With summer in its hottest period and with people looking for refreshment in every way, the freshest and most fruitful kart game ever lands on consoles too! We are talking about the All-Star Fruit Racing, very nice racing developed by 3DClouds and now also available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch, with the latter console extending its usability even under the umbrella! After an important appreciation in terms of users and critics, the colorful title of the study is proposed as the valid alternative to the kart games that we have come to know over the years, presenting original characteristics that differentiate it greatly from the others on the market.
A lively fruit salad
Before even talking about the gameplay as per convention, it is impossible not to dedicate a paragraph to what the team created on an artistic level. In fact, this sector turns out to be the best of the whole production, shining for originality, design, and above all a lot of imagination. Already from the first appearances of the title, we were able to speak with the leader of the studio, Francesco Bruschi, who has always felt extremely satisfied with the work done on this level, and title in hand we cannot blame him at all: the world it offers us All-Star Fruit Racing is alive, every detail that appears on screen has its own motivation, whether they are kilos and kilos of fruit scattered around the track, whether they are very special spectators, or whether they are real structures, objects and much more, created by mixing the shape of the most varied fruits. Galleons, statues, totems, hot air balloons and much more, all examples of how the care in terms of imagination has been manic.
The world it offers us All-Star Fruit Racing is alive
They are also not exempt from this discourse the glimpse of the islands (divided by seasons and from where we can choose the races to be undertaken in free mode or timed trial) and the level design, which manages to give its best in more than half of the tracks. Unfortunately, two or three tracks will seem quite bare to you, perhaps the daughters not of negligence, but of the excessive zeal placed in the details of the others. Whether it's the icy road to a castle, the sunny path into a canyon, or the crazy climb to the skies, you won't be disappointed. Last but not least, we also include karts and drivers themselves, all meticulously created with a fruit theme! But we will come back to them later.
With or Without Peel?
The roster is made up of 22 avid drivers, for the most part from the female "fruitfulness". However, only some of them will be available from the first race, and to unlock additional steering wheel fruits it will be necessary to obtain certain results, whether they are winning the gold trophy in a particular tournament or getting them the gold medal in timed trials. Each driver will be part of a "team": they are divided, being fruits, in summer, spring, autumn, winter fruit, but with special categories dedicated to fruit that grows all year round and to male drivers. Depending on the fruit you choose as your protagonist, the finishing move available in the race will also be different: 3DClouds again worked a lot of imagination, inspired by the innocence of children and the creativity of an adult to the most varied types of fruit, imagining what kind of weapon they could have become! So here are Coconuts rolling like bowling balls, Cherries swirling towards us at unprecedented speed, or a slice of Watermelon becoming a terrible shark on our heels!
3DClouds worked a lot of imagination, drawing inspiration from the innocence of children and the creativity of an adult
The difference between our pilots, however, is limited to this, namely the design and their final move. Indeed the rest of the characteristics of your kart will be the same for everyone, which makes the title less varied, but certainly more honest and allowing us to run on equal terms. On the other hand, the personalization factor is present! In fact, our small garage could not be missing, where to customize our kart with all possible elements, passing from the livery, to the wheels, to the rims, but also the bumpers and antenna! All the elements will also be colorable, to get on the track with a style that will be ours and ours alone! If, on the other hand, you cannot help but appreciate the splendid work done by the Milanese team, you can choose to drive the kart in its version created especially for the type of fruit chosen.
Thirst-quenching competition
Career mode provides 10 tournaments plus a special which we will tackle last, which will take us into a very fruitful version of infinite space (a clear tribute to the Rainbow Tracks of the infamous Mario Kart series). In these tournaments the tracks will often tend to repeat themselves, greatly limiting the “amazement and novelty” factor during our experience. To put a nice patch on this defect, which limits its consequences, is the fact that the number of participants in these offline tournaments is variable, as well as the number of races: we will go from running cups with 10 competitors, up to a maximum of 4 towards the last. Fewer participants means that losing a position will be decisive for the final score and for the ranking, while the more fruits will be in the race, the easier it will be for our direct opponents to slide to the bottom. One of the differences between All-Star Fruit Racing and the kart racing we know is just that: our direct opponent for the final victory is not fixed, but variable, and don't be surprised if Marion went from second to eighth in a race.
In terms of gameplay All-Star Fruit Racing offers a decidedly fun experience, but that's in many ways flaw of the "youth" of the brand. There are many interesting things that make this happen single title, as the ability to mix to our liking the fruit we collect in the race to get juicy and devastating weapons. Another point that helps to vary the experience are the different types of competition that are proposed to us:
- Juicer: we will pick the fruit from the street and mix it with the Juicer as we want!
- Random Juicer: instead of fruit there will be question marks, which will give us a random ready-made weapon;
- Dragster: the Juicer tanks refill over time, all 4 at the same time, but we will choose which ones to use;
- Elimination: every 10 seconds the last of the group is eliminated;
- Mixed Elimination: as in the Elimination, but with a random duration.
In the gameplay All-Star Fruit Racing offers a decidedly fun experience, but one that lacks the “youth” of the brand
Unfortunately it is not possible not to notice some painful notes: the difficulty of the title is undoubtedly set downwards, and there are very few races that can put you in a tight spot, even in trophy cups with Three Pistons. Another feature that makes you turn up your nose is the presence of some technical bugs, like enemy cars taking senseless directions in the race or at the start. Another lightness dictated by the youth of the brand is the management of crossroads: in 90% of cases the shortcuts are extremely shorter than the "normal" road, which inevitably leads the player to never use entire portions of the track because it is not convenient. Finally, the artificial intelligence must be filed, very “hasty” in firing without apparent criteria everything that the opponents have at their disposal (a feature that occurs more often in Dragster mode). On the other hand, the management of the drift, which not only presents a counter to inform us of its power, but it can be used in combo with the turbos scattered around the track to further increase the power of our sprint.
The last flaw, but without faults, is the excessive difficulty in finding online matches: we are talking about a non-triple A title, an independent production that, however valid, needs time and loyalty to create a real community. In any case, we are sure that these new platforms will give prestige to the title, proving to be an excellent stage for the media growth - and not only - of the game.
Summing up, All-Star Fruit Racing is a very good title, fresh enough, and that inserts at least a couple of really interesting mechanics able to make it unique: the challenge was great, after all, because the actual risk of creating kart games that resemble each other is always high, and over time we have seen many brands "fail" precisely because of their lack of originality. That's not the case, because the title of 3DClouds it has charisma to sell, and with the aforementioned adjustments it would have nothing to envy to more noble productions.
