now known as Top Racer) and Mario Kart, so this game looked like it was right up my alley.
But is it?
Was I letting my nostalgia cloud my judgment?
Or is the game unique enough to stand out on it's own?
These were the two questions I asked myself as I started up the game for the first time, and was quickly greeted by the game's unique art style. The mix of 3D and 2D sprites, bright colors, and catchy music drew me in, but I wasn't going to let that sway me. I didn't want to judge a book by it's cover, but the moment the game started and I got into my first race, all my doubts melted away. This was everything I had hoped for, and more.
It wasn't just nostalgia. It was simply... fun!
The Gameplay:
When you first startup Victory Heat Rally, you are greeted with a quick demo on how to play. As a racing game the controls are pretty simple, but it's very clear that they'll take some time to master.
There's an accelerate button to get moving, a break button to slow down (or stop), and there's a drift button that's ultimately going to be the most important of all. It's pretty easy to learn and remember, with steering being handled by either the D-Pad, analog stick, or arrow keys depending on which controller you are using. It's a control scheme that many will already be familiar with, and that helps make the game easier to pick up and play! But don't let that fool you. It may seem easy at first, but it's not. Victory Heat Rally is in reality a high speed action racer, and it's going to put all of your skills to the test!
The thing that stands out about Victory Heat Rally's gameplay is just how fast the game is! Yes there's an accelerate button, but there's also an option to enable auto acceleration. This is a game where you never want to stop moving, and even the game itself does thinks to prevent you from staying still! As you blast across each stage at high speeds, there are obviously going to be moments where you fly off the track or cash, and unlike most racing games out there, Victory Heat Rally actually THROWS you back on course. Does it slow you down a little? Yes. Is it the end of the world when you crash though? Absolutely not! The game wants you to keep moving, and only gives you a slap on the wrist for making fatal mistakes. Of course those who drive perfectly will most likely still be in the lead, but those skilled enough still have a chance to catch up.
As for the drifting in the game, it makes use of a very familiar three charge drift. Upon turning left/right and hitting the drift button, your car will begin to slide, and a bar on the right side of the screen will fill up. Reach the top and that's one level of charge, but reach the top three times and you'll have a max drift that results in a max boost when you let go. This is your main way of gaining speed in the game, and it encourages you to drift as much as possible. Victory Heat Rally also allows you to make use of the technique some racing fans refer to as "snaking" (F-Zero fans will especially be familiar with this), where you hop/drift from left to right on straight-aways and smaller turns to build your boost when not truly drifting. It's a technique that takes some time to get the hang of, and can easily throw you into a wall or off the track if you're not careful. However, once you do get the hang of it, it can be used to give you an edge and win the race. It's also a lot of fun to pull off, and most of the tracks in Victory Heat Rally are designed with snaking and chain drifting combos in mind.
Snake your way down a straight piece of road, drift around a tight corner, drift the opposite way around a smaller corner, boost your way down a winding road with ever changing superelevations, and finish that off with another sharp drift that ultimately launches you off a ramp and flying into the air! That's what Victory Heat Rally is truly about! No items, and no buying upgrades to get an edge! Just pure skill, and the adrenaline pumping as you fly through a wide variety of stages.
Again, it's an easy game to pick up, but one that will take time to master. Stages are filled with twists and turns, cliffs to fly off of, obstacles to avoid, and rough spots on the road that will slow you down; so it is a game where practice makes perfect, and learning the track will be to your advantage... And that becomes addicting REALLY fast.
Characters and Customization:
Before even getting into your first race in Victory Heat Rally, players must select their character and vehicles. At the start of the game only three characters are unlocked, but more are unlocked by playing through the game's main campaign mode.
As for the characters themselves, each one has their own stats, and can be further fine tuned by changing the car's suspension and tires. Both have three options to pick from, and will adjust what type of vehicle you are driving, allowing each player to fine tune each car to fit their own play style. Because of this, some cars will handle better around turns, others will have higher top speeds and do better on straight pieces of road, and then there will be cars that drift like crazy but struggle when there isn't room to drift.
