Allow me to preface this review by saying that Race The Sun is, to my understanding, a mobile game that made it's way to the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita, and probably several other systems.

Initially I was unsure as to how I felt about mobile games landing on consoles or even handhelds, but over time I decided that it wasn't necessarily a bad thing, so long as the games were good. The question remains though: is Race The Sun a good game?



Graphics:
5/10
Average.

Can any other word properly describe a minimalist approach to graphics that's so minimalistic that it ignores the usage of textures, shaders, and even, with precious little exception, colors?

Now don't take the "Average" as me saying that Race The Sun is on par with other PS4 games, because it isn't even close enough to joke about that. Nor should the word average be taken as me saying that the game is graphically on par with other indie games on the PS4, because it isn't. Average here means that it's plain. Nothing makes anything in the game stand out visually, and at the same time nothing in it is bad enough to say th at the graphics are bad. They're plain, yes. They're unengaging, to be sure. And they're also lacking in appeal, definition, and any real design most of the time. They're almost all just basic geometrical shapes that you could find preprogrammed in a 3D design system like Blender, but they all work in the game.

Literally nothing in this game is aesthetically pleasing to the eye, but also true is that literally nothing in this game is aesthetically offensive. It's just there. Not good. Not bad. Just plain.


While the appearance of the game, from objects to powerups and even effects, was meant to be simple and without definition, it isn't something that I can rate up. On the flipside however, I cannot rate it down for doing this intentionally. That would be like me downrating Super Mario World for Mario wearing red, or a pixel art game for being pixelated. It's a conscious design choice.

Highlights:
•Nothing, but that's the point



Sound:
5/10
Average.

Yeah, here we are again, back at average. This time however, I say average for a different reason... is what I would say if that were true, but it isn't.


Let's start with the sound effects so we can save the best for last.
The sound effects are, well, very barebones. There's nothing here to wow you or even stand out, much like the graphics. The developers seem to have placed sound effects only where they were absolutely necessary in order to keep the action from feeling awkward or disjointed. To clarify what I mean by that, if you crash into something there's an explosion; if you pick up an item, there's a chime; when you move on the menu, there's a sound, and so on. Just enough sounds for it to make sense and not feel hollow or make you think your speakers are broken.

The sound effects themselves are simple as well. The quality isn't bad, but it isn't good either. It's just there.


The music is the redeeming factor of the audio, as it were. It's actually really good, or maybe it just seems that way because it's the only thing that isn't entirely minimalistic in nature.

And yet it is. While the music is good, it's also barely there. There's a song or two that sounds good, but that's just it. There's A song or two. There's one that plays when you play the actual game, one at the game over screen, and one when the sun begins setting, if you manage to play well enough to survive until the sun sets. The songs are all very good, but you had better like them because they aren't going anywhere -- there's no waiting for the next one or pressing the skip button, they're just there for the entirety of your play session.


In short, the audio takes notes from the graphics, and stays as bare as is possible without going so far that the players refuse to accept it. The only thing the audio improves on with this formula, is that what it offers is partly good, and not just kind of there.

Highlights:
•All three music tracks are good



Story:
N/A

There's a theme here, but not really a story. You are a solar powered plane that tries to avoid "death" by flying as quickly toward the sun as possible while dodging all of the obstacles. It's a metaphor about how we try our best to stay alive, desperately clawing our way through a world filled with mortal dangers at every turn, taking medicines, dieting, exercising, and more, all to avoid the inevitable. Perhaps one of the game over quotes says it better than I could when it says "Death, inevitable yet unexpected".

It's like... a really depressing view of the hard truth behind life -- we all die sometime. Perhaps though, it misses the important point in that: prepare, and then enjoy what you have left.



Depth:
4/10
Low.

There just isn't much to be done here. Oh, there are four modes of gameplay, but that isn't as deep as it sounds, as one of the modes is just a harder version of the main mode and one is just a glorified credit sequence. Speaking of...

