Fast Fusion (Switch 2)

As one of the twelve or so people who owned a Wii U, AKA the Dreamcast of the 2010s (non-derogatory), I had the privilege of playing Fast Racing Neo -- a futuristic arcade racer with a great sense of speed released in 2015.

And then, when I got a Switch, one of the first games I played was Fast RMX, the sequel, released in 2017 as a launch title.

I never ended up getting a Switch 2, but my husband did, and, wouldn't you know it, Fast Fusion was another launch title and entry in the Fast series.

Sidenote: there's also apparently Fast Racing League, the first game in the series, on the Wii, which is something I just now learned about when I went to pull links for the other titles, so I'll have to try that one too at some point.

The trademark mechanic of the series is the ability to switch back and forth between two different colors. If you hit a boost pad while on its matching color, you get a huge speed boost, but if you hit it while on the opposite color, it slows you down to a crawl. This entry also adds the ability to jump whenever you like, which lets you take different paths through levels, avoid obstacles, and hit mid-air collectibles and boosts.

The game looks great, runs great, and plays great (as have previous entries in the series). I've beat the campaign on the first two difficulties (haven't yet tried the third and highest, though I'm not sure if I will since "the same thing but harder" doesn't appeal to me too much as a carrot).

Probably the best thing I can say about the game is that it gets me into a flow state -- moreso than most other racing games. Managing the speed, the boosts, the coins, the jumps, etc. means that there are always microconsiderations going on at any given moment, in addition to your overall track knowledge and racing skill and whatnot.

When I first started and I was learning the tracks and mechanics, it admittedly didn't fully click for me, but once I'd gotten to know layouts and how the game worked, it felt so good and so smooth to play. It gets me into that unique flow state feeling of being simultaneously relaxed and thrilled.

My only complaint about the game is that it, like many arcade racers, doesn't have a super long shelf life. Once you've played all the tracks several times and unlocked the cars you want, it doesn't have much staying power. The game does have multiple different modes and an entire fusion system that lets you merge cars into new ones, but I didn't really feel like pursuing those much given that I'd already played through the campaign twice and felt like I'd gotten what I wanted from the game.