Un arcade de conducción muy majo con muy buena simulación de físicas. El control es algo tosco al principio y el juego no te enseña a conducir, sino que espera que lo hagas por tu cuenta, pero una vez le pillas el punto es muy agradable de jugar.

No hay mucha variedad de circuitos y, aunque no es algo realmente importante en un juego de rallys, pero sí se hace algo repetitivo cuando estás en una competición muy larga.

Los niveles de lluvia son HORRIBLES y convierten un juego muy agradable en un infierno durante el ratito que tienes que sufrirlos.

Artísticamente es muy bonito y la música sintética ochentera le da un toque muy relajante que le sienta de maravilla.

En general, bastante bien. Una sorpresita agradable que compré sin saber dónde me metía y me ha dejado buen sabor de boca.

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A pretty nice driving arcade with great physics simulation. Steering is a bit rough in the beginning and the game doesn't teach you how to drive, it expects you to learn by yourself, but once you get the hang of it it's a very nice experience.

It doesn't have a huge variety of tracks and, although it's not that important in a rally game, it can be a bit repetitive if you're in a very long competition.

The rain levels are AWFUL and they turn a very nice game into hell for the short while you have to endure them.

Artistically gorgeous, and the 80s synth music gives it a very chill touch that works like a charm.

Overall, pretty good. A nice surprise I got without knowing barely anything about it and left me with a good impression.

The recent peak of the contrarian minimalist video game. it's weird that I never knew the differences between V engines until I played this game and didn't even have to touch any parts of the car
Perhaps that is the greatest virtue of Art of Rally, it makes you understand and become aware of the nuances of driving, the history of the rally summarized through this plastic model in the shape of a video game. It's arcade and it's simulation too, but nothing about to choose parts of the car and no driving action type mindless you just need precise math with your fingers and refined touch, just that.

I don't think many people would argue that one of the main things a racing game needs to get right is the feel of the car, and art of rally gets this spot on and driving around each area in free roam is a great way to get to grips with the handling model.

It's a shame that main single player element kind of gets in the way of that. The game imparts a zen like attitude on you at the very start so finishing anywhere on the rostrum will unlock new cars, and not using all your restarts will guarantee new decals which is very much appreciative, but this is held back by progression through each tier becomes slower and slower as the years go on. Less zen, more tedium by attrition.

The courses themselves are fun to drive though, with enough differing elements on each tack to keep you on your toes - although even in this fantasy land, there are a few too many long straight-hairpin-long straight-hairpin etc. sections for my liking. However while the environments look great thanks to the art style, they only really differ in flora and fauna (or tanks in the case of the German courses) and as such they mostly lack an identity on their own. Added to that, the courses are all selected randomly for each 'season' which feels like a misstep that makes it a lot harder to learn the courses and how the different cars at your disposal work on them.

I'm probably sounding a bit harsh on the game but I think that's because I think there was something truly special that could have been done here. I hope we see another game in the genre from Funselektor which can iron out these kinks.

I grew up playing the likes of Skidmarks, Overdrive and other awesome top-down racers on the Amiga.

If you showed me this game in 1995 I would have wet my pants, but even today the deep physics and minimalist graphics are a treat.

With so much love poured into the game it is hard not to love it back.

Until you overdo it, fly off the road and hit a tree.

No Forza rewind to cushion your delicate ego; this is the real deal: respect the road, feel and fear the speed kind of game.

Great stuff.

Looks simple but is actually a really nicely tuned driving game with a nice mellow soundtrack. Initially challenging as it's hard to monitor your speed and the undunlation of the track but once you get into it, nailing a drift is so satisfying and you genuinely feel a connection with how fast you're driving. Going through a stage smoothly is an excellent feeling.

So close to a 5 this one, just felt a bit baggy towards the end of the campaign with the 20-stage seasons. If possible I'd have had the same number of races but maybe one more short 'super-season' at the end; the Group A cars were just about doable for me in terms of speed but going past the limit one last time would have been a great way to polish things off - like the Lakeland stage/Stratos in Sega Rally.

