ChoroQ
Posted April 26, 2005
Poor little ChoroQ. Your ratings are all over the map. No one quite knows what to make of you. IGN even called you "garbage." Don’t they know you just want to be loved?
Of course, you can’t blame them. ChoroQ is the video game equivalent of a bad puppy: frustratingly likeable, but mostly frustrating. One of the few games to attempt to merge racing and role-playing into some sort of bizarre hybrid (a "caRPG," quoth Atlus), it achieves moderate success with the first and fails in a spectacularly surreal way with the second.
Gameplay:
Based on Takara’s spring-loaded toy car line from Japan, ChoroQ features hundreds of different car bodies, all adapted from actual vehicles, including motorcycles, fire engines, street sweepers, and even a German tank. As the car itself (there are no drivers), you begin rather modestly, with a two-cylinder engine and a dream – to win the ChoroQ Grand Prix. By winning races and performing minor tasks for others, you can eventually build up enough cash to upgrade your vehicle so it handles more like a supercar than a riding lawnmower.
There are five themed racing areas, each with nine difficulty levels. Initially you have access to four or five of those, and actions throughout the game open up the rest, with each level containing one or two races you can join. The tracks themselves vary wildly. There are street races, off-road races through a dinosaur theme park, nightime races through a traditional Japanese city (easily the best course in the game), races through a castle (complete with a dragon looping around the track), toys, low-gravity, snow, water, cyberspace, ancient temples, and more. Most of these are quite a bit of fun.
The race mechanics sometimes detract from that, however. Spinning out tends to be a problem throughout the game, even with the best tires available. Bouncing can be frustrating, too. Nearly every level makes use of stairs, drop-offs, or potholes, and even with the heaviest chassis, your car can flip out all over the place, sometimes even ending up with you pointed the other direction. I found these to be significant problems midway through the game, but with upgrades and driving style adjustments, they can be minimized.
A decent portion of the game is role-playing, so upgrading your car is like buying and equipping new weapons or armor. Everything can be upgraded, from the front bumper to the rear, including the rear-view mirror ornament. Of these, the engine, tires, and transmission are naturally the most important, but even a roof decoration can make a significant difference. The car color can also be changed, and an optional custom paint job is available for (initially, at least) a princely sum. Unfortunately, none of the upgrades match each other, and a souped-up car ends up looking like the car that Homer designed in "The Simpsons."
Upgrades and other things are purchased in shops around the tri-city area that makes up the RPG side of ChoroQ. Putting around the town, you encounter other cars, have meaningless conversations, and waste time waiting for the load screens any time you attempt to enter one of the generic buildings, sometimes only to learn, "No one is here." Thanks. Most of the time, the denizens exclaim drops of wisdom like, "Being in Congress is hard!" or "We’re working on top-secret research!" Occasionally you encounter a challenge or someone in need of assistance, at which point a brief mini-game begins.
Luckily, this insipid RPG portion is almost entirely optional. After you visit a shop once, you can access its products through its "Internet site" and never need to leave your garage again. For those masochistic enough to want to spend inordinate amounts of time in the exploration portion, you’re rewarded with nearly a hundred events. These events are also necessary in order to create upgrades that are much better than those in the shop, although you should be able to beat the game without them.
Graphics:
Did I miss the release of the PlayStation 1.5? If you were to take away the nice lighting effects, ChoroQ could easily pass for a good-looking PlayStation 1 game, with its jagged edges and simple textures. Rain, the only weather effect, is pretty abysmal as well. I suppose the upside to that is that there’s no slowdown...
Audio:
Tinny, simple sounds and largely bland music mean ChoroQ won’t impress anyone in the audio arena. There are, however, a couple of catchy songs that stand out from the rest.
Conclusion:
Despite some fun track designs and a reasonably high level of customization, ChoroQ can’t escape unforgiving race mechanics and the mind-bending awfulness of its role-playing side. Skip it.
Of course, you can’t blame them. ChoroQ is the video game equivalent of a bad puppy: frustratingly likeable, but mostly frustrating. One of the few games to attempt to merge racing and role-playing into some sort of bizarre hybrid (a "caRPG," quoth Atlus), it achieves moderate success with the first and fails in a spectacularly surreal way with the second.
Gameplay:
Based on Takara’s spring-loaded toy car line from Japan, ChoroQ features hundreds of different car bodies, all adapted from actual vehicles, including motorcycles, fire engines, street sweepers, and even a German tank. As the car itself (there are no drivers), you begin rather modestly, with a two-cylinder engine and a dream – to win the ChoroQ Grand Prix. By winning races and performing minor tasks for others, you can eventually build up enough cash to upgrade your vehicle so it handles more like a supercar than a riding lawnmower.
There are five themed racing areas, each with nine difficulty levels. Initially you have access to four or five of those, and actions throughout the game open up the rest, with each level containing one or two races you can join. The tracks themselves vary wildly. There are street races, off-road races through a dinosaur theme park, nightime races through a traditional Japanese city (easily the best course in the game), races through a castle (complete with a dragon looping around the track), toys, low-gravity, snow, water, cyberspace, ancient temples, and more. Most of these are quite a bit of fun.
The race mechanics sometimes detract from that, however. Spinning out tends to be a problem throughout the game, even with the best tires available. Bouncing can be frustrating, too. Nearly every level makes use of stairs, drop-offs, or potholes, and even with the heaviest chassis, your car can flip out all over the place, sometimes even ending up with you pointed the other direction. I found these to be significant problems midway through the game, but with upgrades and driving style adjustments, they can be minimized.
A decent portion of the game is role-playing, so upgrading your car is like buying and equipping new weapons or armor. Everything can be upgraded, from the front bumper to the rear, including the rear-view mirror ornament. Of these, the engine, tires, and transmission are naturally the most important, but even a roof decoration can make a significant difference. The car color can also be changed, and an optional custom paint job is available for (initially, at least) a princely sum. Unfortunately, none of the upgrades match each other, and a souped-up car ends up looking like the car that Homer designed in "The Simpsons."
Upgrades and other things are purchased in shops around the tri-city area that makes up the RPG side of ChoroQ. Putting around the town, you encounter other cars, have meaningless conversations, and waste time waiting for the load screens any time you attempt to enter one of the generic buildings, sometimes only to learn, "No one is here." Thanks. Most of the time, the denizens exclaim drops of wisdom like, "Being in Congress is hard!" or "We’re working on top-secret research!" Occasionally you encounter a challenge or someone in need of assistance, at which point a brief mini-game begins.
Luckily, this insipid RPG portion is almost entirely optional. After you visit a shop once, you can access its products through its "Internet site" and never need to leave your garage again. For those masochistic enough to want to spend inordinate amounts of time in the exploration portion, you’re rewarded with nearly a hundred events. These events are also necessary in order to create upgrades that are much better than those in the shop, although you should be able to beat the game without them.
Graphics:
Did I miss the release of the PlayStation 1.5? If you were to take away the nice lighting effects, ChoroQ could easily pass for a good-looking PlayStation 1 game, with its jagged edges and simple textures. Rain, the only weather effect, is pretty abysmal as well. I suppose the upside to that is that there’s no slowdown...
Audio:
Tinny, simple sounds and largely bland music mean ChoroQ won’t impress anyone in the audio arena. There are, however, a couple of catchy songs that stand out from the rest.
Conclusion:
Despite some fun track designs and a reasonably high level of customization, ChoroQ can’t escape unforgiving race mechanics and the mind-bending awfulness of its role-playing side. Skip it.