Even though each car's base stats will define what a car can or cannot do, this additional customization still gives you the freedom to make each character your own. You can pick who you like as a character and adjust the car, rather than having to pick someone else. (At least to an extent.) As for the stats themselves, they are as follows: Power, Weight, Speed, Acceleration, and Handling, and are pretty self explanatory.
On top of performance customization, each car has a few color options to select from as well, but these are purely cosmetic and have no impact on the gameplay. Colors also have to be unlocked by using each character and winning races, so they act as rewards for sticking with your favorite characters.
Victory Heat Rally Championship:
After you've selected your character and car options, the main mode is none other than the Championship Mode. Here players get to compete in a wide variety of races and challenge changes, while going through the game's main story.
Unlike most racing games, Victory Heat Rally's Championship Mode is presented as an actual event that's being broadcast on TV. Sally is the host of the event, and before major races and tournaments she is on the front line discussing the upcoming track, and interviewing other racers. These other racers are "Rival" characters to you and your starting three, but as the events go on they can be recruited to your team (thus unlocking them in all modes).
The story isn't anything deep, but it doesn't have to be. It is a simple plot focused on racing, and you are the upcoming champion at the center of it. Sally does a great job keeping the event's high energy, and the other characters are interesting enough to want to beat them. It is a story that lets you live out the dream of being a racer, and that's exactly what a game like this should be about.
As for the actual gameplay in the Championship Mode...
The races themselves are split between multiple rankings, with the game forcing you to begin at the lowest of them all. Each rank then has three complete tournaments within it, with each stage getting harder and harder along the way. The first tournament within the starting rank is clearly there to get you used to the game in general, with each follow up stage throwing in new twists and turns (literally). Stages begin with walls to keep you in line and grass areas to drive through, but eventually they come down and the grass is replaced with cliffs. Victory Heat Rally does a good job easing you into these challenges, but it also doesn't beat around the bush or drag it out too long. You can replay old stages for more practice if you need to, but the game expects you to keep moving forward and keep retrying races until you win. It's honestly the best way to learn the game, and helps your skills improve all the same.
Thankfully winning races isn't required to advance within the Championship Mode. Medals are awarded based upon which place you come in, with a Bronze being awarded for third, a Silver for second, and a Gold for first. As long as you receive a single medal, you're allowed to move onto the next event. However, the game does keep track of how many medals you have in general, and some stages are locked behind these caps. If you only have 74 medals and the next challenge stage requires 75? That means you'll have to go back to a previous race and try again. It's not an issue with the first set of tournaments, but ask your rank increases, so do the medal requirements. (Of course by the time you reach the higher ranks your skills will have improved, so it shouldn't be a problem returning to earlier races.)
One unique thing about the Championship Mode is the fact that races are setup on a "World Map" of sorts. It's a throw back to other retro games like Super Mario Bros 3, and makes it easier to get to events. Rather than navigating menus to find what you want to play, you simply move your car on the overworld onto the event space you'd like to jump into. Here the game displays key information about the race, including the track it takes place on and what type of race it is, but it also shows your past records as well. If you only obtained the Silver, then you can clearly see you've yet to obtain the Gold. If you cleared the race within 1:53 and feel like you can do better, then you can see that and go back and to do better! The game keeps track of all of these records for you, and makes it easy to rechallenge them in a visually appealing way. There isn't really any "exploring" to do on the overworld map, but it's small touches like these that go a long way in the overall presentation.
But what about the races themselves?
Race Types:
Victory Heat Rally includes multiple race types, and each will challenge you in different ways.
Circuit Race
Circuit Races are the "default" standard race type in Victory Heat Rally, and is something nearly everyone who has played a racing game will be familiar with. At the start, you and the other racers, up to 12 total, will line up at a starting position, watch the count down go from 3 to 1, and then take off. As the name implies, your goal here is to make it around the track faster than the others, and be in first by your final lap.
