Onteca and Applaud Productions’ Space Ribbon originally came out back in 2016 for mobile devices. The game later made its debut on the Switch in mid 2018 and later for PC at the start of 2019. The game is a budget-priced racer with split-screen support, an ample sized career mode, and a unique gimmick that centers around procedurally created tracks.
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I picked up Space Ribbon during an indie sale for Switch games and since it was only $0.50, it seemed like a steal. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I was pleasantly surprised by the content, the fun factors, and the replayability.
For $0.50 the game supplies you with two main modes of play, a Career Mode and a Free Play mode. In the first mode you’re able to race through 16 different cups, each with their own unique challenges and requirements for completion, while the Free Play mode allows you to customize the race types and go head-to-head with other plays in local multiplayer.
The Free Play mode is surprisingly expansive when it comes to options.
You can modify the track length, the amount of curves that appear on the track, whether obstacles appear, whether there are barriers, whether power-ups are present, or even how many opponents appear on the track, which can range from two CPU opponents all the way up to 32 opponents!
You can change the rounds, modify the difficulty, change the gravity, and choose whether jetcars are usable or not.
What are jetcars? Well, I’m glad you asked.
They’re one of two types of vehicles in the game. There are only a handful of cars to unlock but each car comes in two formats: wheeled and jet.
Wheeled vehicles give you more traction and grip on the track, and are great for bumpy or lumpy tracks that have low gravity. The downside to wheeled vehicles is that they don’t seem to draft as well as the jetcars and aren’t quite as reliable as gaining speed when drifting.
The core of the game centers around drafting behind opponents using their slipstreams, which appear on the track as blue effervescent streams. When you enter into the streams it raises your boost level, and allows you to hit max speed.
Jetcars, as mentioned, can reach max speeds a lot easier than wheeled vehicles and can also drift to maintain momentum.
The problem is that drifting in the game is broken. When you attempt to drift the vehicles just slide all over the place when you turn. You can still drift, you just can’t turn. So drifting works best when you’re in a jetcar on a straightaway where you can rebuild your momentum.
So why would you waste time drifting? Because the only way you can gain speed is either by slipstreams or drifts. If, however, you get into first place there won’t be anyone in front of you whose slipstream you can use to gain speed, so drifting is the only way to maintain momentum.
Without drifting or slipstreams your car begins to slow down.
This encourages everyone to stay within range of one another to build off of each other’s momentum. In some ways it always keeps the game intense while in other ways it can be frustrating that you can never really gain a significant lead on your opponents.
Then again it’s tough to gain any sort of lead when the tracks are procedurally generated, so it’s more about reacting in the moment and trying to gain small advantages on your opponents.
Each of the cups offer slightly different track layouts and challenges, with some focusing on being drag races, while others are filled with bumps and jumps that will force you off into space.
Originally I thought the game was kind of banal and trite, but the more I played it and realized that there’s a trick to maintaining momentum through the slipstreams and broken drift system, I started having fun.
Some of the cups are also kind of neat, like the Cosmic Cup, which sees players racing through a rainbow road with an inked outline, giving the game a comic book look.
With a few off-and-on play sessions I managed to beat all the main cups over the course of a couple of days. You will likely have to restart a bunch of races given some of the wonky physics, like drifting, but otherwise — once you get the hang of the mechanics — it’s a solid racer.
It’s a cheap bit of fun for a small price, and it’s hard not to recommend given that once you get the hang of the game, the gimmick of racing through the generated tracks while learning to gauge when to slip into an opponent’s stream or when to drift can be quite entertaining.
It’s not a great game by a long stretch, but it sure beats other titles like Super Toy Cars, which struggled to maintain 30fps and had a lot of glitches. Space Ribbon maintains a solid 60fps during most races (or when there are fewer than eight cars on-screen). The game also maintains solid frames during handheld mode, and doesn’t have any other noticeable performance issues.
If you were looking for a cheap racing game to play alone or via local split-screen in TV mode, you could do worse than Space Ribbons. And since the game is oftentimes discounted it’s not like you would lose much if you purchase a copy.
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