Formula Retro Racing Review (Nintendo Switch)

Any retro gamer is going to take one glance at this game and see that it is a love letter to Sega’s first 3D arcade racer Virtua Racing. In many way it is, but it’s also a lot more.

As you would expect, the game play at its core is arcade style action. I’ve been immersed in a lot of drift heavy racing games recently so it was refreshing to have to break on the approach to a corner for a change and the introduction of a damage meter stopped me from barrelling into opponents and scraping my way around corners on the guard rails.

The game does feel different to control than Virtua Racing. And not in a bad way. I enjoyed Virtua Racing, but I never really got to grips with the controls the same way I did say, Ridge Racer, Outrun 2, or Sega Rally. I’m sure the purists wouldn’t agree, but I actually prefer the way the cars handle in Formula Retro Racing.

There are 3 main game modes; arcade, grand prix and elimination.

In arcade mode you race against both the clock and 20 opponents. Fail to reach a checkpoint before the time runs out and it’s game over. Reach the finish line within the allocated time and you will be awarded points based on your position. Collect points to upgrade your licence and unlock the total of 8 tracks.

Despite the simple low-poly look, Formula Retro Racing does a good job of making each track feel unique and memorable with a variety of colourful locations ranging from city racing to forests, circuit racing, deserts and mountains…

Each track is available to race in 3 difficulties too, beginner, advanced and expert, each with their own point rewards so there is a lot of replayability in this mode and a steady difficulty curve.

The grandprix mode is similar but without the arcade timer and also allows 2-4 player local multiplayer too, and the elimination mode see you racing lap after lap against increasingly faster rivals until you are eliminated.

There are a bunch of different cars to choose from, however the only difference is aesthetic colour palette swapping. If there is one knock on this game it would have been nice to have some different performing cars to experiment with.

The game performs great on the Switch. I’m not into frame counting so I can’t give you a technical breakdown, but it felt smooth to play and the graphics look great, assuming your into that style of course. The sound is fine, but I did feel the in game music was a little bit soft and playful at times. I felt more aggressive, pumping dance or metal soundtrack would have complimented the arcade action better, but there’s nothing wrong with what is included.

I was really excited when Virtua Racing came out for Nintendo Switch, but in reality I didn’t actually play it that much. Obviously that is a straight port of the arcade game, but I found after a few goes of each track, and a poke around some of the option, I didn’t have much motivation to keep playing.

Formula Retro racing gives me all the same nostalgia, but more fleshed out game modes, more tracks, rewards and unlockables. It actually feels like it could be a worthy sequel to Virtua Racing, or at least how a home console version of it should have been expanded upon. This might be blasphemy to some, but I’d even go as far as to suggest considering buying this over Sega’s timeless classic if you're interested in one or the other. It should also be noted this is twice the price of Virtua Racing at a launch price of £11.99, but in my opinion, it’s worth the extra.