Typically the game will start you out near the back of the line, but the crazy gameplay is designed to help you pull ahead. Different tracks will have different lap requirements based upon their length, but the game does allow you to customize the number of laps when you are playing the free race mode. (Although due to the game's design, setting the lap requirements lower than recommended can result in you always losing.)
Rally Race
As the name implies, Victory Heat Rally has actual Rally Races as well! This isn't a mode that is seen often in video games, outside of Rally Racing based titles, and this game does put it's own spin on it.
To put it simply, Rally Races are linear dashes to the end, where each car takes their turn to run through it. The driver's job is to drive the car, obviously, but a spotter rides along with them and gives them a heads up on what is coming. This information is relayed by describing what type of turn is just ahead (or jump), and that in return helps you decide how sharp of a drift you need to make.
The objective here is to follow said instructions, which are accompanied by a turn arrow flashing on the screen, and pass up as many of the other drivers as possible. The mode is completely about your own skill, and how well you listen to your spotter. In the standard Rally Race mode your place is determined by how fast you complete the track, but in the Grand Prix races the game asks you to pass up the other racers instead (which will happen most of the time anyway).
Rival Race
The Rival Races are basically a game of "knock out." It is another interesting race type, where you and your rival get to go head to head with each other. In this mode there are no lap requirements, but instead health bars that represent when you are going to lose.
The idea is to pull ahead of your rival and watch their health drain for every second you are in the lead. If you stay ahead long enough your rival will be knocked out, but if you get passed, and can't catch up, you instead will be losing the race. It's a race mode that rewards being perfect, and it will continue going on and on and on until someone's health hits 0. In general it is a lot like a Circuit Race, but its unique win conditions make it stand out. It is also by winning these Rival Races that the Rival character is unlocked.
Special "Joker" Races
Outside of these races, each tournament has their own special races as well. These events feature their own clear requirements, and challenge you on your driving skills. One event asks you to knock over as many cones as possible while racing the clock, while another asks you to pass checkpoints while you are in the middle of a boost. There's also a mode where you need to pass as many cars as possible without hitting them, and one that wants you to drive between poles that are close together. As you make your way through the Championship Mode more and more of these challenges become unlocked, and each one is harder than the last.
Grand Prix
The final "race mode" in Victory Heat Rally is none other than the Grand Prix. These are events that are at the end of each tournament within the Championship Mode, and ask you to complete the main events one after another. The Grand Prix is where your Rival will join you and make things harder, and where the game truly tests your skill. When you finish each race within the Grand Prix' set, you'll be awarded points based on which place you finished in. If you have the most points by the end of it all, you win the event, unlock the Rival Race for that area, and are allowed to advance on. However, if you fail to meet the point requirements, you'll have to restart from the beginning.
Thankfully you can reset each individual race if you know you are going to fail, so you don't have to actually restart the entire thing just because you messed up in the 4th race. Instead you can pause the game before crossing that finish line, and hit restart. This means that you can technically "cheese" your way to victory, but that doesn't mean the races themselves are any easier. Grand Prix expect you to be perfect.
Arcade GP:
Outside of the Championship Mode, Arcade GP is there to offer racing fans a more standard "arcade" experience. Here you get to pick from different sets, and go through a series of five back to back races. It is pure arcade racing fun, and at the end you get to see exactly how well you've done. Since races aren't too crazy long this mode only takes roughly ten minutes to go through, but with enough skill that time can be cut down (many of my race set records were around the six to seven minute mark). Overall it's a great mode for those who just want to jump in and knock out a handful of races, but there is still a little bit of a time commitment involved.
Versus:
The Versus Mode is your standard "custom race" mode in the game. Here you can play with up to four other players in local multiplayer, or simply play against the computer.
This mode allows you to then select which race track you want to play on, allows you to customize the time of day, and set how many laps are needed to win the race. As stated previously, you can go lower than the recommended default, but many tracks are designed with it's multiple laps in mind. On smaller tracks setting the lap requirement to one can make it nearly impossible to win if you are starting out in 12th place, while doing so on larger maps is a bit more feasible. So in general you do want to stick with the default as a minimum, but adding more laps will make the races last longer. This mode also has difficulty options for the NPC racers, so you can further fine tune things to match the player's skill level.
