Review - TRAILBLAZERS - Wipeout + Splatoon don't go that well together
Supergonk studio's first game, Trailblazers, is a promising fresh new take on the co-operative racing game genre, mixing Wipeout's hovercrafts, 80s anime characters, and Splatoon's coloring mechanic!
Well, color me intrigued...😜
Although I'm a fan of realistic driving simulations myself(Assetto Corsa, Automobilista), I have been occasionally enjoying arcade racing games since the very first Outrun, so I'm curious to see how this turns out!
A NEVER-SEEN-BEFORE RACING GAME
At is core, Trailblazers is an arcade racing game similar to Wipeout, or the recently re-released "Star Wars Episode 1: Racer"(1999!).
Your anti-gravity vehicles will hover above the ten high-speed circuits(+ mirror and reverse variants), which often look more like crazy rollercoasters than actual tracks.
Get ready for some puke-o-matic amusement park!
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| Jetstream is easy to "handle", if you... catch my drift... ahem... |
There are a few modes(which are ALL playable in single-player mode if you want, using A.I.):
- The self-explanatory All vs All mode.
- You also have the 2x2 or 3x3 teamwork racing, which might be the funniest one, but also one of the most problematic. I'll explain this in the gameplay section.
- The usual Time Trial.
- Gate Chase: No paint meter in this mode! Instead, dozens of gates are scattered all over the track, and every time you pass through one, it sends out a streak of your team color, boosting your speed!
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| Plot twist: the painting trails are in fact made of the drivers vomit. Don't slide on your opponent's vomit! lol |
I think I like the characters design even more than the tracks.
Some of them make me think of the 80s anime-like characters in Daft Punk's "Interstella 5555" movie!
There are 8 of them, with their own custom rides, and as you can imagine, they all have their pros and cons.
Some have better boost, others are better at painting...
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| From left to right, Volta the crazy robot maniac, Lucas, Empress the frigid, Boo the frog from Chrono Trigger, Sid the Argonian wifebeater, Jetstream the hot ginger, and the flat-chested Kiara! And in the back, the huge Galaxos, who politely asked us to call him Gaylaxos! |
Personally, I could be satisfied with all of this already...
But the developers decided to add a never-seen-before mechanic in a racing game:
You can paint the tracks with your hovercraft! What for?
Well, basically, during your first lap, when your painting meter is full, you try to paint as much as possible the road, alright?
Then, the next lap, while you go over your colored areas, a second meter fills up, and when it's done, you go noticeably faster!
And the longer you stay on the painted trail, the faster you'll go!
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| Boo's buggy, maybe my favorite! Most vehicles remind me of Carmageddon cars, but with hovercraft abilities! lol |
And the real meat of the game is that obviously, your opponents can cover your paint with their own! It's a racing painters battle!
So the game will require a bit of "strategy", and you'll have to think where you want to spread your paint! (I usually did it especially on the fastest straight lines!)
Note!
Trailblazers requires a controller in order to play!
And finally, what could make this potentially even more fun is TEAMWORK.
You and your friends (A.I. or real friends lol) can join your trails of paint together, trying to make a perfectly connected line around the track(I never succeeded at that lol), and cover your opponent's color!
GAMEPLAY - OVERSHADOWED BY ITS RIVALS
Painting the track to boost your speed is really a very unique idea, but it's unfortunately taking too much away from the actual experience of driving/racing.
It feels more like an experimentation of an indie dev who wanted to try to make a racing game with a gimmick.
And I'm not saying this like it's a bad thing, because we NEED original ideas(ESPECIALLY in the arcade racing genre), and I respect these people.
But it just doesn't click with me.
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| Stay on your color as long as possible to gain speed! |
What ultimately "kills" the joy of racing is the subpar flawed arcadish controls, combined with frustratingly punitive collision physics.
All vehicles handle a bit differently, but none of them feel "right".
Braking is too extreme, and even a simple tap will cause you to drift.
Worse, it makes your cornering imprecise and it's easy to lose your momentum.
You'll have difficulties staying on course, and you can imagine how frustrating it can become on narrower tracks.
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| Do your best to NOT bump your opponents! Collisions are extremely punitive, and your opponents might even block the way afterwards. |
Add to this the fact that developers chose to put UNBREAKABLE obstacles a bit everywhere on every track, and you start realizing that it's not going to be a smooth ride.
Colliding with walls and other various obstacles will STOP YOU COMPLETELY.
Not only this, it'll cancel your current combo, and you'll lose all your points.
