Fast Rmx Review

Fast RMX resonates the most when you are, well, going fast. Thankfully, the game boasts 60 FPS in both console and handheld mode, and even at expert speed, there are no noticeable framerate drops.

• • Platforms:
  Switch
• Developer: Shin'en Multimedia
• Publisher:Shin'en Multimedia
• Release: March 03, 2017

Shin’en Multimedia have been a huge proponent of Nintendo over the years. Since getting their start on the Game Boy Color, the developer has since produced all manner of games (racing and otherwise) for Nintendo platforms. In 2011, FAST Racing League launched on WiiWare and proved the beginning of the FAST series. A few years later, FAST Racing NEO hit the Wii U eShop and gained a larger following. However, the FAST community took its greatest stride this March with FAST RMX landing a launch spot on the Nintendo Switch eShop. Many never played a previous game in the series before, and they don’t have to. The concepts behind the title are incredibly easy to comprehend.

On one hand, FAST RMX brings to mind the Nintendo classic F-Zero. This is thanks to an intense focus on speed. The game is called “FAST” for a reason, after all! Even the aesthetic feels similar to F-Zero with a focus on far flung futuristic locales speeding on by and cool as heck vehicles. Folks may also find it similar to another racing series – Wipeout. This is most evidenced by the menu design and overall clean, futuristic tone. Despite their similarities, FAST RMX does not feel like a carbon copy of either title and attempts to differentiate itself via a few gameplay components. Depending on what you love about racing games, these aspects may prove to be great differentiators or annoyances in an otherwise enjoyable racer.

The most notable aspect of gameplay takes inspiration from the likes of Ikaruga. As you race on tracks, there will occasionally be colored strips or ramps along the way. These come in two colors: Blue and yellow. Driving over one while your vehicle is set to the same color provides a tremendous speed boost. If you fail to swap colors in time, the strip actually will slow you down to a tremendous degree. Often, this slowdown is enough to get at least one racer to overtake you. The same holds true for the ramps. Failing to select the right color almost always means you’ll end up failing the jump and crashing into a wall or falling into nothingness. This means that players need to be adept at swapping between the two colors on the fly.

Folks who have been gaming for a while should have little issue with swapping colors in FAST RMX generally. Early stages feature color strips that are far enough apart and placed in such a way that it’s not difficult to prepare ahead of time. Later on, strips may be nearly overlaid, causing players to need to switch in rapid succession. It’s also possible to completely ignore driving over a strip, but then you won’t receive an extra dose of speed (that likely all other competitors will opt to receive). Boosting at these areas alone won’t get you to victory beyond the earliest, novice stages.

There’s also a need to collect orbs floating around every level. No, these don’t offer attacks like in Mario Kart. Instead, they all contribute to a boost meter. This boost can be used at any time that the bar is not depleted. Used strategically, it can work to overtake an opponent in the final stretch or simply make up a loss. Just be careful as some of the faster vehicles are so ridiculously speedy with boost that you might end up careening off the road entirely. That’s just part of the challenge. Although it’s possible for good racers to totally ace a stage on the first try, many may want to replay them. By replaying you’ll start to memorize where color switches are, as well as locations where it’s best (or worst) to use boost.

Then there’s the matter of obstacles in FAST RMX. While trying to stay ahead of the pack and managing your car’s color, you’ll also sometimes need to worry about dynamic obstacles in the environment. These may take the form of boring old pillars which are usually easy enough to avoid. Or it may come in the form of lasers, giant smashing feet, weird mechanical spiders, or any other number of active dangers. Moving objects are by far the least enjoyable aspect of the game. After all, players want to go extremely fast and careening headfirst into an obstacle that got in the way at the last second proves infuriating. It really puts a damper on the gorgeous vistas and sense of speed.

FAST RMX manages to be one of the best examples for indie developers on Switch to follow because of Shin’en Multimedia’s decision to make use of basically every feature and permutation of the system. HD Rumble and gyroscopic controls are available for those who wish to use them. The game can also be played in any orientation – Switch on TV, Switch as handheld or in tabletop mode and with the JoyCons or Pro Controller. After launch they also added in the option to play multiplayer either with friends locally or in an online mode. So far, online matches take less than a minute to get into (although they aren’t generally packed full of eight racers) and include players of all skill levels to race against.

Closing Comments:

Anyone who enjoys racing games and owns a Switch does not have many options for games right now beyond FAST RMX. Fortunately, it should provide players with at least a dozen hours of gameplay as they work their way from the novice cups to more advanced races. Online and local multiplayer also adds some additional fun into the mix. There’s not much else to the experience, however, and some may wish that the game were a more “pure” arcade racer rather than one with additional gameplay aspects layered on top of simply racing super fast.

