When a kart racer comes to a Nintendo platform it’s almost impossible to avoid any comparisons with Mario Kart; the moustachioed plumber’s racing franchise is widely recognised to be the best that the genre has to offer, and naturally sets a benchmark for others to aspire to. All-Star Fruit Racing does, unsurprisingly, bear a striking resemblance to Mario Kart in some areas, but also manages to come up with some new ideas that help it to claim its own identity.
For the most part, All-Star Fruit Racing is the game you’re probably expecting it to be; players race around colourful circuits, collecting items that can be used to hinder opponents along the way, while ultimately aiming to come out on top as the champion of fruity karting. The main difference here, though, is the way in which players use and obtain their weapons, building upon the simple drive-through-a-floating-box trick we’ve seen countless times in the past.
Your weapons are divided into four categories, each representing one of the four seasons, and on-track fruit collectibles allow you to fill up a corresponding gauge of your choosing. If you need an attack that fires in front of you, you can grab all the fruit that will fill up that juice tank; if you need something that can defend from incoming attacks, you simply fill up a different weapon gauge instead.
It goes further than this, too, as filling up multiple gauges can create fusion-like attacks, taking on elements of all currently-filled tanks when fired. You can even disconnect individual weapon tanks to pick the exact weapon-type you want, or save up enough juice to use all four in one go for a super-duper fancy attack. Getting used to the different combinations can take some time, and you might find yourself simply using whatever attacks become available to you for simplicity’s sake, but the deeper option is there should you want to take the time to learn how it all works.
You can jump into quick races, time attacks, or a career mode, which essentially presents you with championships not too dissimilar to Mario Kart’s setup, and an online mode is said to be coming in a patch just after launch. The quick races allow you to play with friends in local co-op (up to four players) for now, and you can tinker around with difficulty settings and the number of racers present on the track. Playing through these races, and progressing through your career, will unlock various customisation items - which actually leads us on nicely to our next point.
The game is clearly aiming for a bright, cute, and cheerful presentation, and it achieves this to varying degrees in different areas. The customisations for your karts are great, allowing you to choose from all sorts of crazy colours to show off your own style, and the tracks are littered with cute little fruit creatures and bold colour palettes, but things aren’t quite as gorgeous as we’d hoped when hurtling around the tracks.
Visual textures tend to be quite fuzzy, particularly when in the distance, and certain scenery elements suddenly pop into a higher level of detail as you approach them. Playing the game in handheld mode seems to highlight these issues slightly more than playing with the console docked, although the game never quite looks as good as its creativity and funky car models deserve.
Perhaps the main performance issue, however, is the loading screens. Waiting for each race to load, or even for the game to start, takes a strangely long time. We timed one such loading screen – which went from the end of a race back to the main menu – and it took 47 seconds. If you sit still for 47 seconds without doing anything, you’ll realise how long a time that actually is, and it causes quite a bit of frustration having to wait that long every time you want to start or finish anything in the game.
There are a few other little niggles, too, such as career races feeling a little bit too long, often dragging on by having too many laps, or the controller button layout seeming a little odd. Because the face buttons have been used for selecting your juice tanks, the brake has been plonked on the ‘R’ button, leaving you to awkwardly reposition your finger from the ‘ZR’ accelerator whenever you want to slow down and trying to press in the right joystick to use attacks. They’re only relatively small issues, but they sit among several little hiccups that just prevent this game from being fully worth it for the asking price.
Conclusion
All-Star Fruit Racing takes a unique karting weapon system, throws it into a blender with some cute presentation ideas and an unfortunate series of technical annoyances, and ends up with a pretty mixed bag as a result. This is a competent racer, and there’s just about enough content to make you want to keep playing, but it never realises the potential that it could have had and doesn’t really stand up to the heights that other titles can offer. It’s just a little on the weak side to justify its asking price, so bear that in mind before jumping into a fruity purchase.
Comments 42
Sounds like the fruit came out a bit bruised.
At least its not a complete lemon.
You could say this game is a (not) bad apple.
I see myself out...
Performance and graphics are abysmal. Game could be fun on PC and other consoles, but I highly recommend giving the Switch version a miss.
I'm stoked about this game. Looks fun to me! Really glad they added online multiplayer too.
Completely as expected based on the reveal trailer.
Anyone paying full price for this is bananas.
@amyr0se Orange you going to buy it then?
Mango "No buy for me".
All these young programmers have no skill. In fact I wouldn't even call them programmers, just modders.
It's the sort of game that sounds broken and should not be allowed on the Switch.
If you buy something you want it to work as it should.
If Nintendo are treating the Switch and these sort of games as a cash cow then I guess that's the direction they are going.
