Funtasia, a review of a totally crazy racing game

To date, the team known as Fantasy Studio even though they were practically unknown to the general public – partly because they were independent, partly because they were strongly authoritarian – he released a number of very specific productions. The author and it’s a shame to admit, he knew absolutely nothing about these developers, but the curiosity came right after the first minutes of the game in the company Funtasia.

In fact, we have played very strange productions in recent years; however, we believe that Funtasia will remain in our memory for a while. There’s really nothing missing from the appeal: it’s a crazy racing game, as technical as it is arcade; an artistic direction that can wink at the very special grotesques of the eighties figures; Even issues close to raising awareness about global pollution. And not only does it all hold together, but it works so well, so much so that over the past few days, we’ve unwittingly found ourselves on its colorful and dangerous paths holding our Nintendo Switch tight every time we take a break (we’ve reviewed). title here, but also available elsewhere, for example on PC via Steam).

ours are following Funtasia’s reviewbut don’t push the accelerator too hard: it will take some time to fully appreciate its quirkiness.

Topic: Racing at top speed against the rejects of Apocalypse

There complo di Funtasia is so out of her mind that at some point she completes the tour and starts to make sense. The eponymous planet was once colorful, green, lush and also home to many anthropomorphic animals. But one day the waste problem became overwhelming: it was decided to send it outdoors to avoid local pollution – so what? Instead, cosmic rays slam into garbage creating monstrous shape-shifting beings for reason enough to make them dangerous.

So now the world is under threat waste Apocalypse of the Apocalypse: disgusting-looking (and equally unpleasant-smelling) creatures have returned to Funtasia in search of vengeance. What shall we do? A brilliant scientist saw fit to build four-wheeled vehicles that could remove pollution the hard way; Thus begins the war between the animals in the car and the cosmic garbage. If the buildings of the production appeal to you, know that everything else is even better.

There structure The title is actually two-sided in a way. There are ten levels in total – one for each biome, and each marked by a specific animal equipped with an equally customized vehicle. However, the levels have two distinct moments: in the first, the player must “simply” reach the finish line, overcoming all kinds of obstacles, and accumulate materials to upgrade his car in the garage between one game and another; In the second, the real fight begins with the boss of that biome. It could be a creature that can fire laser beams by boosting itself with discarded syringes (drug residue), or a grotesque giant boy who can (literally) drop real atomic bombs.

Gameplay: speed and lots of balance

Funtasia is a remarkably atypical two-dimensional racing game. It is clear that this little car must run all the way to the end of the road and reach the finish line as quickly as possible: but at a given moment, it is necessary to take into account such a wide array of variables on the road. GameplayWe will not hesitate to leave the generic “arcade” production. Funtasia is sometimes closer to a puzzle or platform game than anything else. First of all, the car is very sensitive: just a small pebble on the road is enough to make the wheels spin or tip over, let alone the actual bumps scattered along the route. Also, each vehicle is equipped with a battery placed on top: if the latter collides with the environment, the car will explode immediately, causing the game to end. Also falls into the gap or simple consumption of all available fuel.

So the player doesn’t just have to run to the finish: always stay balanced tool, via the left stick of Nintendo Switch; calculate the friction on the climbs and the acceleration on the descents well to avoid getting stuck in the void; should avoid battery collisions; sometimes he must collect along the way objects necessary to overcome a certain obstacle (for example, the bonus associated with the high jump marked with a yellow arrow); all of this, often at the same time. And don’t rely on the reported difficulty levels for game worlds: our experience has taught us that Funtasia is a difficult game. Instant, fun, very reproducible: but hard. Maybe that’s why it works.

presence multiplayer mode It sincerely surprised us both in local co-op and online competitive: partly because such small productions often lack the resources to project themselves into anything other than single-player, and partly because Funtasia itself doesn’t look like that to us. Your title has been brought online. Instead, everything works: just a few cars hit the road together, and the player with the best overall score – on the top four tracks – wins.

There artistic directionFinally, it’s really valuable. Of course, the style may or may not be liked, but it is undeniable that it has managed to perfectly reflect this kind of “cartoon-grotesque” that was very fashionable in the eighties and nineties (the ancients maybe will remember the Sgorbions, we are there with inspiration). Among other things, the style is the result of the work of Italian artist Emanuele Olives, who seems to have been inspired by Heinz Edelmenn (Adventure Time and Troma).

In general and here we are really close, Nintendo Switch We did not encounter any slowdowns, on the contrary, the Nintendo Switch vibration system has always perfectly reverberated the situations in which we found ourselves – in a racing game experienced on consoles, rather than on real roads as much as possible – immersion.