The main mode in Race The Sun has you moving left and right as you try to avoid hitting the objects in the level that would spell the end of you. It's essentially an endless runner in that you cannot win, and you simply dodge obstacles as you're constantly propelled forward.

There are however, upgrades that you can equip to make the gameplay easier, and you can even jump later on once you unlock the ability and grab the jump powerups found lying around the zones. Still even the powerups and jumps aren't that big of a deal. The only really important one is the one that lets you turn more easily. Yes, this game starts off using poor control as a gameplay scheme. It works though.

Additionally the levels are remade everyday, meaning that you cannot simply memorize your way through the game, not entirely anyway. The basic structure remains the same from my experience, but the change is there.

Finally there are warps. These are probably the best part of the game, and they make me wonder if the gameplay inside these portals is how the entire game should have played. The hazards are less varied, but the gameplay is more enjoyable. Maybe that's just because the other becomes repitious, I'm not sure, I just know it's fun.


The second mode is apocalypse, and it's essentially just a difficulty switch. Where most games have opted for a difficulty select option, Race The Sun opted to have an additional mode instead.


The third mode is labyrinth, and it's exactly what it sounds like: a big maze. This mode can actually be beaten, but it takes a lot of plays as there are many places in the maze where you can end up trapping yourself in, and crashing into the wall that literally is unmissable down that particular path.


Then there's credits which is just that: credits. You can fly around as they scroll by, but nothing happens. Simple enough, and at least it makes the credits mildly engaging, but it's not really worth playing.

Highlights:
•Multiple play modes
•New worlds every day



Addictiveness:
6/10
Good.

Race The Sun isn't a great game, but it can prove engaging, especially for old arcade gamers like myself. You start off dying frequently, probably running anywhere from thirty seconds to two minutes, but you get a little better with each play, as you pass one hazard and then another. It's largely skill based, but there's also a lot of luck at play. And every time you die you know that it was your fault, or at least that it was an unfair death because you didn't know that obstacle would be there... but now you do.
And so it is that, armed with this new knowledge, you proceed to play it again, knowing that you won't die to the same trap again...
And then half of the time you still do.
Then you play again until you overcome it and die at another point that you know you could overcome now that you know what's there, and so the vicious cycle continues on.


So while this game has little to bring you back to it once you reach the maximum level (as in you level up to the max level, not you reach the last zone), when you are playing it there's a certain pull to keep playing and trying to get further each time. Then the next day it resets and you have to learn all over again.


And with that in mind, I give this game a "Good" for addictiveness, not because it has anything to make it addictive, but because the mind and pride of fans of high score games will push them onward to gain a better score over and over again.

Highlights:
•Manages to gnaw at that "Just one more play" part of a high score seeker



Difficulty:
5/10
Average.

Didn't see that one coming, did you? Yeah, I'm tired of writing it too, but this game gives me no choice.

Race The Sun is a difficult game to rate in this category because it's a game that is impossible to beat, and as such, it has no goal. Now how can it be difficult to not complete an objective? It's about as difficult as watching your favorite show, while not quite being as difficult as watching reruns of Peewee Herman, the former in that you just watch what happens and that's it, and the latter in that it's incredibly difficult to tolerate that voice...or any part of it actually.


However, the obstacles are difficult to miss as often as not, and so if you want to get a good score, it's going to present you with a real challenge. But then are self imposed challenges allowed under this rating? Normally no, but what else is there to rate here?


Highlights:
•It's as difficult as you make it? I don't know



Overall:
5/10
Average.

Why not again?
Race The Sun isn't a good game at all. It also isn't a bad game at all. The developers shot for plain and simple, they shot for an unremarkable state, and they nailed all of those, but they did it a little too well and the game ended up stuck somewhere just short of good. It's nice as a quick time killer, but it works better as a mobile game, or on a handheld if you take your Vita with you everywhere you go and don't mind the slightly unnecessary load time lengths which are a few seconds longer than need be for a game this remarkably simple.

What to pay: I would get this on sale for $0.99 to $1.99. I could allow for a dollar or two more, but I wouldn't push it as high as $5 unless you're just really into endless runners, in which case you won't do any better than Race The Sun, at least, not on a dedicated gaming machine.

