I really hope that, one day, I’ll get to interview the folks at Shin’en Multimedia and learn more about their development skills. Ever since the GBA days, these German wizards have been able to push each and every Nintendo system to its graphical limits with games like Iridion 3D, Nanostray, and, starting with the Wii, the Fast franchise. Fast RMX was even one of the launch titles for the Switch, a whopping eight years ago, and one of the first reviews written for this website. To this day, it’s still one of the most visually impressive games for that system. It took Shin’en eight more years to come up with a sequel, and poetically enough, Fast Fusion was released as a launch title, this time for the Switch 2.

A game on a Nintendo system running at 4K, 60 frames per second. What a time to be alive.

Just like its predecessors, Fast Fusion is an incredibly well-optimized and fast-paced futuristic racer, clearly inspired by classics such as Wipeout and F-Zero. They have even hired the main announcer from F-Zero GX to reprise his role in these games. All of the Fast games are known for pushing the graphical capabilities of their respective Nintendo consoles to their absolute limits, all whilst being incredibly small in file size. Fast Fusion doesn’t shy away from any of these facts, maybe to a fault, as it is TOO similar to both Wii U’s Fast Racing NEO and Fast RMX.

That’s not to say the game doesn’t feature any new elements, besides the expected new tracks and ships. Well, regarding new ships, there are literal hundreds of them, as Fast Fusion‘s main selling point is, well, fusions. You can actually fuse any two ships you have already unlocked, further increasing their stats, creating a brand new design in the process. This adds a slight layer of strategy to the mix, as you can, for instance, fuse a ship with great acceleration and poor handling, with one with the opposite stats, creating a brand new ride that mitigates its shortcomings. It’s not something you absolutely NEED to do in order to beat races, mind you, but it’s a neat new feature nonetheless.

Pick two of your ships, and fuse them together.

A slighty more important addition is the inclusion of a jump button. Does it make any kind of sense? Not really. But it adds another layer to the game’s mechanics, and most importantly, level design. You might find the occasional branching path, money icon, or shortcut that can only be reached if you perform a jump right on time. Even if it adds more verticality and the possibility for more creative levels, did I feel like this was a game changer to the Fast formula? Not really. That’s not to say the new levels are poorly designed, far from it, but most of them are still comprised, for the most part, of a single level or layer. You don’t see the kind of ludicrous shenanigans Nintendo did when Mario Kart 8 added verticality back in the day.

Without a doubt, what impressed the most about Fast Fusion, just like its predecessors, was its presentation. Once again, Shin’en pushed a brand new Nintendo system to its limits right at launch. Have I ever thought I’d play a game running at 4K and 60 frames a second on a Nintendo console? Honestly, not really. Even if I knew the Switch 2 was going to be a lot more powerful, my expectations regarding its performance weren’t as high as this benchmark. So I was really impressed with Fast Fusion‘s performance, even if I was aware that a lot of its assets and overall art style were identical to the ones seen in Racing NEO and RMX.

You cannot turn off motion blur, but it doesn’t look off-putting in motion.

So what Fast Fusion really ended up feeling like is an update over Fast RMX, with just a handful of new elements added to the mix to make it stand out as something more than just a remaster or a definitive edition. That being said, it retains a superb core gameplay loop, and once again Shin’en proved they can handle Nintendo hardware better than even Nintendo themselves. As one of the very few Switch 2 exclusives so far (hell, Switch 2 games in general, even), it’s an easy recommendation. I just hope it doesn’t take them more than half a decade to come up with Fast Fusion‘s sequel, as this franchise is just too good to simply show up so rarely.

Fast Fusion is available now on Switch 2.

Reviewed on Switch 2.