Rise: Race the Future

As long as you're playing it docked and willing to put the time in to master its helium-light handling, Rise eventually reveals itself to be a rewarding and visually fantastic arcade style racer with an interesting Challenges mode. Its slightly blurry handheld visuals and the complete lack of multiplayer are disappointing, but persevere with its slippery steering and the payoff is a fun – if unforgiving – solo racing game.

That’s the issue here. Rise: Race The Future is simultaneously both extremely polished and not well thought out. You never experience glitches or bugs, and the controls, while occasionally difficult, are tight and responsive the majority of the time. But then you are confronted with the awkward level design and outdated AI, and you’re back at square one. If VD-Dev could delve back into the core of their game, and fix the underlying problems afflicting Rise: Race The Future, they could craft the game into an endlessly playable, simplistic racer that would appease most fans. As it stands, the game is plagued by basic problems that will leave most players seeking alternatives.

Even if you were to look at this title without comparing it to other arcade racers, Rise: Race the Future would simply be fine. The track designs are good, and the Challenge mode offers up something in lieu of multiplayer. However, with a limited selection of tracks and cars when compared to other games, Rise feels rather limited in terms of what the player can do before boredom sets in. Ultimately, the game does well as a quick snack, but it's doesn't need to be a permanent part of one's racing library.

VD-Games has done it again. Since they began their journey, they have dedicated themselves to squeezing every nanometer of silicon from the machines they program for, and this time it was Switch's turn. But Rise: Race the Future is not only a nice game, it is a fun game, which lacks some details to be more rounded but which is worth taking a while.

As the checkered flag comes down on RISE: Race the Future, it has finished strong. The graphics, the driving mechanics, the tracks, the vehicles, and the play-time are all very good. The game is fun to play and challenging enough to keep you coming back for more. Even if you normally don't get into racing games, RISE is definitely worth having in your Switch collection. Unfortunately, the lack of multiplayer is a significant omission that we can't ignore.

Rise: Race the Future brings simplicity back to racing games and reduces the experience to a minimal but competent formula that puts all emphasis on the steering skills and art style. Anyone who puts some time into this game will find a challenging work but those looking for a multiplayer experience should strongly consider their options, as Rise: Race the Future features only single player choices.

All in all, I found the game rather enjoyable as I could freely pick it up to play a few levels or challenges. It was nice to be able to play a quick race between cooking dinner or that small time between I need to go to bed and well going to bed. Would I recommend this game to others, yes but let's be honest this is not for everyone? If you are simulation racer type you may find this game a bit too loose and wild.

Overall, this game has its issues, but in the end, it is a good game. This take on the futuristic racing genre is unique and more realistic than what we may expect in the future.

Whether playing docked or portably, Rise certainly makes a name for itself in this regard. Rise: Race the Future is a fantastic racing game at its core that is held back only by the limits of its own ambition. While it would benefit greatly from a further exploration of its own mechanics and multiplayer functionality, it remains a very fun and technically-solid racer that can more than hold its own against the system's best.

Since there's a general lack of racing games on Switch, in particular those that aren't cart racers of some kind, it's always good to see another option available...