Driving Emotion Type-S

"A poor mans Gran Turismo"

Squaresoft made a racing game for the NES. I've never played it but I do own it (just got it recently). I had heard terrible things about Driving Emotion but I recently found it for a few bucks so I bought it. I must say I truly regret it but it will stay in my collection for the Squaresoft factor.

It's a racing game so no story.

Graphic wise the game is really dated but it looks like a slightly poorer version of the car models found in Gran Turismo 3. The backdrops either look nice or ugly. This is perhaps the best part of the entire game...

The cars all sound the same... Music is a tencho type but not really techno. Some of the songs really felt out of place to me. No voice acting.

Ah, control.... This is where the game fails. Now, I understand if a super fast car is hard to control and some of the crappier cars as well. However, every car handles like a ton of bricks going down a ice curved slope. Power sliding seemed useless because if you screwed it up you ended up facing the wrong way and then it just takes forever to turn back around. Many times I found myself trying to keep my car straight on a straight away but it kept slipping to either side. It's just bad all around and most of the cars came off as uncontrollable.

It isn't that the game play is bad, it just isn't very good. It's like your normal racing game. Plain tracks, no short cutes. Different locations like race tracks, cities, desert, ect. Now, there are 4 classes to race in. You need to beat the lowest class for a course and the next opens. There are 6 tracks... That is it. Two are just repeats but with a slightly different path. Tracks are interesting at least. Game offers a new car for each course you beat per division.

So, the game has a fair amount of cars. 8 different companies I think. The thing is again, the control ruins it all and there is also a lacking sense of speed. The game feels very slow at times.

As for replay value there is all of the ugh tracks, but I found those becoming very dull after the 2nd division. There is also a training like set of courses that have cones. There is also multiplayer. That's all the game has to offer. It just doesn't have a lot...

This is maybe my shortest review in the last year or so. Why is that? The game just doesn't have a lot to offer. It has the standard view options while driving, a decent amount of cars and okay graphics. Apart from all of that is the horrible control and lack of tracks and other modes. The game is very cheap now but it isn't even worth that price. Just so you know, the graphics score is based on Then graphics and not today graphics.

Story - N/A
Graphics - 7/10
Sound - 6/10
Control - 2/10
Game Play - 4/10
Replay Value - 2/10

Final Score - 3/10

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 04/24/06