It’s that time again. Time to get in that driver’s seat and prove yourself a legend behind the wheel; this time, in the world of Asphalt 9: Legends, coming to the Switch eShop courtesy of developer Gameloft, who also provided early review access. With that out of the way, it’s time to look under the hood and see how well tuned this particular game is.
There’s no story. Simplest segment ever. The career mode, which we’ll get to in a bit, doesn’t have any sort of narrative to it, as is common in sim racers. You just race, race more, and then keep racing. Now let’s race past this point and get to the real meat of things.
Asphalt 9 is an arcade racer. If you’re familiar with the likes of Need for Speed, Ridge Racer or Burnout, then you already have an idea of how this type of game plays; that is, a fast paced racer with a liberal physics engine and far less realism than what you would find in a racing simulator like Forza or Gran Turismo. Asphalt 9’s take on arcade racing thus features elements like long jumps, nitro boosting, destructible environment elements and a touch of demolition derby. Oh, and sometimes cops will chase you for good measure.
Contrary to most arcade racers, Asphalt 9’s races are presented as single lap affairs where the objective is to get from Point A to Point B, and your progress is measured in the distance bar at the top left. This gives the game an appeal to play in short bursts, since races aren’t very long. Occasionally a race might also have secondary missions to fulfill, like drifting for a certain number of seconds or finishing in the top 3, but they’re basically things you already need to do to ensure victory as is, so they’re not something to worry about unless it’s a particularly noteworthy condition.
The main progression system is tied to unlocking cars via accumulating cards pertaining to a specific model, and how you get these cards can vary. Progressing through the single player career will drip feed you cards for specific cars depending on where you are, but you can also buy booster packs from the in game shop. And yes, we’ll touch on that in a bit, let’s get past everything else first.
You might’ve noticed the car stats and rankings by now. Part of Asphalt 9’s progression involves upgrading cars you already have, improving their speed, acceleration and handling with the coins you acquire from racing. This is a fairly important thing, since under-tuned cars can and will fail to keep up with the opponents as you progress further into the career. In one match, for instance, I’m below the ranking level recommended for the race, but jumped in anyway. The result was a rather clear cut loss that I could’ve avoided by either upgrading that car or switching to a different, possibly better tuned car. Tuning all of your cars is important as well, since each one of them has a stamina meter of sorts, common for games in the mobile market, where they all get six races before running out of gas, which replenishes over time.
Speaking of that mobile aspect, it should be highlighted, mainly because this is a port from mobile, and is, more importantly, where the finer points of critique with Asphalt 9 lie.
The more nitpicky though still notable critique from this mobile conversion is that there wasn’t much overhauling to the UI. What I mean in particular by this is how the language still presents this as a mobile only port when it’s on a system that has a docked function. Menus will still have those instances of ‘tap here’ when you’re playing on a TV, which I obviously have to do for the purposes of recording, when they should have had more platform neutral wording. Now, in fairness, this perceived oversight can be partially hand waved due to the fact you can play Asphalt 9 undocked in a similar way to how it plays on mobile, and it really is a comparatively minor critique, but it still feels like a lack of refinement.
The more important, and perhaps dubious aspect for some players, is the monetization tied into progression. Asphalt 9 is free to start, it should be noted, but the progression based on slow but steady card draws, (which can be accelerated via the shop) will likely rub some people the wrong way (and for very good reasons). You can get the premium currency drip fed to you via accomplishing missions and cars are gradually rewarded to you during single player, so it’s not entirely lopsided in favor of the monetization, but with how the format has always faced scrutiny, it’s only fair to mention it in detail, particularly since it contributes greatly to game progress unlike monetization that only revolves around cosmetics.
The main use of the premium currency would be to buy booster packs in the shop for a shot at cards pertaining to a select car, with a single roll and ten roll option, the latter of which guarantees a rare card. If you’ve played gachas like, say, Fate/Grand Order, then this is something you’re probably already familiar with. Sometimes these rare cards can be purchased with the standard currency you earn from races in the elite shop once you unlock it, though they are significantly more expensive by comparison. Your mileage may vary on how much of an issue the monetization is.
Apart from the career, which is where you’ll be spending most of your time, there’s extra modes unlocked via campaign progression. Note, however, that due to this review being produced before the game’s full release, the full extent of some of these modes cannot be elaborated on due to lack of other users to race with.
Side events are, well, side events to the main career where you can race for added rewards like extra cards to complete a car and credits for upgrading your vehicles. These aren’t much different from the career except for the fact that it’s on a constant rotation with varying challenges and rewards. Some of these have their rewards tied to leaderboards to enhance that competitive aspect.
Clubs and the proper multiplayer are things I can’t accurately comment on here due to the aforementioned lack of players to interact with at the time of producing. Presumably clubs are no different to the usual concept of clans in other games where users collaborate together and earn rewards, but I can’t say anything definitively. The one type of multiplayer I can comment on is split-screen, which…well, it’s obviously what you’d expect. Local split screen.
So overall in terms of gameplay I’d say that Asphalt 9 has had a fairly smooth transition to a console. The biggest issue it faces would be the progression; but given the fact that Asphalt 9 is both free and intended to be played over a long period of time, this might be down to whether a player intends to stick with it in the long haul.
One thing to be quite positive about regarding Asphalt 9 is the overall presentation. When it released on mobile in 2018, it was regarded then as one of the best looking games for a mobile device. Naturally, this would lead one to assume that it has similarly good presentation after being ported to a device with presumably better hardware. I’m happy to say that this is indeed the case. Asphalt 9 looks fairly decent visually for being just a mobile port; sometimes you’ll notice the occasional low resolution texture in the background, but to compensate, the game runs at a consistent and stable 60 frames per second when docked, ensuring that the arcade racing mayhem is always fast and without performance hiccups.
The sound design is likewise competent, as the hectic racing is always accompanied by the appropriate noises to complement the destructive and most definitely unsafe racing that goes on in Asphalt 9. Similarly, to other games of this genre, the music in Asphalt 9 is all licensed tracks from popular bands. I’d highlight it as background music in this review, but we all know that YouTube’s copyright system would flag the video instantly, so let’s just leave it at the music being there and fitting.
So to sum up, Asphalt 9 is a competent arcade racer with the typical mobile economy that makes many players roll their eyes in frustration. If this was a game you paid for upfront for that also includes that kind of monetization, then I would be much harsher on it, but Asphalt 9 is free, so on some level it can escape some of the criticism. I only say some and not all, because the progression in tandem with pricing common to the mobile market is questionable to say the least.
At worst, you could download Asphalt 9, try it for a few hours and see if it’s to your liking. If it is, then you have a decent free time sink to use for a while, and if not, you just uninstall it, no harm done.
