A few years back a Spanish dev dropped Super Woden GP 2, a game quite mentioned on racing games circles for being something fresh. It was an absolute throwback to early racing arcades, with a fixed isometric view while having a career mode that was directly reminiscent to Gran Turismo. Sadly, while the concept was great, the handling plus that point of view held it from feeling good, which made me refund it like 20 minutes after taking the bait. Couldn’t see the incoming track properly or visualize the inertia needed for each turn, which was an instant red flag on a fast arcade racer.
Instead of holding his lane, ViJuDa released a rally spin-off that dropped that kind of view to take direct inspiration from Art of Rally, and screw me if it hasn’t fixed a good bunch of issues I had with the previous iteration.
Finally a focused career mode
Also from Art of Rally, it borrows a very playful, fluid handling and a bird’s-eye view camera that now follows you from behind, making it way easier to flow with the turny tracks. Despite this, the view here is very vertical, and I still can’t clearly see the elevation changes (important for choosing the right gear when you play with manual transmission). There are other difficulties stemming from the view, such as visibility in forest maps like Finland or the sections following very fast zones, but I understand that they’re part of the fun and are well-executed without becoming frustrating.
The Gran Turismo progression system, is once again present: build a collection of cars divided into categories, buy upgrades, win others as rewards… And even thought the campaign mode is very linear and lacking in complexity, so it doesn’t feel as open as the one it’s based on, it’s appreciated that for once a game goes for something like this.
There’s also an arcade mode divided into three difficulty levels, with your classic countdown and checkpoints. It’s inherently difficult (I don’t recommend starting with this mode; you’ll sweat a bit), but it’s also much smaller. I’d recommend it more as an extra challenge for those who find the campaign mode too short and want something more intense, but only if they have a firm grasp of the controls.
Flow like a butterfly
And talking about controls, they’re generally a delight. The cars slide perfectly, allowing you to powerslide regardless of the gear engaged, while still feeling the grip when you manage to put it straight. This complements the track design very well; although it does repeat pieces of the puzzle a bit too often (like a kind of Trackmania), it’s ambivalent enough to be a joy with cars of different categories and speeds.
I couldn’t help but notice that the Super Special stages where head-to-heads take place are always the same track, with different surfaces depending on the location: asphalt in Spain, loose dirt in Greece, mud in Finland, snow in Sweden… More variety is missed on the one hand, but on the other, it helps you understand the difference in grip and handling required for each surface.
What I did have to change were the controls. As I mentioned, I generally prefer to use manual transmission, and the default configuration assigns the up and down shift commands to the Y/△ and B/◯ buttons. Everyone has their own preferences, and mine is to use A/⨉ to shift up and X/▢ to shift down, so that’s how I set it up. Now, I was faced with the dilemma of where to put the handbrake, which I initially placed at B/◯— but that felt awkward because the downshift button and the handbrake were on opposite sides, and their nature is to be used together without you even noticing the button exists. In the end, I put it at Y/△, and not only did it feel much more natural, but it now felt like a majestic dance, equivalent to heel-and-toe shifting with the pedals. Crazy.
Valencian pride
It might sound silly to someone who doesn’t speak a regional or minority language, but the detail that stuck with me most is that this was the first game I’ve been able to play in my native language: Valencian. You might know it better as Catalan— it has different names and forms depending on the region, just as in Mallorca it’s called Mallorcan and has its own words and accent.
While it’s not common to find games translated into Catalan, it’s even rarer to find them in Valencian, and this has thrilled me. It’s a silly detail, completely irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, and something that won’t actually generate any extra sales, but it’s also made me appreciate the game much more. The translation isn’t perfect (it was most likely done with Google Translate), but that doesn’t diminish its value. Hats off to ViJuDa.
