Cruis'n Blast

[Josh64]

Cruis'nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn! 

This one was a bit out of the left field at yesterday's event but looks like a wild time! Is anyone else excited for this? I feel as though it might be a good substitute for those of us that loved Excite Truck and Excite Bots.

I've never owned a Cruis'n game before but it's in my local arcade and is a right blast. After a bit of searching it seems the series has fairly strong Nintendo roots as the aforementioned arcade machine is donned with massive Nintendo logo's and the N64 games seemed like a staples of the console. There seems to have been exclusive GBA and Wii releases too, though I didn't know that until just now. Is this a Nintendo property?

Quote

The arcade hit Cruis’n Blast is speeding onto Nintendo Switch™! 

Blast your way through nearly 30 over-the-top tracks.

Grab the wheel of 23 custom rides from licensed supercars to monster trucks and unicorns!

Up to four players can race together, so pick your favorite vehicle and hit the road!
 

 

Edited June 16, 2021 by Josh64

[Glen-i]

13 minutes ago, Josh64 said:

Is this a Nintendo property?

Midway Games were the ones who did the N64 game. That I know. And I'm pretty sure Nintendo published that.

Considering that outside of Arcades, the Cruis'n series has never appeared on a non-Nintendo console, I'm gonna say Nintendo at least own part of it. Kinda like Pokémon.

Not entirely certain on that, mind.

Edited June 16, 2021 by Glen-i

[BowserBasher]

You can race as a Triceratops, a shark and a unicorn, what’s not to love? Depending on how this pans out I may take the plunge. 

[Ashley]

2 hours ago, BowserBasher said:

You can race as a Triceratops, a shark and a unicorn, what’s not to love? Depending on how this pans out I may take the plunge. 

Finally, we get to play Donkey Kong Racing

[Hero-of-Time]

 

[Nicktendo]

This game brings the nostalgia. I can’t wait. 

[RedShell]

I spent more time on the arcade version of the original Cruis'n USA than I care to admit. Was a teenager back then though, and you got a lot of gameplay for your 20p. In fact, sometimes you wouldn't even need to pay, as getting 1st place was so easy the machine was often just abandoned on a free play!:

Also played the sequel (Cruis'n World) a little bit, but nothing else in the series since then. Looks like there have been 4 more games made in that time, with Blast being the latest. But yeah, I certainly don't plan to get this any time soon/ever. It's bad enough my poor ears got subjected to the atrocious music in that trailer. The song just randomly popped into my head again the other day at which point I was like...

 

[Dcubed]

I've never been a fan of any of the Cruis'n games, but it's great to see a proper Arcade Racer being made in this day and age  

I've played the cabinet for Blast a couple of times and it's alright.

On 6/16/2021 at 4:07 PM, Glen-i said:

Midway Games were the ones who did the N64 game. That I know. And I'm pretty sure Nintendo published that.

Considering that outside of Arcades, the Cruis'n series has never appeared on a non-Nintendo console, I'm gonna say Nintendo at least own part of it. Kinda like Pokémon.

Not entirely certain on that, mind.

Nintendo own the Cruis'n IP 100% and always have.  Midway made the original N64 games (as well as whatever that abomination was on Wii), but Cruis'n Blast is (or rather I should say, was) an arcade exclusive Cruis'n game made by Raw Thrills (a company set up in 2001 by ex Midway staff) released in 2017.  Nintendo licensed the Cruis'n IP to Raw Thrills for that release.

This is the console port of that 2017 arcade game.

One thing that's also notable is that this is Raw Thrills' first ever console release, period.  They were previously committed to keeping all of their games arcade only, so this is the first time that any of their games have received a home console version.

Edited June 19, 2021 by Dcubed

[Mandalore]

Got this earlier today, it's a lot of fun so far. There seems to be lots of upgrades to unlock for each vehicle and every track has 3 hidden keys which unlock new vehicles. It should keep me busy a while.

[Josh64]

I'll start this by saying I like the game! I'm just so torn on it.

 

Ok, in general, this is a Blast to play and as Mandalore said, it's got a lot of unlockables and it's genuinely fun collecting the hidden keys. The reason I'm irked by this game is because it could be so great, maybe even this generations Excite Truck/Bots, but everything I love is followed by something that irks me. 

For starters the levels are all fun and interesting but looking back, the claim of 29 race tracks is barely true, as at least half are just very light variations on earlier tracks just with things like dinosaurs being replaced with apes or London now  being set at night time with UFO's flying around - again, they are all still fun but I can't help but see how they kind of quickly slapped these extra levels together.

The length of tracks is also odd, generally they seem to be 1.30 to 2 minutes long but then you'll have a stage that is barely 40 seconds in length and you barely have time to use all your allocated boosts. 

The UI is also a bit lazy, the grand prix mode is fun to play but there are no points after each match saying what your overall standing is, you just have to hope you get enough 1st place wins to be given the gold cup at the end. 

The music was also a let down for me though I'm probably in the minority lol - I love that super corny theme song with the woman wailing as though she's a Donkey Konga 2 cover artist and for whatever reason, perhaps uncontrollable excitement and optimism, I'd told myself a lot of the other music in the game would be like that akin to Sonic R. Alas the only song with vocals is that very theme, the rest of the music in the game is pretty generic sounding dance music. 

I sometimes feel as though I don't have enough freedom when driving too - If you see a shortcut you have to go in at a certain time as if you make a last minute turn too late you'll hit an invisible wall and be thrown forward on the normal track, like playing Mario Kart with that annoying auto assist function turned on. 

 

Like I said, I do like the game and perhaps the reason I'm being so nitpicky is because I can see just how great this could have been - but as it is, it's just a bit of mindless arcade fun - which I guess is on me as they never really stated it was anything but that. 

[Mandalore]

Yeah it is a very feature light game. It helps that unrealistic racing games is a genre I like a lot and there haven't been many like this for ages. 

It was fun while it lasted, there are better indie racing games out on the Switch though. FAST Racing Neo and Riptide GP Renegade (I played this on PS4 but I think it released later on Switch) are cheaper and more complete packages.

[nekunando]

4 hours ago, Josh64 said:

I'll start this by saying I like the game! I'm just so torn on it.

I don't think I'm torn on it!

Firstly, I thought it looked terrible during the E3 Nintendo Direct and didn't give it much thought but a delayed delivery of Skyward Sword from ShopTo gave me £5 credit to use there within a month.

With nothing else coming out at the time that I hadn't already pre-ordered for good prices elsewhere or was getting digitally on eShop instead, Cruis'n Blast jumped out as probably the best candidate as we've been largely starved of quality racing games on Switch.

While I didn't expect much, I feel that it's this dearth of great racers that has led to overblown positivity about the game since it's release and it's just something I can't agree with, at least not to that level!

Honestly, it's just OK. Each stage seems to position itself as more of a thrill ride rather than a course to test your driving skills and I guess that's where you'll either appreciate it for what it is or not.

It forces you to keep moving forward (to a hilarious degree) and if you go out of your way to move slowly, either just to see what happens or to obtain one of the many keys, you'll witness some terribly designed moments like your car just being suspended in the air 😅

In a way, that kinda plays to the game's strengths too. It simply just does not give a stuff about maintaining any semblance of realism (as you could probably tell already with all of the vehicle types, locations and somersaults) and I commend it for simply being a game and being proud of it.

Ultimately, it's just not very good!

@Josh64 has already highlighted a number of issues with Cruis'n Blast and it's for those reasons, along with everything else and a multitude of better games to play that mean I'll be looking out for an acceptable trade as soon as possible!