@gcunit Already have it, and I'm probably going to uninstall it if I'm honest
OK, the weapon system with the different gauges sounds interesting. Adds a bit of strategy to kart racing.
Hopefully the dev earns enough from this to produce a sequel with those ideas refined and a better art direction (those human characters look awful, could use something like fruit-based Inklings or something).
@zool
You are ABSOLUTELY right ! If you take all the mediocre games VS the great ones... Erfff, the image of the Switch is become like "The place to throw your whatever !"
@SmaggTheSmug Keep in mind that the other versions of this game look a million times better. The Switch version is, by far, the worst version by the look of it. Try reading some PS4 or PC reviews if you can, they should give you a better view of the game.
Wasn't this going to be released late in August? It seems that the game is supposed to be cute but it looks so creepy to me, look at all those creepy eyes (screenshot with a landscape with rocks and mountains, although they keep on changing the screenshots order, and the dinosaur on the game cover).
And what sense does the term all-star make in a game featuring anonymous characters?
@amyr0se I am not looking to buying it anyway, especially not on Switch... I feel like the dev wasted money by porting the game to it, but who knows. Other indies sell like hot cakes on the platform. Then again other indies don't compete with Mario Kart.
This one looks amazing on screenshots in the eShop but this review and you guys make it sound like these are pictures of the PC version or something.
Where are the proper screenshots? First Moto GP, now All star Fruit Racing, both being reviewed while only showing smooth promo pictures. You write about the weapon fruit gauges, I would have loved to see them! :/
@Mr_Horizon I agree, if this is a review of a Switch title they should feature screenshots of real gameplay on Switch, these screenshots are official promotional ones and obviously in higher resolution. Besides, none of them is an in-race screenshot with a view that you would see while racing.
Grapeful for the review
I'll stick with Mario Kart.
it didnt look that great before the review so im not that surprised at the score. this is very expensive for a game that looks average, it doesnt tlook that disimilar to beach buggy racing and thats currently only £3.99!
Makes you wondered... why they even bothered? It takes time, money and a lot of effort to make a game, but why are these people making these type of game? Why are they wasting their time and money?
Racing games don't appeal to me, I don't even know why I bought Mario Kart 8 DX...
Any racing game (Sonic, Fruit Racing, Beach Buggy, etc) that share a lot in common with MK8D are a pass for me. None are as good as that so I don’t see the point in buying. If I am going to get another racing game it would have to be more of a simulation.
Looks like we going to have to wait for the next sonic racing for a hopefully Mario kart 8 rival.
It's always a red flag when a games official "screen shots" are renders on the eShop.
This is low rent stuff, and looking at it on YouTube it's a fuzzy mess with shadow draw in so close it's virtually on top of the car.
Why would anyone buy this shovelware?
@zool
I mean, it's on PlayStation and Xbox too, but let's only call out Nintendo.
@amyr0se even if the other versions look better, this game is nothing compared to Mario Kart.
@Supadav03 It depends. Many people on NL have said that they prefer Diddy Kong Racing, Crash Team Racing or Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed over any Mario Kart game. And then you have games like this... You can't put them into the same bunch.
the budget game beach buggy racing actually scored higher than this!
@Spudworthy I don't have an xbox or PS so I can't comment on those.
Boy does that look bland and as others have said the faces on the racers exist in that uncanny/inhuman realm. Yech.
So the Switch version is better than the PS4 version, Push Square gave it a 4/10?
Terrible. More shovelware
I'll just wait for a proper kart racer. I'm not desperate enough to pick up most of these shovelware games, especially since I've got MK8 right here and Team Sonic Racing coming up this year.
Yet another kart racer... yawn.
Sorry but kart racers are just the most boring approach to racing games IMO. It works well in Mario Kart, but I really don't care for them elsewhere, and they really get over-saturated very quickly, especially considering the lack of real driving games on the Switch.
All this random crap with no big announcements reminds me of the tail end of the Wii.
All we need now is Zumba Fitnes Switch.🙄
Dang. I was hoping for something more akin to Diddy Kong Racing, but I guess this ain't it. I guess I'll wait patiently whilst still playing MK8, and wishing that they had a better/fairer weapon select system (the weapon system in Fruit Racing is intriguing, but if you launch a game with technical issues and no online until a later date, then I'm out - I'm a gamer, not a beta-tester)
@SuperWeird "Really glad they added online multiplayer too."
No they didn't. At least not yet.
I bought this on the PC and I’m lemonenting my decision. I bought it as a prerelease version and I’m grapeful they finished it at least. I really thought I’d like this more than I do because I’m nuts about Mario Kart games. I think Beach buggy Racing blows raspberries at this because it’s so much better.
Its on sale right now for a dollar...should i bite?
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