Recent reviews by DarkSlayer

If you're just jumping in to try this game, you’re in for something fun. I’ll break down some of the highs and lows. A fair warning: if you're a die-hard CTR or Mario Kart purist, try not to let that color your experience too much. This game does its own thing, and that's kind of the point.

It’s been a wild ride watching this game grow since 2021. From early betas to random feature drops, every version had its own charm and chaos. The devs have clearly had fun with this project, and so have the players. It's finally in early access now, and honestly? It feels like a well-earned milestone after everything that came before.

• Characters: The official roster has three types of characters (single, duo, and trio in one kart). Some of the characters are currently locked but will be released during early access.
  
• Animation & Voiceovers: So many! Every character has its own animations for trick jumping, high jumping, taking boost pads, and getting hit. Picking up, mounting, using, and discarding items all have unique animations for different items. These animations vary for each character and character type. Many voiceovers were recorded for each as well.
  
• Mechanics: The game uses a reserve system triggered by timed mini-turbos (MTs) during a drift, which fill a boost bar and result in speed boosts. Each mini-turbo gives a temporary burst of speed (the third boost allows higher jumps) and cumulatively fills your reserve %, which determines how much faster your kart moves than its base speed. You can gain reserve by trick jumping, boosters, teleport items, and more. Reserve depletes over time, with different rates for ground and air. Clipping walls and air-drifting deplete it faster.
  
• Items: These are still a work in progress. There’s a health bar system, and most items are auto-aim... BUT they have their own uniqueness and perks—especially in a fast-paced game with verticality. The dev plans to add trap items and improve both manual and auto-aim mechanics. Some of these changes are already noticeable in the battle arena.
  
• Music: The main menu is a banger. Tracks, battle arenas, and game modes all feature great music.
  
• Tracks: Some are simple, some are awesome, and others get better the more you practice, as they involve very precise techniques. Some tracks have alternate paths that open in different laps. Players have discovered crazy shortcuts over time. If you're new, don't be discouraged. Have fun at your own pace and don’t compare yourself to elite players or world record holders!
  
• Game Modes: There are many unique ones. Road Breaker is fun. Quick Cut lets you build roads based on what you collect on the track, allowing you to create your own shortcuts! More modes will unlock during early access.
  
• Customization: You can create character presets (both modded and original content) and use them in races. Certain karts support stickers for additional customization.
  
• Replay and Replay Tool: Not only can you race against ghosts or view leaderboard ghost replays for each track, but you can also record your own gameplay. Replays are saved in the main menu’s "Replay" category, where you can watch from any camera angle and take screenshots or videos.
  
• Modding Tool: The cherry on top. You can port or create mods for any character, kart, track, or wheel, and even build fully original content thanks to the dev’s dedicated modding tools! Some users have even created new vehicle types like skateboards, hoverboards, and bikes for more kart variety!
  
• Mods: Over 1400 and counting. I like the official characters a lot. While they may not be as goofy-looking as some AAA games’ characters, they work well for a kart racer. On top of that, you can download countless mods from the Steam Workshop or create your own—drive a chair, a bed, or even a lemon as a character. Everything is possible. Hopefully, more Sonic-related content is coming soon :)

There’s more to discover for yourself.

• Audio Feedback: From receiving damage to clipping a wall, some sound effects are missing.
  
• Tracks: The current official tracks don't fully utilize the modding tool’s capabilities. Modded tracks can include hazards, various ground types (jump pads, healing/damage floors), portals, and gliding paths—elements that are currently missing from the main tracks. Hopefully, future tracks will include these cool features.
  
• Items: They're better once you understand how they work, but more manual-use items would make them feel more impactful and skill-based. Missing sound effects should be added. Better indicators of what's targeting or approaching you would help—current feedback indicators are too small and need to be scaled up.
  
• Menu UI/UX: The developer is constantly improving it, but it's still a work in progress. It feels a bit cluttered and compact. It could be cleaner and easier to navigate with better category separation.

Very decent game with polished mechanics.

Too many "Wow" moments. The game has many mechanics and platformer fun sections. I highly recommend it

This game has 20 charming cast of DreamWorks characters, each with their unique driving style and special abilities! The tracks are beautifully designed and packed with twists, turns, and shortcuts and even hidden paths.

