It might be difficult to believe, but Race With Ryan is one of the most difficult reviews we’ve written in a while. When you’re covering a game based on a licence it’s always important to make sure your opinion of the licence itself doesn’t get in the way of the review. After all, nobody wants to read a review of an NBA game that’s just full of the writer going on about how they think basketball is rubbish.
The problem here, though – and we’re about to break the rule – is that Race With Ryan is based on one of the most easily hated licences in the brief 4.54 billion-year history of our planet, which makes it incredibly challenging to write about the game without constantly wanting to scream in the face of anyone who’ll listen about how knuckle-clenchingly infuriating the whole thing makes us. But we’re professionals, so we’ll try.
For those unfamiliar with it, Ryan’s World – formerly Ryan Toys Review – is a massively popular YouTube channel in which a very young boy (who doesn’t know any better, to be fair) is given an obscenely huge supply of toys by his parents (who absolutely do know better). These often take the form of enormous mystery eggs: literal loot boxes, packed with countless toys.
His parents have made more than $22 million so far, and toy companies are bending over backwards to get their products into Ryan’s videos because it gives them massive exposure through what are essentially paid product placements for preschoolers. The whole thing’s pretty grim, really... unless, of course, you don’t think it is, in which case, hey, to each their own.
Not content with having all the internet money ever, Ryan’s parents have now taken to jamming their lad’s face onto various other products, from inevitable toy lines to stuff like toothbrushes and TV shows. Now it’s time for a Ryan video game, and what better way to do that than to make a karting game in which eight of the characters are Ryan? Actually, don’t answer that.
We can already feel our prejudice getting in the way so let’s put aside our feelings on the licence and judge the game on its own merits. Race With Ryan is your regular run-of-the-mill Mario Kart imitator, with the typical selection of modes you’d expect from this sort of thing. There’s the option to race solo in single races or a cup, as well as local split-screen multiplayer for up to four players. Nothing remarkable, then, but at least the standards are being met.
The first red flag, however, is the severely limited number of tracks. There are only six on offer here, though you do get to race them in normal and reverse forms. The six environments – Ryan’s playroom, a theme park, a haunted house, a wild west town, a pirate island and a toy shop – are reasonably well-designed, with decent background detail and multiple routes in each circuit. Regardless, though, even Mario Kart would lose our interest after a couple of hours if it only had six tracks.
The character roster is another strange affair. There are technically 21 different racers to choose from, but this actually amounts to seven characters in various different vehicles. As well as Ryan – who, as previously mentioned, takes up about two-fifths of the entire roster – players can choose from various animated characters from the VTubers 'Let’s Play' channel that’s part of Ryan’s YouTube network. The selection of vehicles is varied enough, but some of them are a little on the large side which actually affects gameplay: Ryan’s boat is pretty tall, for example, and its sail obscures a lot of what’s up ahead, meaning you’ll regularly drive into spills and obstacles you couldn’t see on the road in front of you.
Speaking of which, how’s the actual racing itself? Well... it’s alright. The frame rate is expectedly weak but the handling is fine and there’s a hop-to-drift mechanic that works well enough, giving a generous turbo boost without too much effort needed. When it comes to actually controlling your kart, then, we have no real issues. That’s not to say it’s all good news, however: the game’s array of weapons – ranging from paper planes to footballs to hamburgers – are all painfully uninspired and feel so lightweight that they simply aren’t satisfying to use.
There’s also no escaping Ryan himself, who regularly pops up in the corner of the screen in a series of still ‘reaction’ images any time you hit someone, get hit, complete a lap, collect an item, breathe, look out the window or generally exist. It’s like the “Toasty!” pop-ups in Mortal Kombat games, except whereas those games were inappropriate for children, this one’s unsuitable for adults.
That’s just the tip of the Ryan iceberg, too. Look, we’ve tried our best to be diplomatic here, but the reality is that Ryan’s all over this thing and it’s hard for us to play it and not continually be annoyed. Not at him personally, of course – he’s just a kid – but at the way he’s being shamelessly exploited here to make people money: including his parents, who actually show up in FMV sequences before each tournament to talk a load of guff about racing strategies. If you’ve got a swear jar, best put it away before booting up this one.
It’s not even like his presence has been handled with much care. The menus are full of speech samples where Ryan talks you through every single option, mode, character and unlockable in the game, but they’re horrendous quality with plenty of mic feedback. So too are the video clips that appear before and after each race and show Ryan at home trash-talking his other (animated) rivals. It seems the studio just asked Ryan’s parents to get him to record some stuff at home and WeTransfer it over, rather than recording stuff properly in a studio environment.
