Review: Horizon Chase Turbo

With last orders at the bar for Vita owners, it is great to see this speedy arcade racer make it out, several years after developer Aquiris said it couldn't quite get it running well enough on the Sony handheld. That said, there's always a certain worry, especially for a costly physical release about what's being cut down to make it work, with QUByte on port duties and PlayAsia providing the limited physical release. 

The whole image of Horizon Chase Turbo gives off that arcade vibe, reeking of smoke and coins clanking. If you ever sat in an Out Run machine or astride a Super Hang On bike, focusing on each corner, curve and the jagged approach of rival racers, this is home. Those days of stripy tracks used to generate the sense of speed are gone forever, but the spirit remains with modern-retro homages like this.

As a nod to the likes of Virtua Racer, Chase HQ, Road Blasters and many others, it has toned down those harsh just-one-more-go timers and roadside-fling-of-death mechanics into something more forgiving and fun for the modern age. In its place are neatly-detailed cars hammering around a vivid series of tracks, with bags of content including 12 cups, 48 cities, 110 tracks, 31 cars to unlock with 10 racing mods available by winning the upgrade races. 

Horizon Chase Turbo requires players to learn the tracks and master overtaking to get good lap times, with a bit of luck to challenge for the win in tougher races. To get racers in the spirit, there's accelerate and nitro, but no brakes, so a deft dab of power or lift at critical corners is key to winning races. Looking at various versions, there's nothing obvious missing from the tracks, with snow flakes and weather close up and distant vistas, and each race is busy (often annoyingly so) with opponents. 

Taking the World Tour, there are suitably themed levels for each country on the map. Along the way, there's blue tokens on each track to collect to get a maximum score, extra turbo boosts and petrol/gas to keep on running, with a top result winning the Super Trophy required to open up new areas. Hitting another racer or rattling off in the scenery, results in a quick flip, losing only an acceptable amount of time, unless it happens with a back marker on the last corner - queue scenes of frustration.

If you get stuck or bored of the world tour then there are a number of tournaments and endurance mode to jump into, but its pretty much the same fare. To ramp up the difficulty and challenge, Horizon loves to throw curves at the tracks, lots of curves, and mastering them across changing track widths, surfaces and other cars is the main obstacle to the top step. Running out of fuel leads to a slow and ignominious end. But if you do screw up, the next race is only a minute away.

With little quips from the drivers, changing weather and time of day, there's plenty of little touches to watch out for, but as advanced tracks with narrow lanes, off-road sections, tricky corners, eyes really need to be on the road for the more competitive races. Between regions, there are special upgrade races to win, to choose a gizmo for better handling or performance.

Anchoring all this fun is a sterling 16-bit era soundtrack by composer Barry Leitch, who provided the tunes for the Top Gear series (not the TV show) that provided some of the inspiration for Horizon. There's lots of epic tinkly tunes and sharp effects to keep players in the zone.

Having played this on the Switch (which is also a bit jerky on the menus) and PS4, the Vita version is clearly struggling from the off. Menus take a while to load with the animated checkered flag struggling to get going and the music juddering to a halt (really annoying on headphones), even so its impressive the Vita can pull this off at a decent rate. 

In a race, the first few seconds are likely to be a bit jerky but once the pack has split up, the speed and sensitivity is pretty good.

 

One annoying issue you can avoid is the driver messages, disabled via the options. That's essential as these can bring the race grinding to a halt for a vital second. Otherwise, the game is far from its 60fps origins, with all sorts of visual quirks that you can make it feel like the car is standing still or going backwards, but that doesn't really interfere with the racing, its still fun and a solid challenge. 

A couple of issues that might be down to the Vita's small screen, some side objects are the same colour as key power-ups and can drag you toward them and a crash. Also it would be good if it kept your last-chosen car for the next race. 

Otherwise, I guess it is good, and an above-and-beyond effort, of Aquiris and QuByte to cram everything in for the Vita version (except friend times, DLC like the Playground mode and some other extras) but they could have trimmed down menus to make it feel more fine-tuned for the Vita's aging hardware. On the sort-of-plus-side playing it on the Vita makes the PS4 version feel amazingly smooth and easy, a shame there's no cross-save! 

More reviews

Developer Aquiris

Price: Sold out at Eastasiasoft

Score: 7/10

Progress: On the Brazilian highway, looking for adventure