(The latest update improves this a bit, but it's not enough...)
Colliding with opponents is also quite problematic.
Rather than being cast to the side, they usually totally stay in your way, bringing you to a FULL STOP again...😟
The average A.I. might be at fault too... Don't count on bots' teamwork...
They'll easily throw you off, making you throw your gamepad to the screen, screaming in frustration.
Trailblazers is a game which is better enjoyed with friends. Sober ones too.
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| I don't know why, there's always one picture in every of my articles, which doesn't inspire me enough to write a caption. Help me caption this and win a night with me! Online, I mean. 😂 |
Again, the painting mechanic is cool, but at its core, Trailblazers is STILL a racing game though, not a Splatoon clone...
Controls and physics are the most important features in a racing game.
And the frustrating physics combined with average controls are ultimately what prevents me from enjoying the game.
To tell you the truth, Trailblazers comes out at a bad time, just when "Racer" is released on GOG, because after reviewing it, I've got to say the driving feeling is MUCH better than in Trailblazers.
Also, it doesn't compare to other more recent "rivals" like Redout or BallisticNG.
TIP!
Boost around corners, and drift in hairpins!Finally, I find very cool that split-screen local multiplayer is possible, with 2 or 4 players!
As usual, split screens always look a bit cramped, but then again, isn't it the case for every game using this feature? As far as I remember(Outrunners on Megadrive! lol) I've never been completely satisfied with it. But still, thanks to developers for adding this feature!
On a side note, servers are EMPTY at the moment I review it. lol
GRAPHICS - SHAGADELIC, BABY!😍
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| Don't change your glasses! It really is blurry like that all the time! |
Using cel-shading with vibrant colors, Trailblazers has an unique stylized look with charismatic characters and beautiful vehicles!
I think that everything looks good in this game, really.
Visuals often feel a bit smeared though, because of the overused blurry effect.
And I deeply regret that we can't customize the graphic settings in details.
Like too many games nowadays, you can only choose a few presets.
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| Although it looks like you're going very fast, the game isn't that fast, and I think it's great that the developers find the perfect balance of speed and strategy. Faster, it would have been too hard to deal with the painting mechanic. |
Despite the very cool graphics, I think the game will run even on a potato. 😅
MUSIC
The soundtrack feels a bit similar to Dreamcast's Jet Set Radio...
So it's very cool, but in my opinion, totally inappropriate. lol
I mentioned earlier Daft Punk, and well, I think that some good old 90s Dance music, or even some high-energy Eurobeat would have been way better than using this weird mix of breakbeat and funk.
I have always liked to play "hovercraft racing" games with Dance, Techno, or Eurobeat. Yeah I know, I'm not original. lol
I found an interesting comment on Youtube:
"It seems like this game is grabbing a lot of songs from Beatport, a website that offers breakbeat, turntablism, ghetto funk and all sorts of Jet Set Radio style music. I only know this because I recognized the first song which I got from that website. It's called "Dead Ringer" by A Skillz."
Anyway, you can hear some of the tracks in this video =>
RATING BOX
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VERSION TESTED: Patch#1 - 11th May 2018
Publisher:
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| GRAPHICS: 92% | |
| Beautiful cel-shaded graphics in a wonderfully vibrant world of mountain tops, lush forests, and arid desert valleys. Developers, please allow us to disable the blur though! | |
| MUSIC: 80% | |
| It depends on your taste. I know it's not my stuff(despite loving funk!), but I can recognize it's definitely quality music. On the other hand, does cool funky music goes well with high-speed racing?(Interstate 76 is the best example of funky music in a game, but it's NOT high-speed racing...) | |
| SOUNDS: 76% | |
| Like the smeared graphics problem, sounds can be a bit "blurry". I feel like they're not easy to distinguish them apart. |
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| GAMEPLAY: 71% | |
| The potential fun is interrupted by unwanted collisions, caused by both too many annoying obstacles and flawed A.I.. Play with friends to enjoy it better! | |
| OVERALL RATING: 74% | |
| Very appealing presentation, and the revolutionary(it's a first!) painting mechanic in a racing game feels refreshing, and is brilliantly executed. It adds a strategic dimension which was lacking in the aging arcade racing genre. Unfortunately, the sloppy physics make it overshadowed by its rivals. We don't know yet how far the developers intend to update it. But I hope they realize that a few physics tweaks, better A.I., and maybe better tracks would be enough to make this a megahit. 😊👍 |
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