It’s currently 2026, and, as of the time of writing this article, it’s been 19 years since the release of the last mainline Crazy Taxi game, PSP’s Fare Wars. While I’ve been waiting for Sega to wake the hell up and listen to its fanbase, the first Taxi Chaos was released; an average-at-best carbon copy of Crazy Taxi‘s iconic gameplay, without none of the polish or the charisma that made the franchise such a hit. But I guess Taxi Chaos must have been somewhat of a financial success for its publisher, as a sequel is now out. It’s time to see if Taxi Chaos 2 managed to learn from its predecessor’s mistakes, or if it’s yet another lookalike with no charm.

Sadly, you cannot turn off the guiding arrows. I guess Sega still owns the patent for that arrow thingy floating above your car.

I can’t say they haven’t tried adding in more content to make Taxi Chaos 2 feel like more than a mere clone of a better game. For starters, there’s the inclusion of a story mode, which sees you, an old-timer driving an old cab, joining forces with a young inventor to try to disrupt the market share of what’s essentially a faceless Elon Musk type, and his army of self-driving robotaxis. The story mode’s gameplay loop consists of working shifts where you need to earn money, knock down robotaxis in order to steal their tech, and complete some objectives which grant you experience points. There’s also an arcade mode if you simply cannot be bothered with a story mode, which is admittedly uninteresting as hell in terms of its plot and characters, but is somewhat interesting due to its progression system.

With more money, you can buy different cars with different stats. Furthermore, by destroying enemy robotaxis, you can loot their parts and invest in new weapons and accessories to be equipped as loadouts. That, admittedly, adds some layers of planning, fun and replayability to the, uh, “Taxi Chaos formula”, if you can even say such thing exists. For that, and the fact that controlling the damn taxi is a lot more responsive and easier to pick up when compared to its predecessor, I have to say that Taxi Chaos 2 is an improvement. But that doesn’t mean it makes it as good as its main Sega-published source of influence.

I know it’s the Switch, and I shouldn’t expect much from it, but these textures are just heinous. Yeesh.

Taxi Chaos 2 took, like, three steps forward in terms of gameplay, but boy oh boy, it moonwalked a mile backwards with its presentation. The original game, running on PS4, wasn’t a looker. Far from it, it had framerate and resolution issues… but at the very least, it had color, and some semblance of an art style. I can only assume most of Taxi Chaos 2‘s developmental resources went towards the brand new PS5 and Xbox Series S/X versions, because it just looks absolutely hideous as a Switch game.

Muddy textures (the kind you would expect when you tried to get 30fps from Elden Ring when trying to run it on a 2013 Lenovo laptop), a resolution so low you can actually notice on portable mode, hideous characters, and a truly heinous color pallette, one that makes the game’s San Francisco-inspired map, one which should have been vibrant, colorful and varied, look like Manchester during winter. It’s drab, it’s terrible to look at, and it’s complemented by poor sound design. It makes me wonder if waiting a few more weeks or months to develop a Switch 2 port wouldn’t have been a better solution instead. The game doesn’t even seem to run better on the Switch 2 in brute force mode, something seen with some other Switch games with unlocked framerates.

Looking for shortcuts, and taking advantage of the jump button, are still the main gameplay highlights.

If the goal was simply to improve upon the original Taxi Chaos, then sure, the sequel is a better experience. It has a few more modes, said new modes have some admittedly interesting ideas, and the controls are a lot smoother and easier to grasp. At the same time, the presentation, something that wasn’t even that good in its predecessor to begin with, managed to look even worse. Taxi Chaos 2 might have finally added unique selling points to make it feel less like a mere Crazy Taxi clone, but at the end of the day, replaying Sega’s arcade masterpiece for the bazillionth time is still a much more interesting alternative.

Taxi Chaos 2 is available now on PS5, Xbox Series S/X, PC and Switch.

Reviewed on Switch.

A copy of Taxi Chaos 2 was provided by the publisher.