After acquiring a ROG Ally, I went out to find some current Steam exclusives that would be a perfect “pick up and play” fit for the portable system. One such example, which felt like a no-brainer once I found out about it, was Rally Arcade Classics, by Spanish studio NETK2GAMES. An old-school racer inspired by rallying classics of the 90s and early 2000s? Duh, sign me the hell up! Let’s give this game a closer look and see if it’s indeed a hidden gem or something not worth bothering.

A friendly reminder that the sporty version of the old Mini only had about 34hp. So you can already expect this baby’s performance in-game.

Rally Arcade Classics promises quick and replayable rallying events scattered throughout an immense career mode, where each race is usually done in just a minute or two. These short bursts are, without a doubt, an actual great fit for a portable, especially since how the loading times are nearly instantaneous. There’s a catch, though. Even if each event is quick and easy to hop into, as in an arcade game, I don’t think Rally Arcade Classics is properly structured like one. In fact, I actually think it featured more similarities to the Gran Turismo games than, say, Sega Rally.

Before you’re even allowed to run on a race, you need to obtain a license for a specific category. At first, you can only obtain a license for painfully slow compacts, such as the Peugeot 206 and old-school Mini Cooper. None of the vehicles are licensed, but they are pretty easy for you to figure out, so don’t fret about a possible lack of realism. Rally Arcade Classics shoves tons of mandatory “tests” at you before you’re able to compete at the lowest category, but once you’re allowed to do so, you also need to compete in a ton of different events that feel a bit repetitive after a while.

Apparently, I’m rallying around Silent freaking Hill…

It’s not that the events are boring, or that the game isn’t responsive, but it’s just way too much. You need to complete dozens upon dozens of races / time trials / etc in order to either afford a car that doesn’t suck tremendously, or to be allowed to go after a new license. In this sense, Rally Arcade Classics feels more like a racing simulator that demands time sinking dedication from its players… and I just don’t think there’s enough variety in the amount of tracks, cars and modes to make this actually work as intended. There are tons of different events, sure, but they are tons of different variations of just a few types of events, most of them being set in the same track.

Still, playing this game for a handful of minutes at a time was quite enjoying. I noticed that the visuals were quite decent, even if the UI felt cheap and ugly, but I was a bit bummed with the framerate. Rally Arcade Classics is not a particularly groundbreaking game in terms of its visuals, but I feel like it should have been a bit better optimized in order to ensure it could reach more stable framerates on these portable devices, which are the perfect fit for its gameplay loop. It could have been worse, as the control responsiveness is actually pretty good, mitigating the wild framerate fluctuation, but considering it has been out for a while, I did expect just an extra layer of polish.

It’s not a bad looking game on a small screen, but I wish its performance was a bit more solid.

Rally Arcade Classics features a neat premise that’s a perfect fit for portable gaming PCs and, hopefully at a later date, the Nintendo Switch, but bear in mind that, despite its name, I don’t think it’s particularly “arcadey”. Sure, the physics and controls are more easygoing than any WRC game out there, but the reality is that its campaign is really long and repetitive, demanding way too much dedication from people who were just expecting to grab a little racing game to play a few arcadey rounds. It’s more of an entry-level racing simulator. If that’s fine by you, there’s a lot to like in here. A bit cheap in terms of presentation, and somewhat lacking in polish, but I had my fair share of fun with it. That’s what really matters.

Rally Arcade Classics is available now on PC.

Reviewed on Intel i7-12700H, 16GB RAM, RTX 3060 6GB and Asus ROG Ally.

A copy of Rally Arcade Classics was provided by the publisher.