Another one bites the pixel dust – Sometimes, the things you love the most are the ones you really suck at. It always happens to me that, at some point, my progress in certain activities stagnates. No improvement all the way, you could say. Be it with sports, playing an instrument, or my non-existent video gaming skills. For the latter, I always enjoyed playing one specific genre the most: racing games. I really love it. I guess most likely because of quick accessibility and the bite-wise progress called races. But at some point in a game, it’s just getting too hard for me. And no matter how often I repeat a race, no matter how often I practice it, I’m not able to proceed beyond average.
The more surprised I have been when I got my hands on V-Rally Championship Edition for the Game Boy. Not only that, but finally, there was a decent-looking pseudo-3D racing game available. It also adapted pretty well to my skills. It was very easy in the beginning, kept me going with a certain challenge a bit later in the game, but never got me frustrated. I played it the first time at a friend’s place. I got hooked up immediately and a few days later I bought my own cartridge. And that introduced hours over hours racing “Outrun” styled dirt races on a little green grayscale screen. Obviously, I love the game and would give it a 5-stars double thumbs up. There shouldn’t be any reason for standing this game further remark. But there is always a reverse of the medal.
The first look at the screen paints a big wide “wowww” on your face. The graphics are beyond everything else I’ve seen before touching V-Rally for the first time. Following the race track appears pretty smooth, however, depending on your current speed. Starting the race gives you a frame rate that feels something like 2 fps. Forgiving this not-so-little issue, the animation of the cars on the selection screen is even more jaw-dropping. Rotating “3D” models. Unfortunately, there are only 4 licensed cars being staged impressively. You can choose from a Peugeot 306 Maxi, Subaru Impreza, Fort Escort, or Mitsubishi Lancer. That’s it. They have slightly different attributes, like the common acceleration or top speed, and obviously different in-game sprites. The sprites look very well and adapt their rotation nicely to the intensity of the corner. Thankfully, because there is no possibility to change the view. I wouldn’t expect different camera angles. But a simulated in-car view would be easily possible by simply removing the car’s sprites from the screen. The gameplay itself is pretty fluent, besides the aforementioned initial frame rate debacle. To be fair, the frame rate is kinda stable. It is more about the animation of the ground when the speed is very low. The car steers very intuitively and you get the hang of it quite fast, in terms of when to slow down and when to put the pedal to the metal. Both the tracks and scenery are very rich in variety. There are different horizontally scrolling backgrounds, all kinds of objects at the curb, and once in a while, an obstacle is blocking the lane. Even more, variation is added by introducing hills, which can also serve as an obstacle. You’re approaching it too fast and it will flip your race car over. Because this is what happens when a car hits the ground too hard with all four wheels simultaneously. The steering feels different on every one of the various types of surfaces. And then even more when rain or snow sets in.
The overall setting and scenery, the gameplay … it seems very well balanced and diverse enough. However, there is something that keeps the long-term replayability a bit low.
Thank God there is an option that gives some hope for a cure. Changing the difficulty level. Basically, you can choose from three levels: Rookie, Pro, and Ace. Nothing exceptionally innovative. But there are a few more little boxes that can be ticked. For one instance, one of those boxes is the “turn on / off signs”. By default, you will get info symbols on the screen indicating the direction of an upcoming bend, its intensity, or an obstacle (respectively jump). Turning off these signs results in a way harder approach to predicting the track. The other thing to adapt is obviously the selection of the race car. The Mitsubishi Lancer or the Subaru Impreza might be easier to handle and accelerate around a corner than the Ford Escort or even Peugeot 306. This said, you can get the game freaking hard to master (besides the “Ace” difficulty level is freaking hard anyway). On the other hand, there are two passwords that unlock the 2nd and the 3rd stage in Arcade mode. No matter at which difficulty level you achieve them. And that is most probably the main thing that makes the replayability suffer a lot. The game itself is played through in no time. And then you are only left to repeat one of the 20 tracks over and over again, just trying to improve and basically beat yourself.
Besides all ups and downs of this game, I would recommend it anyway. At least for giving it a try. And if it is not meant for a long-term engagement, it is still perfectly fine for one or two races once in a while. And once in a while, it is right now.

For those who can’t wait and want to unlock all tracks right away, I got the passwords for you:

Here you can find some more info about V-Rally – Championship Edition on MobyGames.