Developer: RaceWard Studio
Publisher: Nacon
Platform: PC, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5
Tested on: Switch
RiMS Racing (Switch) – Review
Around a month ago we fell in love with the masterpiece that is RiMS Racing. After spending a lot of time on it and enjoying almost every aspect of it, it was time to try the game out on the Switch. The game recently got ported to Nintendo’s hybrid console, and this meant that the game had to be scaled down to run on the limited hardware of the Switch. We have to be brutally honest and say that this game should have never been ported, as this version is absolutely horrendous.
Story
In RiMS Racing you start as an aspiring new driver that completes their first training on the circuit and gets a brand new bike to celebrate. This starts off your new career and you must work closely with your whole team to race yourself to the top. The story isn’t anything new from other racing games and it leaves the player in full control of how fast they want to expand their legacy on the leaderboard.
Graphics
People who remember playing games on older hardware, such as the PS1 and PS2, will immediately get flashbacks to the way this game has been made. Many blurry details and overall simple graphics make this title look as if you’ve hooked up one of those dated consoles to your television set. The shiny reflections on the bikes have been changed into simple and dull-looking polygons, the tracks look empty and even the rearview mirrors don’t work. It is sad to see how this graphical masterpiece on other platforms was butchered to fit on the Switch, and even then, its performance is very choppy. The gameplay barely runs on 30 FPS and will easily dip further down if you are within the range of other drivers.
Sound
The one thing that might not be absolutely terrible is the sound in RiMS Racing. The bikes still sound decent, and there are many details in tires breaking traction and your bike crashing. One slightly lesser thing is that the complete soundtrack is by The Bloody Beetroots, and this can get pretty repetitive, especially when you have invested a lot of time in the game and notice that there isn’t much variety.
Gameplay
RiMS Racing is a motorcycle racing simulator where you not only have to race to the top but also have to manage your bike and team. The game introduces you to a nice tutorial that teaches you the basic things about the game, such as electronic assists and how to drive your bike. After completion, you may pick out a shiny new vehicle to celebrate the birth of a new driving hero. Right off the bat, the game feels a bit slow and sluggish and this only worsens when you start racing against opponents. We reckon this is both due to the limited capabilities of the Switch, as well as the lazy design behind the port.
In our previous review, we mentioned that the game feels perfect except for the A.I. being the main killjoy. The A.I. seems to be fixed right now, but the game is just unplayable on the Switch. With other drivers on track, it feels like the hardware just can’t keep up and struggles to deliver a stable 30 FPS. This defeats the purpose of the game, as playing at such a choppy framerate isn’t bearable for an intense racing simulator.
Not only does the overall performance make it so that the game is atrocious to endure, but the Switch also doesn’t have the greatest controllers for this game. In RiMS Racing it is essential to carefully distribute the right amount of throttle for managing the many tight corners. Sadly, seeing the triggers for Nintendo’s controllers are basically buttons, you will not have this function on the Switch. This, in combination with the game running poorly, makes for a title that should not have made it onto the Switch, or one that needed its own dedicated version for Nintendo’s console, rather than a poor port.
Conclusion
While RiMS Racing remains one of our most favorite racing games of all time, the Switch version should never have been made. The game is poorly optimized to run on the less powerful hardware and looks like a game that came out twenty years ago. Even though we found this version near unplayable, the realistic components still remain present in this inferior version, which might be somewhat of a comfort for those who only have the option to buy the Switch version. Nonetheless, if you have the option to buy it for a different platform, please do. If you don’t, wait until the Switch version is heavily discounted.
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