Taxi Chaos Reviews
Taxi Chaos sought to emulate a 22 year old classic, thus having 22 years to learn what made Crazy Taxi great. Despite this, Taxi Chaos falls flat and fails to recapture the thrills and high-speed gameplay of its progenitor. At its high price point on the Nintendo eShop in relation to the content within, I cannot recommend Taxi Chaos in its current, shallow state.
Taxi Chaos is nostalgic arcade fun. For better, and for worse it takes the Crazy Taxi formula and modernises it without breaking new ground. Fans of the genre will find a lot to like here.
So, how does Taxi Chaos stack up? Well, it's definitely not going to make you go praise it out on the streets. It was certainly fun for a period of time, that period being about an hour, after which it loses its novelty. I never really played Crazy Taxi as kid, but Taxi Chaos doesn't really instill in me a desire to play Crazy Taxi. Taxi Chaos isn't very chaotic, but there are taxis. There is a bit of personality in the interactions your chosen cabbie has with the passengers, but these get reused so quick you'll know them by heart after about twenty minutes. There isn't nearly enough draw for the game to really warrant much attention. Yeah, I might have had fun with it for about 15 to 20 minutes, but it isn't something I would suggest for anyone looking to really invest themselves in.
I have fond memories of playing Crazy Taxi on my SEGA Dreamcast in the noughties. When offered the chance to try out Taxi Chaos – a perceived spiritual successor to Crazy Taxi – I was keen to see whether the classic arcade racer’s gameplay could be brought back to modern screens in style. I was also curious about whether I had improved my virtual driving skills in that time. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I haven’t.
Taxi Chaos presents some fleeting moments of chaotic gameplay but lacks the required personality to reach its inspiration’s heights. You can tell there is some passion behind it, and there are some interesting ideas, but its graphics and music are uninspired, and the overall package offers lacklustre of content. When played casually, you can get a few moments of fun out of it, but only the staunchest Crazy Taxi fans will be able to get some enjoyment from this attempt to revive its formula.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
If you somehow never got to play Crazy Taxi or you no longer have access to play it, then Taxi Chaos is a decent pick and play an arcade game to enjoy in small gaming bursts. It’s a valiant effort but it kinda lacks the magic of the game it’s inspired from. Lacking memorable characters, pumping music and that atmosphere I used to feel in the arcade feels absent here. Taxi Chaos also doesn’t try anything new with the formula. For myself I found myself wanting to dig out Crazy Taxi and play that instead. But I guess when I’m too lazy to do that I’ll probably still give Taxi Chaos a drive-through.
Taxi Chaos is a simple and fun game for casual playthrough or to enjoy with young children. The control of the cab is accessible and the scenery is very colorful and well designed. This spiritual successor fulfilled his mission to reproduce Crazy Taxi's gameplay, but failed to bring the chaotic atmosphere of the title that inspired it. The repetition in the objectives, dialogues and music makes it quickly become tiring. For a game that has Chaos in its name, it misses a little bit more chaos.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Taxi Chaos has aspirations to be something far grander than it ever achieves. It lacks a personality of its own, a reason to keep coming back to its flat city, and really anything memorable. This is simply a pale imitation of Crazy Taxi, and just doesn’t do anything new or inventive for the genre in the 20 years since that game debuted. Taxi Chaos isn’t a spiritual successor, it’s a mundane offspring.
Taxi Chaos feels almost shameless in cloning Crazy Taxi's idea and it's lost some of the game's attitude (mainly due to a forgettable soundtrack) in the process, but it ultimately delivers an entertaining experience and a gameplay formula we've missed for a long time, with some nice additions like the city's verticality and the passengers side stories.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Taxi Chaos is a solid Crazy Taxi revival but it lacks quite a bit of content and motivation.
Review in German | Read full review
While it may satiate the urge to dive back into the wild environment that had gamers enamoured for generations, it will only fulfil a temptation for a short period, while becoming a quick afterthought.
Taxi Chaos isn’t really terrible. All in all, it’s a decent attempt to replicate what made Crazy Taxi so good twenty years ago, but in a new era of consoles. It’s just completely devoid of charm, with dull characters, visuals, and soundtrack. It’s fun for a few minutes, it manages to scratch your nostalgic itch for a while, but it’s definitely not a substitute for Sega’s near-perfect arcade franchise.
Taxi Chaos is a pretty faithful and enjoyable recreation of a fondly remembered gaming franchise, but its new ideas introduce lots of new problems.