This mode is perfect for those who only want to do a single race or two, or for those who want full control over what they play, and when they play it.
Time Attack:
For anyone who enjoys beating the clock, Victory Heart Rally also features a Time Attack mode where you can put your top times to the test! Like in the Versus Mode, Time Attack allows you to choose which race you want to take on, and you can choose from a few different settings. You can do a free race, where it is just you and your time, or you can set your own time an race against your ghost data. While this mode is a staple for the racing genre, it's still nice to see it included here. It is another way you can challenge yourself, and a great way to improve as well.
Is Victory Heat Rally worth playing?
With all of that being said, Victory Heat Rally is a game that knows exactly who it's fanbase is, and it does everything in it's power to deliver a fun and captivating experience. The game is setup in a way that is inviting to newcomers to the arcade racing genre, but also with challenges that will even give long time veterans a run for their money. It's a game all about honing your skills, but it also features modes for all skill levels. It is an inviting yet challenging experience, and that's a fine balance a lot of games fail to achieve... Yet Victory Heat Rally managed to pull it off!
As for the gameplay itself, there is something really satisfying about watching the cars glide down the tracks, and drift around each turn. The controls feel really nice once you've adjusted to using your vehicle of choice, and the fast paced gameplay eventually just clicks. Before you know it you find yourself pulling off drift combos and flying through the air without even a second thought, despite how fast the world is flying by you. It becomes second nature as your body reacts before your mind has time to think, and it feels really really good! It's a rush that many racing fans may already be familiar with, but that doesn't change the fact that Victory Heat Rally pulls it off wonderfully.
That being said, there are a few minor gripes I personally have with the game.
My biggest complaint is the fact that vehicle color settings are not saved in the Championship Mode. It honestly isn't a big deal at all, but when you open the garage on the overworld map and select your character, you are selecting your character at the default. Strangely versus mode does remember your choice, but the main campaign does not. Again, it isn't hard to swap out your car's color really quick, but it also means you cannot save your favorite colors for each character for easy access. It is a minor annoyance, and nothing more. That being said, the fact that this is my "biggest complaint" about the game says a lot!
The other issues I ran across were moments where driving off track threw me into the air, but I've been told this has been corrected in the retail release. That being said, small glitches like these did not ruin my experience with the game, and anything not patched can always be corrected in the future.
On the other hand, those who may suffer from motion-sickness, or have issues with the camera in the game, will be happy to know that there are settings to tone down the shaking and alter the point of view. So if at first glance you feel this will be a problem for you, I'm happy to report that the developers have got you covered. It wasn't a problem for me, but it was nice to see the options nonetheless.
Overall, I really enjoyed my time with Victory Heat Rally. In some ways it did remind me of my childhood favorites, but at the same time it is something all it's own. The unique level design, the crazy twists and turns, the boost focused gameplay, and the high speeds you achieve because of it; it was all a joy to experience. Did I get frustrated from time to time? Sure, the game's a challenge! Did I give up and walk away? No, I'm stubborn! Even then, the difficulty never felt unfair, and any race I lost was because of my own mistakes. When that happened, I simply restarted the race, took a look at what I did wrong, and made sure I didn't make the same mistake twice. (Well, sometimes I did...) Failing was never off putting though, and overcoming my roadblocks felt rewarding. Again, that's what I want out of a racing game, and I was happy to see Victory Heat Rally deliver.
If you are a fan of racing games, or want to try something new, then this game might be perfect for you. This is a fun little game, with countless hours of content, plenty of replayability, crazy fast addicting gameplay, and I enjoyed every single second with it. Sure, it might not be one of my childhood games, but that doesn't prevent it from being an instant classic that I'll look back on fondly.
I'd like to thank Playtonic Games once again for sending me a review copy! I really appreciate you giving me the opportunity to play this gem. Also shout out to Skydevilpalm for being the team behind it! I have a feeling you have a bright future ahead of you. I look forward to seeing what comes next.
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