One of the game's most appealing features is its branching tracks. As you race, you'll encounter keys that unlock secret passages and alternate routes, adding an extra layer of strategy to the gameplay. This element of choice keeps the races fresh and unpredictable, ensuring that no two runs are ever the same. Of course time trial will have the optimal lines and paths but for races it doesn't make a difference.

There is also a clever item system that rewards skillful driving. Other than the items you collect from boxes, collecting musical notes (yellow and purple) scattered throughout the tracks allows you to unlock extra items. There are plenty of ways to sabotage your rivals and secure victory.

The voice acting is just great as their banter is consistently witty, sarcastic, and downright hilarious. Of course my favorite is the noble steed (aka Donkey) and his love for waffles.


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Edit: 15/12/2023


I've been thoroughly enjoying this game for quite some time now. I've 100%ed everything except for the shop, which requires me to complete quests for each character. I also tried the online matchmaking with few people, which was okay but had a few missing features. While the overall experience is positive, I've noticed several key areas that could be improved for a better kart racing experience.

Here are my detailed observations and suggestions:

1. Drifting Visibility: Currently, when other racers drift, it's not visually apparent; they seem to be driving normally but gain speed unexpectedly. This makes the race less captivating, specially during split-screen or online races, as there are no drift visuals for any karts except your own.
Suggestion: Introduce visual effects for all players' drifting maneuvers to enhance race clarity.

2. Track Selection in Matchmaking In both Private Room and online matchmaking, the track selection is restricted to only 7 out of the 20 available tracks, which feels quite limiting. I'd like to see more options for track selection, so that we can choose the tracks we prefer.
Suggestion: Expand track selection to include all available tracks for a more varied racing experience.

3. Item Effectiveness in Races: The items, especially when racing against real players, seem unbalanced. The first-place racer often receives multiple boost items that further their lead, while offensive items for chasing players have a very short range, making it hard to hit other racers with them. There are some homing items but they disappear after 1 second which is not enough to track other racers.
Suggestion: Balance item distribution and effectiveness to ensure fair competition.

4. CPU Difficulty Customization: The option to adjust CPU difficulty in private lobbies is missing. While 'Lightning Mode' is available, having the ability to race against 'No Mercy' difficulty would be a welcome challenge, especially since the current setting feels too easy. Online public matchmaking is even worse since my friend and I can lap the CPU in a 3-lap race!
Suggestion: Introduce more difficulty setting options for CPU racers in private lobbies and possibly the online lobbies.

5. Buggy Section in 'Museum of Fine Arts': There's an inconsistent buggy area involving, particularly at a shortcut involving metallic beams and bouncy surfaces where karts often get stuck. Sometimes the kart just stops completely in midair or gets stuck during the bounce to clear the shortcut.
Suggestion: Address this collision issue to ensure consistency in time trials, specially since it is the shortest path.

6. Drift Boost Glitch: Sometimes, after charging a drift to purple and releasing it for a boost, the kart abruptly stops before boosting. This is notably frequent in the 'Far Far Away' track.
Suggestion: Investigate and rectify this erratic kart behavior.

7. Downhill Driving Inconsistency: The kart's reaction to downhill slopes is unpredictable, often leading to excessive bouncing that affects both speed and control. This is mainly due to the ramps before the downhill sections, which cause the kart to fall from a height and bounce repeatedly until it reaches a flat surface. The bounces also have unpredictable effects on the kart’s speed, sometimes slowing it down and sometimes maintaining it. This makes it hard to drive downhill consistently and smoothly, as the kart does not follow the downward direction after landing from a jump. Moreover, the kart angle doesn't match the surface inclination during landing which might be a bug.
Suggestion: Refine the physics to provide a more consistent downhill driving experience.

8. Effectiveness of Magical Paths: The magical paths, while a novel idea, mostly end up slower than normal routes due to the lack of drifting and boosting on them, making them less viable in time trials. This is because on the normal roads, you can drift and charge your boost, but on the magical paths, there are only ramps that do not give any landing boost.
Suggestion: Adjust these paths to offer competitive speed by making the ramps give higher landing boosts or add some turbo pads.

9. Landing Boost Mechanics: The current boost gain from landing is minimal and often non-existent. This makes the landing boost unreliable and ineffective, as it does not reward the player for performing trick jumps most of the time. As a result, I usually prefer to drift and charge boost on the normal roads, rather than using the ramps and the magical paths. This reduces the variety and the fun of the gameplay, as well as the potential for strategic choices.
Suggestion: Enhance the boost from landings, making it more noticeable and consistent. One possible way to do this is to scale the boost based on the duration of the jump, or to give a temporary speed increase on landing that is proportional to the current speed.

