Famicom Grand Prix - F1 Race Review by: Bluey5 - 8.5/10
Famicom Grand Prix: F-1 RaceIntroduction: Famicom Grand Prix: F-1 Race is a racing game made by Nintendo for the Famicom Disk System(FDS) released in 1987. This game can be very hard and I recommend you playing its predecessor: F-1 Race. The only reason why I recommend that is because it could at least help you with braking at most. But that's probably it, but also because F-1 Race is also a great game. Famicom Grand Prix: F-1 Race is a top-down(birds-eye) racing game where you, the player, controls a Formula 1 car. So without furtherance, lets get this review start shall we?
Difficulty:9
This game can prove to be very challenging for players not familiar with this game. Even then it's still difficult! But with enough practice and familiarity, it can actually be pretty easy. The reason why it is so hard is the hard to learn controls, hard to play and the controls can be irritating! A horrible combination! All of this will be explained below. The game increase in difficulty as you progress through the few levels it has which will also be explained below. Another reason why this game is so hard is because of the intuitive turning system. There are also two objects in your way; the other racers and oil slicks. I don't even know why those are there because the other racers never needs a pit stop so obviously there cars should be fine. But they are there and when contacted, they will slide you ALL THE WAY into the off rode area. It could be very unfortunate.
Depth:8
This game has quite a lot to offer. The cars have a certain amount of Health, tire life and fuel, which decreases if you crash into the walls, crash another car, or drive off road. But don't fret! This can all be restored by going to the pit stops located near the finish line. Doing this takes up racing time, but you can does this faster by tapping the A button as fast as possible. Winning races awards you with money. You can use this money by buying better cars!
There is a total of 24 cars in this game! That's a lot of cars for a Famicom Disk System(FDS)game isn't it? They each has there own price and unique capabilities. The best car in this game costs $50,000,000! That is a ton of cash, and requires a good player and a dedicated player. Tire performance is indicated by the color of the car. Blue being worst to Red being the best. Green color cars indicates that it has wet tires. You can own up to three cars at once and can select each one of them prior to the start of the race. You can also select a different car you own by forfeiting the match and pressing continue. You will NOT be able to select the car you played with for the whole Prix when this happens and this can only be performed if you have enough cars. Doing this with only one car results in you starting over the WHOLE race, so be careful. You have three gauges that shows the vehicle's conditions. The body gauge decreases whenever you crash into a hazard like another car or wall. The tire gauge decreases based on how hard you steer the car, which can get very frustrating. The gas gauge of course decreases as you drive and even more when you activate turbo, but this really shouldn't be a GREAT factor. If the body gauge is depleted, you will have to switch out. The race ends if you have no more cars to race with.
The steering of this game is what really makes this game. It is very unique and hard to master! This is very important to learn and the one of the key factors in this game. Practice makes better. Or even perfect! You steer the car from the vehicle's perspective instead of your perspective. Pressing right on the d-pad will steer the car clockwise and pushing left steers the car counter clockwise. Pressing left or right once turns the car at a 22.5 degree angle, while pressing them twice turns the car at a 45 degree angle. It is crucial to learn your angles for this game! The player can hold down the d-pad to steer quicker but might result in over-steering if your not careful. I recommend you tap the d-pad instead of holding for better turning.
Story:N/A
This simply doesn't have a story. Plain and simple.
Addictiveness:7
Because of the games increasing difficulty, I wouldn't come back to it to much. But then again, I do because of how much the game offers and the amount of cars you can unlock. There is a lot to do in this game including a time trial mode for all of the tracks to see how good of a time you can get! Mainly it is sort of addictive because of the depth of the game.
Sound:8
I for one really like the songs in this game. The sounds is very good and sounds great. Especially the menu music, that is really catchy! They are certainly good compared to other games, but some games have better sound than this one. Although, this game's soundtrack and sound effects is excellent! The over-steering sound gets very annoying to me as it happens to me often! Other than that, great sound.
Graphics:8
This game looks fantastic! The exhaust looks great, the cars look awesome, the tracks are well designed! The background of the tracks is also stupendous! I like how each track has it's own color in some of its parts. The pit crew are usually the color as your car which is very fun and funny to see. But sometimes the cars glitch.
The number one position car usually flickers two colors and only ended up in first place unless you can pass it. As the car rapidly change colors, if you pass it and pass up other cars in the later places, they end up like that sometimes as well. It can also cause the whole game to do that for a short time also, which can result in you messing up. Other than this, it is great!
*NOTE: THIS MIGHT ONLY HAPPEN BECAUSE OF THE PLUGIN OR ON CERTAIN COMPUTERS.
Overall:8
Yeah! This game is just plain awesome. It has intuitive controls, a unique steering system, lots of cars to choose from, good graphics, and is generally a challenging game! The only fault in this game with me is the problem I stated above in my graphics section. So other than that it is a great classic and a must play game. One thing that is that the game is in Japanese. Making selections isn't hard because most of it is in English. But the green and red Japanese word you can probably infer what those mean. GREEN=GOOD! RED BAD! HA! In the NAME section of the game at the main menu, to put in your personal stuff is all in Japanese, so you will have to be intelligent to put in your information. But that probably won't matter to you being as that is the only place where you see that. You probably shouldn't even use it! I only used it because I like to sort of be a person with completion. But that is a contradiction because I usually get annoyed by those type of people.
But why are you reading me ramble on!? Go play this amazing game RIGHT NOW! You should like it.
Have fun.
Graphics
8 Sound
8 Addictive
7 Depth
8 Difficulty
9
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