Ultimately, the argument from some will be “hey, it’s just a kid’s game, don’t worry about it”. The reality, though, is that children are smarter than some people give them credit for, and they still know quality when they play it. Just because a game has the kid they watch on YouTube in it, that doesn’t mean they’re still going to be playing it weeks and months from now, certainly not like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.
Conclusion
Putting our opinion on the cynical Ryan phenomenon to one side, the resulting game is nevertheless a slightly below-average kart racer that handles reasonably well but generally underwhelms, from the pitifully small number of tracks to the uninspired, floaty-light weaponry. Give your kids a Mario, Sonic or Crash racer instead; they may be young, but they aren’t stupid.
Comments 94
4 / 10 ?
I gave it 6.5 / 10 for acceptable 3rd party racing game. 😉
I think i will consider both PS4 & Switch version.
It looks cute enough for me.
"The first red flag, however, is the severely limited number of tracks."
No, the first red flag is the child on the cover, for more than one reason.
Man this kid doesn't age.
With 6 tracks it screams $10 or less. At the games $35 pricetag give us more tracks with the same themes.
I hope this kid doesn't grow up to be a spoiled brat. After all of the financial exploitation he's gone through in such a short amount of time, I really hope this doesn't mess him up in the future.
I almost want to try it just for S&G, but not if I have to pay for it.
I'm surprised that the distributors willingly handed out review copies. Did they not think that this would actually be bad for marketing?
And you guys have been far, far, far too generous. It sounds like a 3 at best. I can't imagine Crazy Frog Racer possibly being this terrible. In fact, what is That Annoying Thing up to these days?
This basically looks like bad parenting that has manifest itself in the form of a game. If they continue to indulge this poor child to excess, they will ruin him in the long term.
@Anti-Matter : Of course I knew you'd take exception to the review score. Normally I'd look the other way, and far be it from me to scrutinise one's tastes, but you must be the only childless man of your age on this planet that would willingly buy two copies of this garbage with no sense of irony. Cute is cute, but bad is baaaad.
And here I thought you were talking about Rick And Morty, when you said annoyingly awfull licence
Wouldn’t be a Nintendo console with a flood of poor mario kart clones. Why would anyone choose to buy this over mario Kart, sonic team racing or CTR? You’d have to have a massive love for Kart games
@TheDragonDAFan
Oh, don't be silly .
Off course he wil be messed in the head. Just look at all the other famous kid stars and how well their success treated them.
This game is going to become awkward in 5-10 years.
@Mr_Pepperami
Cheap ?
Kids are massive fans ?
Got the other games already ?
..yeah i got nothing.
@Toy_Link : My dear child, it's awkward as hell now. XD
@Toy_Link
I'd like to see the kids reaction to this game when he is 20.
I remembered seeing this and was like "why is this generic kart racer $40 and who is Ryan?"
@Anti-Matter I genuinely am interested in how the hell you afford all these terrible games 😂😂😂
It’s a game for 3-5 year olds. I’m getting this for my son who is a Ryan fan.
I'd rather shove my thumbs in a meat grinder than support this tripe.
@Luigi-number1
Stop letting your kid watch thinly veiled commercials as entertainment.
@Anti-Matter : Have you thought about forming a YouTube channel?
I have a young 3 year old so seems interesting, might get in a sale
I pray that my 4-year-old never sees this on the eshop.
At least they don’t put him in revealing clothes and have him dance in front of adults, like some other parents do.
I wondered what it was though, I was not aware of the channel.
It's pretty surprising how prevalent this kid is, he even seems to have his own magazine on store shelves with his face on it and his various characters.
Surprising and alarming.
@Anti-Matter Well it’s cleared the lowest of bars
I love NL, but this is one of the more annoying reviews you've written.
This is CLEARLY for little kids and tons of kids, my daughter included, will probably really enjoy seeing one of their favorite YouTubers all over the game.
@Anti-Matter i wish I could broadcast this comment and its context to everyone who liked your remarks full of unabashed positivity about Pokemon Sword and Shield.
This is my first exposure to the liscence - thanks I hate it!!
Nothing to add but I wanted to drive engagement. I wonder when the New Super Lucky’s Tale embargo goes up
Holy crap! Six tracks? Now that's a low number of tracks. Meow Motors at least had 18 tracks for $15. I'm not recommending the game, but I did enjoy the 10hrs it took to complete the single player campaign. The loose drifting took a while to get used to.