10. Demanding Trophy Collection: Collecting trophies/items for 100% completion requires playing through all 5 CUPs using all character and taking all magical paths, which seems excessively demanding. Furthermore, this must be done in all different modes namely "Relaxed", "Regular", "Turbo" and "Lightning" to have 100% displayed there (a total of 400 CUPs if math didn't fail me).
Suggestion: Consider adjusting the requirements to make this more attainable, specially since all the items can be collected with one character.

Overall, I really enjoy this game, but I think the above listed things could be improved to make it even better. I hope the developers will consider addressing these issues.

A game Kyo can't beat

Very fun game and nice level design and boat mechanics. It has local multiplayer with split-screen. Great overall

"Eat my dust"
⠀ ／l、
（ﾟ､ ｡ ７
⠀ l、ﾞ ~ヽ
  じしf_, )ノ
in all seriousness, playing this game is a blast. This demo comes with 20 challenges and 3 main tracks + a playground. The tracks give so much freedom so I took this moment to find shortcuts and exploits :P

I have been enjoying time trial. You can download other player ghosts and race against them. You can also watch their record replay to find some juicy shortcuts, better lines and tech.

I also enjoy the duel mode. After players add each other in the game, they can start a duel challenge with Best out of 5. Each player sends a ghost one by one and the other person will race against it. You only have one shot!

The game physics is nice and drifting complements the high speed resulting from building reserve. The game is very competitive at high level so don't get discouraged just looking at the leaderboard. Everyone grinds at their own pace.

It discord community is cool and friendly. The dev is also actively checking feedbacks and try to improve/polish the game a lot.

Speaking of which, a community member made this website that shows people records for each track and a global leaderboard with additional point system. It's quite cool and very handy. Feel free to check it out: https://the-karters-community.com/

Overall, I really enjoyed this game and I do recommend people to try it out.

PS: I just had to rewrite my old comment since it was short :P

I've been a fan of this game since early 2021 when I tried the demo and been following the progress ever sense. It has such a captivating platformer adventure with interesting story. The levels are crafted in stages of different type in some kind of 3D limbo. Moreover, each stage has different collectibles (prima, bloodrock, moderats), duel character puzzles (just fun) and platforming elements. Enemies have adequate moves and they are not completely brain dead. The character himself will unlock various abilities along with his companion; Dros. You can unlock journal entries that expand world lore and flesh out character backstories. This opens up room for exploration (it was a given knowing that there are collectibles scattered in all around and in sneaky places) :D

For me the first selling point was actually the art itself but there is so much to love about this game in general. It has a speedrun mode with timer for each individual level. The devs been friendly and engaging with the community in discord, listening to feedback and are still trying to add more features!

Overall, I really loved it so far. I will be spending more hours to complete everything and then compete in time trial and possibly speedrun later :D.

PS: I received my copy from backing the game in the kickstarter campaign.

I first played this game during alpha and it was great. Here I am again playing through the campaign an seeing all the nice additions added to this game. I had a blast. The game might be challenging (specially getting used to the flying mechanics) but once you get better at it, it feels really satisfying.

Drifting allows you to turn at full speed and also gain extra speed if you drive in a snake shape path. Hovering in mid air requires the usage of both analog sticks to control tilt and orientation in all directions. There is ghost replay with open cam and also you can race against multiple ghosts by selecting whichever you want. I had fun competing against my friends time but also learning from top player ghosts.

Some levels have another secret exit which unlock 3 extra hardcore mode tracks. The background is flashy and plays with the beat. A lot of atmospheric and visual effects which go well with the music. There is in-game custom tracks and map maker so you will have enough to play :D.

Overall, I really enjoyed and recommend this game. I am still not done as there are a lot of maps I haven't tried yet.

It is with great pleasure to inform you that this game has surpassed my expectations that I ended up gifting a copy to a friend. It's just great so stop overthinking and purchase!

With all seriousness though, the game is simple to pick up, the campaign introduces a lot of the game mechanics, various atmospheric effects and a nice story!

I have been enjoying the arcade levels and facing other people ghosts. This game has a lot of advance mechanics for gliding and air movements. Also, most importantly, there are checkpoints in many places to make your life easier.