Cruis'n Blast Reviews
An otherwise decent racing game, terrible AI choices, and rubber-banding cripple Cruis'n Blast. A real shame.
If you have friends to play with regularly, Cruis’n Blast can provide light arcade-style thrills. With over-the-top courses, a catchy soundtrack, and simple gameplay, there’s fun to be had. There’s just not enough content to justify it for anyone else, though, especially when basic features expected of the genre are missing.
Cruis'n Blast is a by-the-numbers racing game that is fun for an afternoon, but with little to offer to make it worth it to keep playing.
Cruis'n Blast for Nintendo Switch has been developed by a very small team, and for what it has achieved it is very admirable. It is an incredibly fun title for the first couple of hours, but it is lacking in any real depth to make it anything more than a fun weekend. Grabbing friends locally for a few races can be an absolutely blast, but lacking any online modes whatsoever somewhat dampens the mood. The lack of modes is one thing, but the course variety is also another issue with most tracks being direct derivatives of the original five arcade ones. However, if a simple, easy to handle racer that has some astounding set pieces and outlandish vehicle choices is your type of thing, then Cruis'n Blast will definitely satisfy the urge.
Cruis’n Blast focuses on style over substance, making the end result feel a bit hollow. Navigating a careening ferris wheel is the stuff action movies are made of, but there’s just not enough content here to justify picking this home release up over sinking a few bucks into the arcade version.
All things considered, it took me a little over an hour or so to see just about everything that Cruis’n Blast has to offer. The Nintendo Switch racing scene has been dominated by Mario Kart and I feel like Cruis’n Blast had a chance to make a real case for bringing other classic Nintendo racers back into the scene. But if lackluster graphics and mediocre racing mechanics are all we’d get it might be better to leave our precious memories in the past. Cruis’n Blast isn’t unplayable though and would probably make an enjoyable experience for someone with kids or younger siblings. Everyone else should probably head to the arcade and hope they have a much more enjoyable arcade experience available to try out.
Cruis’n Blast is the curious case of a great game on the outside, but empty on the inside. The main gameplay is exhilarating, with fast races and responsive controls. The circuits, with their gigantic jumps, comically absurd situations and unexpected elements, make games fun. The vehicles, on the other hand, ranging from the simplest to the most fantastic, are hardly seen in other games of the genre. However, everything around this gameplay is shallow, making this a good comeback from the franchise, but not the best possible.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Cruis'n Blast presents an arcade racing formula that's exciting at first but quickly wears thin due to its lack of challenge or need for skill. That being said, it can still be enjoyable for a few rounds of old-school racing entertainment with friends.
Do you miss oldschool arcade racing games? This one is a real blast from the past that will keep those memories alive.
Review in Slovak | Read full review
Arcade racers should be better represented on console and PC, with Cruis’n Blast ticking a lot of boxes for those who love this genre and wish that it wasn’t almost solely confined to arcade cabinets. There are few games that will pitch a unicorn in a race against a UFO, and such possibilities in Cruis’n Blast should be celebrated appropriately. However, performance problems, the absence of online multiplayer, and the lack of things to do for the solo player make for an altogether disappointing port, that nonetheless just about offers enough to warrant the attention of arcade racing fans.
Cruis'n Blast is a fun game in the short term, but lacks the depth of many other arcade racers and doesn't offer a particularly exciting multiplayer, with just a few local 4-players modes.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Cruis'n Blast is an absurd, bombastic, and fun trip through the Wayback Machine to the days of quarter-munching arcade racers.
There's no doubt that Cruis'n Blast is going to serve a relatively niche audience, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. The sheer spectacle on display combined with vast opportunity for technical skill makes for an incredibly engaging arcade racing game that focuses on letting the player have pure, unfiltered fun. It's a shame that there isn't any form of online functionality to provide a little extra meaning to the experience, since that little extra motivation could've elevated Cruis'n Blast from a good game to a great game.
Cruis'n Blast is a faithful port of the arcade classic, that suffers from the straight port of the same game. It's fun, it's fast, and will keep you entertained for hours. However, unless you're a huge fan of arcade racers, you may end up putting this down and never picking it back up. There's no substance and that hurts the game in the long run.
For all its faults, Cruis'n Blast does a great job of capturing the style of its '90s predecessors. Throughout its various cups and in multiplayer, there's a lot of arcade fun that's a welcome break for anyone tired of Mario Kart 8. It's easy to wish that more time went into having a variety of modes rather than tracks that can feel too similar to stand out, and the graphics certainly aren't hiding the fact that this game was first released five years ago. Still, anyone looking to relive the days of Cruis'n USA will find a lot to like by taking a whirlwind tour of what Blast has to offer.
Overall, whether I'd recommend Cruis'n Blast on Nintendo Switch depends on how you're going to play it. For short bursts, it's a solid entry and you'll likely have a lot of fun with it, though you may want to wait for a sale anyway. The controls work well, and there's a lot of replayability when it comes to finding all the keys. But there's a reason these games are meant for arcades and not for home release. There's simply not enough track variety to play for an extended period without feeling like you've replayed the same courses over and over. The best parts of the game are using the wacky vehicles like a Triceratops to race, but even the novelty of that will likely wear off after a few races. If you're looking for something bigger or more long-term, you'd be better off looking elsewhere.
I absolutely do miss those days. I can’t get on with realistic racing games, so I crave a steady diet of the stuff that Cruis’n Blast gives. At the same time, I normally rented racing games on the N64 and rarely bought them. The same would have held true for Cruis’n Blast. It’s too fleeting to really grab hold of my grey matter and make a home there. I had a lot of fun while it lasted, but now it’s time to return to the beige, carefully curated modernity.
Cruis'n Blast is an endearingly earnest arcade racing time capsule, but it's also a very lean package that struggles to disguise its origins as a wafer-thin 2017 arcade cabinet.
A completely crazy arcade game, ideal for those who want tightrope walkers, negligible for everyone else.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Cruis’n Blast is a triumphant return to the franchise after a very long wait in between games.