If anyone has been interested in Meow Motors, this DigitallyDownloaded youtube review seemed fair.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oElfGEvzk8U
@Anti-Matter I tagged you in case you had interest. EDIT: Oops. my mistake, you were in my thread about the game back in May.
@Silly_G I promise you Crazy Frog Racer is worse than this. That one's borderline unplayable, this one's just boring.
@KitsuneNight The R&M fans might be occasionally awful, but the show itself is gold, Jerry, gold.
@Rafke Just from the link alone it sounds bad... Poor kid.
Not entirely surprised that the game is mediocre. It is just another cash grab at the end of the day.
@Luigi-number1
so what ? 3-5 year olds deserve better.
@Toy_Link @Silly_G 5-10 minutes
Wow Ryan's parents must've paid for this review in cents because it managed to get 4. It deserves a negative 9
@IxnayontheCK Mario Kart is for little kids. It offers significantly more content than this game, even factoring the $20 price difference. Also, trying to excuse horrible garbage because it's "made for kids" is more of an insult to children than it is a defense of the game.
@aznable I won’t question how you parent your kids. Please don’t question mine
I cannot believe that header picture was an actual screenshot. I thought it was a quick composite of a scene from his videos just to show who he was... but...
The whole “Ryan” thing gives me the creeps big time.
@MS7000 Well he’s definitely not “poor”, but I think he could have a complicated adolescence ahead
I would love for both Angry Video Game Nerd and Ashens to review this monster... preferably together
@IxnayontheCK Wouldn’t they more enjoy watching him play his own game?
@Tedikuma Isn’t there a way to block eshop access?
@KitsuneNight on “Ryan Reacts” of course!
Man, I gotta say, @Anti-Matter really has a set on him. He'll come out and express his honest feelings about everything, regardless of how many people mock him for constantly going against the public consensus.
Keep on truckin, dude. I respect authenticity, even if I often genuinely struggle to understand your interests more broadly.
@Ralizah agreed
@Luigi-number1 Ok I won't but hopefully you do following this little exchange.
Has Ryan reviewed his own game yet?
@KitsuneNight there are games of child actors who grow up and get asked about the games with their license. They either agree they're bad because they don't know or they wonder why people still care and move on.
Man, if I were Ryan I’d be like, “I need to review all the Star Wars toys, all the LEGO sets, and a bunch of Switch titles.”
@tendonerd Yeah, like when Macaulay Culkin appeared on Angry Video Game Nerd to play some of the Home Alone games. He thought they were awful.
@antster1983 he's also reading from a script right? We know they're awful but avgn is scripted.
@Luigi-number1 Get him Mario Kart and stop spoonfeeding him ads
Well Nintendo Life... I hope your happy with yourself! By being so harsh in the review and giving it a 4/10, you've made an 8 year old millionaire social media star cry.....
Man this kid is so going to overdose at like 16 or something trying to prove he's an adult.
@YourGoodFriendly he tried Mario kart and he’s older brother loves it on the Wii u. Is Nintendo life spoon feeding you ads.
Just how Ryan reviews toys. Nintendo life does too.
You must be interested in the game that’s why you clicked for you or for your children
Can't be any worse than The Annoying Orange, or Fred, or even FGTeeV. Personally, if you wanna play a game with an internet personality, you might as well go for Strong Bad's Cool Game For Attractive People, Featuring Homestar Runner and the Cheat!
No 8 year old would act the way this kid does
I came for a game review and got someone projecting their feelings all over some YouTube celebrity.
Not a chance. His channel is banned in my house anyway. My eldest (age 5) doesn’t even ask anymore.
I find it interesting that companies think if its for little kids, they can shovel poorly made garbage at kids and they won't know any better. This is a case in point. They deserve better than this!
This is the first time that I have heard about this “Ryan” person.. I think I am going to be sick. 🤮
The one time they filmed him taking a bath was just waaay too much, that channel has been banned in my house ever since. I can't believe how much his parents pimp this kid out.
I don't know if it's an affiliate site or anything, but someone site called Asumetech stole this review:
https://asumetech.com/overview-race-with-ryan-a-completely-regular-racer-tied-to-the-most-bothersome-licence-possible/
I love this game, it's the best racing game on the switch. Liked it so much I bought it 5 times.
I want this kid to fail, fail again, and continue to fail ongoing. There is nothing this kid can do at this point to every get me to want anything less from him then total failure.
@Link41 Something I cannot stand about Ryan's parents is that they've blinded themselves from the possible future negative consequences that can result from this for a short-term profit. I wonder what will happen once Ryan hits his teens.
