The Top Racer series (originally Top Fear in North America) became the stuff of legend internationally thanks to its arcade-influenced racing action and tight controls. As time has gone by, it has served as the foundation for Aquirus' Horizon Chase series, which itself allowed players to wonder what a natural evolution of the TR series would feel like with modern quality-of-life improvements and a polygonal art style. This collection is the first time the series has been re-released outside of Evercade cartridges since the initial 16-bit releases. It’s surprising that the games never got more re-releases over the years given how popular they were internationally and how distinctive their cover art was. Compared to a lot of games on the market even today, the boldly-colored artwork stands out.
Top Racer 1, 2, 3000 and the all-new ROM hack of sorts Top Racer Crossroads are included inTop Racer Collectionand offer up an experience that is familiar from game to game, but with tweaks and modern quality-of-life improvements across the board. Back in the day, racing games demanded near-perfection for things like all-encompassing campaigns or a longer racing series to enable you to move on. Unlike games now, if you don’t place high enough in each race, you have to either restart the cup or the race itself depending on if you’re in a campaign or quick race. There’s no rewind feature, but save states are enabled via a pause menu option and make life easier.
Decades of Influence
The series has created lifelong fans over the years and being available on new generations of hardware alongside PC expands its fanbase even more than it could have been in its heyday. Then, arcade-style racers were largely considered to be passé on consoles. Square had games like the Rad Racer series, but there wasn’t much else with rival-based racing and nothing had the same split-screen approach that the Top Racer series has until the third entry. It’s jarring move in a way and one that cuts down on confusion between which cars are rivals on the race track and which one is your primary rival. They’ll generally have a different color scheme than the other basic rivals and just like the Horizon Chase games, avoiding rivals is a key to success.
In playing these games right alongside that franchise, it’s clear how in-tune Aquiris was with this franchise when it comes to little things. Hitting any enemy will bump you backwards and cost you time, while getting jostled between cars can basically spell the end of any chance to place with a pole position finish. Defensive driving when it comes to enemies alongside offensive attempts to gain track position are the name of the game to succeed. Having a suite of nitros available helps as well and unlike the Horizon Chase games, where you can either find more on the track or build up more in the sequel, you only get what you start out with – making it important to not waste them.
Tricks on Tracks
The hill-filled designs of Top Racer’s tracks ensures that you need to avoid being careless across the board. Aiming for the top speed at all times is natural, but if you aren’t mindful of hills or fast turns, you may easily smack into an enemy you can’t see and given how the game brings rival sprites into frame the last second, you have to be careful for hills especially. Getting knocked back on the first lap is one thing, but on the final lap and being without any nitros to make up for the lost ground can be a killer. The addition of save states makes this less of an issue, but a rewind feature would be even better for situations like this.
QUByte Interactive Announces Delay to Top Racer Collection
Top Racer Collection goes from January to March release date.
I can see why they would just stick to a save state instead, however, because a rewind feature can make racers too easy and in games like this that were designed around getting as close to a perfect run as possible across the board, but I found that making a save state after every race when the results are shown and everything is static is the best time to set one up. Each of the four games has several slots available and going through game-by-game is a fascinating look through history for a series rooted in the Lotus games on the Amiga platform and then continuing into the Top Racer series before that name was used for other games over the years without a direct lineage to the originals.
Classics Made Anew
Top Racer evolves from being bare-bones track-wise in the first game to having a lot more risks taken in the sequel, with the addition of more variable terrain and tougher tracks. The addition of the future-set Top Racer 3000 offers up something we haven’t seen in many years – a realistic-style racing game in a way, but set in the far-future. Now, you really have either Wipeout or F-Zero-style games in that market and there hasn’t been anything that goes for a regular racing game vibe with a future setting. The influence of this somewhat forgotten series over the years has been impressive and it’s a testament to how well-crafted the games are that they hold up this well with minimal tweaking.
TheTop Racersoundtracks are the stuff of legend and have held up remarkably well, which wasn’t too surprising given how well the Horizon Chase OSTs are and they’re basically a modernization of what Barry Leitch did in this series and that franchise has him as the composer as well. Every included game has a catchy soundtrack, with Top Racer 3000’s standing out really nicely thanks to its futuristic setting and sci-fi influences throughout. Sound effect-wise, bumping against cars has a nice thud while a big crash feels impactful.
Closing Comments:
TheTop Racer Collectionfeatures a lot of the same core gameplay across its four titles, but each of them excels at what it does. Those craving something new in the arcade racing realm who missed out on the series in its 16-bit heyday should check this out. Anyone who loved Outrun or has enjoyed Horizon Chase Turbo or ’80s Overdrive as more modern homages to this franchise will have a blast with each entry. It’s fascinating to have all of the early games in one collection and see the evolution from the earliest entries into the later ones, with new Crossroads content making it easy to hope for a new full-on Top Racer game down the line.
Top Racer Collection
Version Reviewed: PlayStation 5