So there you have it: Race The Sun is an overly simple endless runner that offers you fun in very short bursts. It's either your thing, or it's not. There isn't much middle ground.

I myself am aware of this game, I saw gameplay of it and how it functioned, and I feel it is fun enough... for mobile. In particular I knew some things about the accessibility. 1, it was on PS Vita, 2, it was available for free to certain subscribers at some point in time. This also eluded to me that you did actually have to pay for it, and like you say at the end, I thought it was a dollar or two. But five? The game is fun enough to come back to for short burst every few days... for mobile. The idea that it pushed itself onto home console Playstation just isn't that much of a sound decision to me, especially when it's the same flippin game made for MOBILE. Not much optimization, just give it to people who can afford Sony gaming consoles but can't get a phone. I mean I don't have a phone, not like I'm really missing that Angry Birds action though. So yes, the game did look neat, had a smidge of an identity to the point where I don't feel it's overclassed by anything else on the market, and could give me a level of short enjoyment if I can only afford short enjoyment for 15 minutes, but when you get right down to it, it's mobile.

Mecha Leo : Heh I actually didn't know what it costed since I bought it on a flash sale about a year or two ago, I just meant to emphasize that it wasn't worth $5 to me, as a means of setting a maximum price. After reading your reply however, I checked: believe it or not this game costs $10 on PSN. TEN DOLLARS. Seriously? No, it's nowhere near that value when you could easily buy something in the Arcade Archives collection, a classic PSX game, or even some smaller PS3, PS4, PSP, or PS Vita games for $10 or less. To me $2.99 is a stretch, because yeah, it's a time killer for when you have a few minutes to pass but no more, and it isn't often I sit down in front of my PS3 or PS4 for just five or ten minutes of gaming. On the PS Vita that makes more sense, but still nowhere near $10, no, still $1 to $3.


As a mobile game it holds up just fine, but this isn't a mobile platform. I'm okay with mobile games like Zenonia charging $10 on PSN because that's a legitimate price for those games, but Race The Sun? No, no endless runner is worth ten bucks in my opinion.


Anyway, thanks so much for reading my review and commenting! I hope you enjoyed it.

First the Flower game, now this one, you've got a small theme going for some out of the box indie games. Stuff like this remind of older console games that were carried over from even older computer systems, the transition (or mobile, in this case) makes you question making direct port-overs.

Interesting...This game seems like it would be mildly entertaining for maybe 40 minutes or so before it gets old. And after you've quit, there's, nothing calling you back to it. lol Great review, dude. I really liked reading it. I've heard of this game before. But I had no idea what it was.

endings : lol Yeah well I like to try different concepts in games. I also try to restrict myself to a limit of five dollars per item on PSN purchases, so I usually end up with random indie games that I grab from a flash sale, hence Flower and Race The Sun, as well as a few others that I've yet to review. I do end up with a lot of duds like this one, but I land enough really good ones to make up for it too.

As for those kinds of ports, to me they often serve to remind us of why gaming changed. Usually games were made the best they could be, but they were held back by huge restrictions in technology, and now that we're free of those specific restrictions, we want to port them over? lol But mobile... I wouldn't mind a direct port of Zenonia 3, but most mobile games need to stay mobile. There are very few exceptions, and Race The Sun is not one of them.



ユーザせんぱい : Pretty much what you said. lol It was a blast the first time I played it, and for a few days after I could still pick it up, but it was already losing it's appeal after day one. Now I don't touch it. Games like this work on mobile because you can install them, play a bit, and uninstall (when they're free) with no issues. But on console you have to purchase them and that simplicity goes from a good design to tragic outcome.

Thanks man, I really appreciate that. It's not a bad game, I just can't recommend it personally because the replay value beyond leveling up to twenty five is exactly zero for me.

Eirinn : Yeah, it would have been much better as a phone game. Or some dirt cheap portable game. You can't put it next to a game like Persona 5, or Overwatch, or you know, a good game...