Version Reviewed: Switch

Platform: Nintendo SwitchRelease Date: March 3, 2017Criticisms regarding the Nintendo Switch’s launch line-up are dissipating quickly as people actually get their hands on these games and discover, first, that and that the remainder of the line-up is too, Fast RMX sits comfortably in the surprisingly good category, especially for fans of F-Zero. As someone who hasn’t done much game racing outside of Mario Kart, I was pleasantly surprised at how much fun Fast RMX was to just play for hours at a time, boosting and phasing my way from track to track.It’s still a fairly straightforward gravity racing game, where you pick your car and your course and zoom around the track several times, occasionally crashing into walls or bumping other racers.

You can collect glowing orbs along the course to fill up your boost meter, and use its power to zip forward and smash cars out of your way at opportune times. But most interesting to a newcomer like myself was the ability to swap my car’s “phase,” from orange to blue and back again.

Littered across each track are various boost pads, obstacles, or jumps that match one color or the other. Landing on one with the matching phase gives you a boost of speed while landing with the opposite slows you.

The tracks are lovely to look at, especially on the TV screenIn early courses, these phase shifts are mostly trivial in terms of obstacles and merely ask that you learn the course well to hit them all. This lets you get used to the mechanic and enjoy the rush from hitting those powerful boosts for the first time.

On later tracks you may need to get some practice swapping quickly, especially on higher difficulty speeds. Admittedly, the two higher speed categories don’t feel that much faster than the introductory Subsonic category, simply because Subsonic is so darn fast on its own. The AI can be fierce, too, so don’t expect to get off easy, even as a beginner.The track selection for Fast RMX features a wide variety of locales, from lush, stormy jungles to F-Zero style cityscapes to outer space. The tracks are lovely to look at, especially on the TV screen, and often include interesting effects such as heavy, obscuring rains or sandstorms or giant fans to blow you off the track. Some of these, the sandstorms being one example, make interesting use of the HD Rumble to make you feel like the thing you’re controlling is being battered, struck, or blown away. As someone who was skeptical about HD Rumble’s use in specific scenarios outside of 1-2-Switch, its occasional appearance added a surprising and pleasing level of immersion beyond the usual “car rumbles when you run into a wall” tech.

Credit: Shin’en MultimediaFast RMX includes a Championship single-player game mode where you’ll race your way through ten different cups with three tracks apiece, unlocking new cups and cars as you go and unlocking the higher speed difficulty levels once you’ve finished the one below it. Multiplayer uses the same tracks and can be played on local split screen, local with other Nintendo Switches (not tested), or online with a maximum total of eight racers. I was impressed the ease with which my friends and I raced local multiplayer on the split screen, even on the Switch in tablet form.

You can’t unlock anything in this mode, though, so I recommend running some Championship races first to give your friends a wider variety of cars to choose from. Want your voice heard? Join the App Trigger team!Online multiplayer was a bit different. While the game itself ran smoothly, it didn’t seem to detect where my car or my opponents’ cars were with any notable level of accuracy. Multiple times I’d see myself far ahead or behind a car, only to see it right on my side the next second. A few times I finished a race in what I thought was second place, only to find I had gotten fourth or fifth because the game hadn’t shown the other racers on my screen accurately. My opponents occasionally appeared to jump whole sections of the track due to connectivity lag.

Not exactly my idea of a fun competition. More from Reviews.Finally, there’s Hero Mode, which is a significantly more challenging style where your boost meter doubles as a shield meter. If your shield drops to zero, you lose and the race stops. While you can still collect boost orbs around the track as always, every bump into a wall or another car costs you some of your meter, and you’ll have to be both cautious and knowledgeable of the track to pull through. I, a person who crashes into walls, did not do well in this mode, but I can respect its appeal for those who love the game and want a greater challenge.While there’s not much else to Fast RMX, what’s there is worth pursuing as a low-cost, launch day racing option. It’s a polished, enjoyable title that’s at its best on the couch with friends and well-suited to the Switch’s portability.

Unlocking all the courses, cars, and difficulties will take you some time if you’re dedicated to doing it, and Hero Mode offers a respectable challenge for more seasoned racers. There’s little fluff to this title, but for some, the sleek, straightforward style may be the draw.

With few bells and whistles, Fast RMX delivers all it promises: it’s a simple, fun, and challenging gravity racer, full stop. The phase shifting mechanics are interesting if not dynamic enough to be called innovative, so while Fast RMX doesn’t do anything especially stand-out, its level of polish, track varieties, and series of unlockables will nonetheless keep you boosting forward through its courses for some time. Consider avoiding the online multiplayer and inviting a few friends over instead to experience the closest thing to an F-Zero title we might get for awhile.A copy of this game was provided to App Trigger for the purpose of this review. All scores are ranked out of 10, with.5 increments.

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