Tanto divertente quanto frustrante, è molto bello anche per l'amore che trasuda per il mondo dei rally e questo trasportare la propria passione in una versione non fredda come fanno altri titoli anche più blasonati (giustamente per carità) è personalmente motivo di lode.
La macchina è davvero "pazza", ti ci vogliono ore per abituarti e questo può essere un peso. Consiglio infatti di fare in difficoltà novizio la carriera e poi concentrarsi per bene su ogni singolo percorso confrontandosi con il proprio fantasma (talvolta la meccanica del fantasma non si attiva, ma va beh)

𝟕,𝟒/𝟏𝟎
A minimalistic game with a nice, though not outstanding, picture.
This is something like a purely gameplay hardcore platformer where you have to jump right into the timings, it’s the same here, only from the world of races, you have to meditatively drive, not really accelerating, and turning into a perfect calm timing so as not to fly off to the side of the road.
The music is simple, retro style.

Subscribe on my Steam Curators page:
https://store.steampowered.com/curator/41977550/

Much like Absolute Drift, this a frustration game. You have to get good before the game is fun, keep that in mind.

As somewhat of a sequel, this game nailed everything I wanted to see. It took Absolute Drifts driving style and applied it to rally stages from around the world. A huge plus.

The cars on offer aren’t branded or anything like that, but the attention to detail and documenting of rallying culture / history is great from a little indie title. I see Lancia, Ford, VW etc all referenced.

The locations (and subsequent changes in track conditions) are beautifully done. Each location feeling unique (with the dual sense literally feeling unique in vibration patterns), true to it’s real life location and different from all the other tracks.

Overall a niche game for enthusiasts of psuedo procedurally generated tracks, rallying and mechanically challenging games.

i finlandesi sono dei pazzi furiosi e sono un dono che qualche dio caotico ci ha concesso con nostro grande bucio di culo.
questo è un gioco che riesce a trasmettere l'amore e lo sbullonamento dei folli per il rugby (rally) a chi come il medesimo non se ne sbatte nemmeno un millimetro di minchia, e penso che sia un pregio riuscire ad essere così sinceri e appassionati e contemporaneamente semplici e trasparenti. te piace sgasare clicca su sta macchina nun te piace de sgasa e allora ci clicchi lo stesso e dopo trenta ore di guida tra i tornanti giapponesi penserai ah però non è così male scatafasciarsi tra le verdi valli degli antichi samurai della famiglia stronzugawa, ah però forse ho imparato come fare a sleppare tra le curve strette dei paesini dei maledetti sardi, ah guarda questa macchina fa un suono che mi piace di più di quella che ho comandato prima. insomma dio cane stai vivendo una situazione di apprendimento informale che tu lo voglia o no come con i gatti hai il verme nel cervello e hai imparato dei fan fackts inutilissimi che ti porterai nella tomba, bravo coglione, gioca a questo stracazzo di gioco dai, simulatore dei miei coglioni (scusate mi sono stancato di scrivere)

[Verse 1]
Reluctantly crouched at the starting line
Engines pumping and thumping in time
The green light flashes, the flags go up
Churning and burning, they yearn for the cup
They deftly maneuver and muscle for rank
Fuel burning fast on an empty tank
Reckless and wild, they pour through the turns
Their prowess is potent and secretly stern
As they speed through the finish, the flags go down
The fans get up and they get out of town
The arena is empty except for one man
Still driving and striving as fast as he can
[Pre-Chorus]
The sun has gone down and the moon has come up
And long ago somebody left with the cup
But he's driving and striving and hugging the turns
And thinking of someone for whom he still burns

[Chorus]
He's going the distance
He's going for speed
She's all alone (All alone)
All alone in her time of need
Because he's racing and pacing and plotting the course
He's fighting and biting and riding on his horse
He's going the distance

[Post-Chorus]
Yah!

