Ferrari F-355 Challenge - Dreamcast Review

Sega has had a long and successful run with arcade racers. Starting with Yu Suzuki's legendary Hang On and Outrun titles back in the late 1980's. Years later, Virtual Racer would appear and of course the monster hits Sega Rally and Daytona USA series. It's been sometime since Yu Suzuki has been involved with a racer and its nice to see him return to the genre in full force with his latest arcade hit, Ferrari F-355 Challenge.

If you've played any Yu Suzuki game you know that his titles are heavily detailed, strong in gameplay and polished to perfection. His titles ranging from the Virtual Fighter series to Shenmue, they are rich in challenging gameplay. The more practice and dedication the player puts into these games, the more their skills are refined. Infact, some people say the Virtual Fighter series is as close to learning a martial art without heading to the gym. They aren't kidding. That same reasoning is applied to F-355 Challenge in the world of Ferrari racing.

In the arcade, the player would sit in a replicated F-355 cockpit surrounded by 3 monitors representing your vehilcle's left, front and right windows. The comfortable seating placed a loud booming speaker behind you playing Suzuki's favorite 1980's hard rock type music as you raced against other opponents for the first place.

Well I'm happy to report an arcade perfect translation for the beloved Dreamcast (minus two of the monitors but hey, all that rockin' music is still there). The graphics are perfect, showing great detail in lighting and textures. The cars are highly rendered and look beautiful. So do the racecourses from the bleachers to the sun emanating from the sky. This is one of the, if not the best looking car game to date! The sound is striking from the fantastic roar of your engines to the exhilarating squealing of your tires at the start.

The gameplay is what you expect from Suzuki, fantastic and very challenging. I mean they didn't call this F-355 Challenge if it wasn't anything but a challenge right? Look at it this way, professional race car drivers around the world play this game to hone their own skills and they've reported that the game has helped them out on the real tracks ("I know one professional driver who uses an F355 cabinet to practice during his off-season, and his lap time at Laguna Seca went down four seconds! If a driver doesn't have the time to go to the circuit, they can use F355 as a simulator. My goal when developing it was to make a simulator good enough for professional drivers to use." - Yu Suzuki from gameweek.com).

This game is tough but rewards patience, dedication and skill. Thankfully, Suzuki employed a helpful assist function system were one is able to apply vehicle assistance for stability control, traction control, anti-lock brake system and intelligent brake system. This game is not like Ridge Racer were you could win first place virtually on well… your first race. This game is tough but is rewarding at the same time. It will take time and patience to work your way up in the ranks but the game will never get tiring like your average arcade racer were you depend on a 2-player mode for a challenge. The single and two player modes will keep you busy for a hell of a long time. The game is designed for the enjoyment for casual arcade driver to the perfectionist.

Use of the analog controller is nicely configured as the degrees of turning your wheel of applying pressure to your accelerator and brake are sharply implemented. Doesn't the DC controller rock for driving games? Placing 2 analog triggers on the DC controller is one of Sega's geniuses in controller design. One feels comfort as your brake rests nicely underneath your left trigger and acceleration under your right.

One bone people might pick out of this title is the ability to not have a 3rd person perspective for your vehicle. Also, you only drive one vehicle as opposed to a hundred or so you get from Sega GT or Gran Turrismo. Believe me, these are mediocre excuses to not play a fantastic title and let me quote myself a few moments ago, "professional race car drivers around the world play this game to hone their own skills and they've reported that the game has helped them out on the real tracks". If you want to drive an F-355 and don't have several hundreds of thousands dollars to by the real thing, then picking up this title is the next best thing. The task of successfully emulating the experience of driving one of these babies to perfection within the interactive video game world is a huge undertaking and only Suzuki could have pulled it off.

The bottom line is that this is a wonderful racer with a deep arcade simulation experience and anyone from a novice to the advance can enjoy this title thanks to wonderful control system and assist functions. A great achievement! A fantastic title!

9 outta 10

- Kelley