Ring Racers: Revisited

• 3 April, 2025
• Opinion
• Review

Last year, I reviewed Ring Racers a day after launch. My opinions on it were pretty negative and I generally found it really frustrating to play. However, a year later, friends of mine were still playing it... I figured, with a whole year having passed, I could give it another shot. Worst that could happen is I enjoy watching it more than playing it. That's not so bad, right? So, I installed version 2.3 and gave it a whirl, playing with modded characters with pals.

I was rusty with the controls, but once I got the hang of it? Wow, did it feel so much better. It felt good. Not only that, but I was having fun playing it. It felt so unreal.

Improvements

My biggest gripe at the time was the massive, massive tutorial the game forced you to go through. Not only was it given multiple points to exit it now, but it's not entirely required! However, when I started replaying, I didn't go through the tutorial again. I just picked it up and fumbled with drifting a bit. However, upon being re-introduced to the ring mechanic without being handheld, I understood the mechanics of it a lot better. It's really similar to the coins in Mario Kart 7 and onward. You collect rings, but they don't immediately give you a speed boost. Using them will give you a temporary boost in speed, which can really help when you've fallen behind or are struggling to pick up speed. It adds a weird mix of strategy into the game, which, is really fun!

Another big criticism of mine was the way the tricks were implemented. by hopping on a trick panel, you're prompted to do a trick via inputting a direction. This caused a lot of struggle due to adjusting your position mid-air and accidental taps in the wrong direction. This was completely addressed! Now, to preform a trick, you have to press the direction AND the A button. This prevents a lot of misinputs and actually makes the gameplay flow a lot easier for me! Timing is tricky, but once you got it down, it's easy and natural!

The biggest hurdle to me enjoying the game was its singleplayer campaign. The rivals system, while cool, was executed poorly for me. The AI rubberbanded too close to you and it felt like you were never really given a chance to get ahead. Comebine that with how this game, similar to Mario Kart Wii, often has absurd scenarios happening thanks to its wide variety of items... and it gets really frustrating, really fast. However, that too was fixed!! It's actually playable on a harder difficulty, and it doesn't feel like I'm not good enough or that the game is holding my hand to play! It's fun, and I like it?? Its accessibility features have been expanded upon and its warning has been appropriately moved, as well. I'm really, really happy for that.

Reflection

In hindsight, its biggest flaw was how eager it was to differentiate itself from Sonic RoboBlast 2 Kart. It overwhelmed a lot of players with its mechanics instead of slowly introducing them and trusting the player to experiment, and it ended up turning away a lot of players. The way a developer saw a lot of its reception, too, felt really frustrating, and turned me off more. There was a feeling at the time that if you struggled with Ring Racers, it was because you hated change, and it made me so upset. Not only that, but there was a LOT of fumbles regarding accessibility... Needles to say, it pissed me off!! I wanted to like Ring Racers, and it felt like I was being spat on for struggling to connect with it.

Thankfully, it seems the developers were humbled and took away good lessions from the fiasco that was Ring Racers's initial release. It's genuinely such an improvement from what it first used to be, and I'm so glad.

In the future, I feel like tutorials should always be optional. Not only that, but don't overwhelm the player with every single detail. Not only is it not necessary, it will overcomplicate things and make the player frustrated. Give them the basic tools, and offer the option to learn about more in-depth mechanics. I don't want to feel like I'm going to school to learn to play a game...

All in all, I suggest giving Ring Racers a second (or first) try if you've been hesitant on playing it. It's genuinely not as bad as it was on release, and you might end up being pleasantly surprised by it!