{"id":24643,"date":"2024-06-28T00:01:03","date_gmt":"2024-06-28T00:01:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=24643"},"modified":"2024-06-10T19:16:04","modified_gmt":"2024-06-10T19:16:04","slug":"riders-spirits-ps4-ps5-switch-xbox-one-x-s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2024\/06\/28\/riders-spirits-ps4-ps5-switch-xbox-one-x-s\/","title":{"rendered":"Rider’s Spirits (PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, X\/S)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Back when they were more popular and more relevant, I used to love reading video game magazines. \u00a0I liked them so much it\u2019s even what helped me choose my major in college (not such a good idea now, but that\u2019s a 20\/20 hindsight kind of thing).\u00a0 Some of my favorites included Nintendo Power, Next Generation, and Electronic Gaming Monthly.\u00a0 One of the cool things EGM would do sometimes was cover games from Japan that we\u2019d never see over here.\u00a0 One of them I remember was TwinBee Rainbow Bell Adventure for Super Famicom, a cutesy 2D pastel platformer with characters from the TwinBee shooter series.\u00a0 Another Super Famicom one I remember was a motorcycle racing game that caught my eye because it looked similar to Super Mario Kart, one of my top favorite games of all time.\u00a0 And now you can play that game on all modern consoles (reviewed on PS4 here).\u00a0 In Japan the game was originally called Bike Daisuki!\u00a0 Hashiriya Kon.\u00a0 I think EGM called it \u201cWe Love Motorcycles,\u201d which is probably a more direct translation of the first part of the title.\u00a0 But here it\u2019s called Rider\u2019s Spirits, which I think is more like the last part of the title.<\/p>\n

Anyway, so Rider\u2019s Spirits is a colorful and cartoony motorcycle racing game that uses Mode 7 graphics similar to Super Mario Kart.\u00a0 Like that classic, it also uses a split screen to either have two players or a rear view mirror, depending on how you play.\u00a0 Controls are simple and pretty responsive, too.\u00a0 Almost as good as Mario Kart.\u00a0 Steer with the control stick and brake and gas with the buttons.\u00a0 Use the shoulder buttons to lean into the turns and L2 trigger button uses items if you have them.<\/p>\n

You can choose to play one or two players, and there are three different modes.\u00a0 You start off by choosing your character.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know if these characters are original for this game or if they are based on other properties, but some are named after fruit and one has pink hair so that\u2019s usually who I picked.\u00a0 The first mode is the standard GP race.\u00a0 You compete in six tracks, getting points depending on how you place, and whoever has the most at the end, wins.\u00a0 You can unlock three different difficulty levels with new track layouts for each, but you have to place first to do that so it’s pretty tough.\u00a0 Like Mario Kart, you can pick up items and weapons you can use, but you must drive through the pit stop area in each lap to get one.<\/p>\n

The next mode is Time Trial which is pretty self explanatory and plays pretty much like how it does in Mario Kart and other racers.\u00a0 The last mode is Endurance Race and here you do a single track but team up with another character.\u00a0 There are no items, but you can run out of fuel.\u00a0 So before that happens, you must stop at the pit area on the track and switch characters.<\/p>\n

I did have a few problems with this game.\u00a0 I wish they would\u2019ve done a better job of telling you how to play.\u00a0 You can view the controls but I wish I knew what the items did.\u00a0 There is a gallery mode with scans of the instruction manual, but it\u2019s all in Japanese so that doesn\u2019t do me any good.\u00a0 The other problem I had was the game is REALLY HARD!\u00a0 It took me quite a few tries just to get to 1st<\/sup> place on the initial round of tracks!\u00a0 If you hit a wall you slow to a stop and there is one item the opponents can use that turns your whole screen black for a bit, which can really wreck you!\u00a0 But even so, I still enjoyed this one because the Super Nintendo is my number one favorite game console so I always love playing games on it I never have before.\u00a0 And the Mario Kart style gameplay and responsive controls kept me coming back for more.\u00a0 It\u2019s nowhere near as good as Super Mario Kart, which is probably why they didn\u2019t bring it over here initially, but I still enjoyed it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Kid Factor:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rider\u2019s Spirits is rated E-10 with ESRB descriptors of Fantasy Violence and Mild Blood.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t notice any blood, but you can spin out and crash on your motorcycle.\u00a0 Reading skill is helpful for the text, but not necessary just to play.\u00a0 Younger gamers may find this one too difficult, though.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back when they were more popular and more relevant, I used to love reading video game magazines. \u00a0I liked them so much it\u2019s even what helped me choose my major in college (not such a good idea now, but that\u2019s a 20\/20 hindsight kind of thing).\u00a0 Some of my favorites included Nintendo Power, Next Generation, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":24627,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24643"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24645,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24643\/revisions\/24645"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}