[Verse 2]
No trophy, no flowers, no flashbulbs, no wine
He's haunted by something he cannot define
Bowel-shaking earthquakes of doubt and remorse
Assail him, impale him with monster-truck force
In his mind, he's still driving, still making the grade
She's hoping in time that her memories will fade
'Cause he's racing and pacing and plotting the course
He's fighting and biting and riding on his horse

[Pre-Chorus]
The sun has gone down and the moon has come up
And long ago somebody left with the cup
But he's striving and driving and hugging the turns
And thinking of someone for whom he still burns

[Chorus]
'Cause he's going the distance
He's going for speed
She's all alone (All alone)
All alone in her time of need
Because he's racing and pacing and plotting the course
He's fighting and biting and riding on his horse
He's racing and pacing and plotting the course
He's fighting and biting and riding on his horse
He's going the distance
He's going for speed
He's going the distance

[Outro]
Hey
Hey
Hey
Oh, hey
Hey
Oh no
So sad, alright
Oh no
Oh no
No, no

At it's best, Art of Rally is a glorious homage to the glory days of the motorsport. It sucked me in immedietly, with it's gorgeous aesthetic and fantastic physics/car handling forming an excellent base for a game. A Tribute that truly captures the madness and zen-like state of blasting a car down a road at the edge of control.

But the more I played AOR, and the further I was torn from that first hour of pure zen, the more the cracks show. The main issue is the stages. Rally games have always suffered with stages, because realistically you'd want about a Thousand Kilometres of Road in every game, which is untennable, But AOR really suffers in both quantity and quality.

There's about 30 unique stages in the game (and a lot of reverse versions). That might have been enough, but they are also all extremely short and there's maybe one good one in the entire game. And considering the career mode will have you go through about 25 courses in every class of car, repeats happen thick and fast and by the time you've even reached the group B cars, which are the most popular and a selling point of the game - I was already tired of them.

And the stage design shows some really baffling decisions - whilst each of the 5 location's aesthetic has been gloriously adapted, the nature of their roads has most certainly not been, and it's incredibly frustrating. Every location ends up feeling the same when in real life there's so much more variety and soul to the tracks themselves. Finland is a particular shame, as it's claustrophobic, tree lined roads in real life feel exactly like every other road in this entire game. Different coutries' rally stages are literally like mario worlds in real life and somehow the artsy videogame version makes them makes them all the same.

There's also a mind-boggling choice to keep the road surface at the same, incredibly wide width for every road in the entire game, and there's a severe lack of variety in terms of corner choice. One of the japan stages feels like it has 10 2nd-gear hairpin sweepers in a row and it's remarkably boring. How does an artsy, arcade rally videogame have less interesting roads than the ones outside my house?

Eventually, the stage design's blandness broke through my sheer love of the core aesthetic and feel. And it's a real shame. There's such a love of a lost era here, and it's just one thing away from working.

Art of Rally begins with a Buddha rising from the ground to encourage players. It will take patience and determination to become a rally master, the Buddha says before disappearing into the earth. This encounter sets the tone for a truly special racing journey, one that leads to enjoyment and tranquility but only if players are willing to learn and overcome their rage. Which is initially easier said than done. Although the gorgeous, minimalistic aesthetic and unusually removed camera read as an arcade experience, one crash-riddled race will reveal the far more intricate, physics based mechanics that underlie the game.

Considering Art of Rally’s celebration of rally and evangelism for the sport, which it is very successful in conveying, it would be nice to provide beginners with any sort of tutorialization considering the difficulty of its mechanics. Granted, it offers free roam to practice and ghosts of top players to attempt to learn from, but this is rarely enough to clarify mistakes that players are making. Thankfully though, the game encourages players to simply progress through the campaign seasons and is uninterested in if they win them, dolling out unlockables for refraining to use restarts rather than for wins. And the joy comes from this slow progress, going from season to season becoming slightly more familiar with the courses, techniques, physics, and philosophy behind rally. Eventually players will find themselves winning more and in control, at which point Art of Rally is simply a delight to play. The final couple seasons of the campaign almost feel like a victory lap, offering players fun cars to match their increased skill.

This is not to say that there are not frustrations that persist until the end. The camera angle, while novel, makes reading the terrain difficult. This could have been solved by any sort of co-driver indicators, but those are fully absent as well. Add in some, at times, wonky collision and jump physics as well as occasion frame dips at inopportune times and the game can become infuriating. But that is not majority of the Art of Rally nor does it meaningfully diminish the highs of when you get in the groove, flying past the beautiful country side to the vibes of the perfect synthwave soundtrack. It becomes so easy to slip into the trance of the game yet it holds up to the alert competitiveness of time trials. Whatever players are looking for, Art of Rally’s journey will bring them someplace special if they are willing to persevere.