@Luigi-number1 There's a BIG difference between voluntarily reading a review website/watching a review video as an adult (or teen I suppose), and watching a "review" disguised as "entertainment" as a tyke. Your kid doesn't know any better.
Now I'm not saying what you're doing is wrong, or anything. I mean, I'm not SAYING it. Neither is @yourgoodfriendly. We're not SAYING you're inadvertently priming your child for impulsive spending habits in the coming years. We're not SAYING that it's a mistake to dismiss the rabid, consume-all-you-can, Sesame-street-paced-POS that is Ryan's World as harmless.
Anything you infer from what we actually ARE saying might be a case of guilty conscience, maybe?
South Park Rally sounds like a better kart racer than this game.
Ok maybe that was a bit off sides. Maybe. Let's ask the ref. Ryan?
@TheDragonDAFan Honestly I just wish the best for this kid, he is just a kid after all and you can tell how he is totally being exploited by his parents and corporate sponsors.
@aznable you might be right. I was exposed to a lot of games when I was young and I buy a lot of games now. I don’t really see anything wrong. As a parent you have to know the limit and hopefully we do. As a father of four with a full time job and 2 properties on mortgage. I turned out ok, I hope.
@JayJ Great comment. He is just a kid after all and I hate the people who just wish him to fail.
A four. Why am I not surprised?
This review doesn't tell me much, I'm gonna need a gameplay video from @AlexOlney
I'm honestly a little surprised how this kid blew up into such a brand. I remember seeing a news report about him quite a bit ago on some morning show and I thought something along the lines of, "that sounds like innocent escapism".
My opinion changed, however, when I was checking out board games at a Walmart and I saw his face plastered on to a cheap toy set. That was when I realized he was basically being used for commercialization.
I have no interest in this game. My kids might have some mild interest as they do watch his videos and I think like Ryan as a personality more so than the products he uses.
But on the subject of whether or not the influence of these videos creates materialistic monsters in your kids? I think the possibility is there if there isn't an already solid foundation in setting boundaries and expectations in your kids in the first place. I know that isn't always 100%. And kids that age will beg for crap anyways. My kids beg for stuff all the time. I did as a kid. But I did so knowing that there was a really great chance I wasn't gonna get it. As I said before, I'm fortunate that my girls don't necessarily watch Ryan for the products (as they don't really have an interest in some of those things).
As for Ryan himself and his parent's intentions, I won't begin to think I know what's going on in their household. And the results of past child stars don't necessarily mean much seeing as you can probably name well adjusted former child stars for every well known sad story
My young child likes ryan it so it's ok. Saves me having to think about the ethical implications of exploiting kids.
@Nintendzoey I first saw him on a toy commercial on Cartoon Network
@Joeynator3000 Yes, please
This has to have been the funniest comment section I've read in a while! I lol'd a few times, @Manah & @Silly_G are some funny peeps. Thanks for the laughs... I needed 'em.
This is a great gag gift once it hits the bargain bin.
The parents of this kid are ruining him. Anything for a buck I suppose. I should've been a YouTube star. Make goofy faces, make a million dollars. Haha, what a joke.
@Tandy255
Has Ryan reviewed his own game yet?
His parents wont let him play it.
I saw this game was on sale for Target's Black Friday sale. Not knowing what it was, I looked it up and it led me here. I was much better off not knowing anything about this.
We all know Ryan's going to sue his parents when he becomes a teenager. The writing's on the wall.
@Jack_Goetz : Sounds like The Simpsons episode Barting Over.
@psoneboi : Let's not demonise an innocent child for the failings of the "grown-ups" around him. My heart goes out to the wee lad.
4/10? That score seems to be at least 2 points too generous. I feel sorry for any clueless parents who simply don't realise how bad a game like this really is, then waste their money buying this garbage for their kids.
@Silly_G Lol I'd love to see which other horrible games he would showcase on his YouTube channel if he had one. It seems that "looking cute" is the most important part of any game for him no matter how bad the game itself actually is.
Edit: typo.
@Silly_G LOL, this kid makes around $20 million a year to do jack squat. Sorry, I'll save my sympathies for those that deserve it.
@Antraxx777 Yeah, but I like to surf the store with him every now and then.
@KitsuneNight You've clearly never watched Rick and Morty.
I think i'll buy this. Graphics look to darn good
I'd much rather watch Cocomelon become the king of YouTube than watch this rip-off Mario Kart made by a spoiled, greedy, bratty child. Lord almighty, have mercy on these players.
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