#DRIVE Rally Switch Review

#DRIVE Rally Switch Review
Version Reviewed: Nintendo Switch 

If I had a dollar for every retro ’90s-inspired racer I have reviewed in the past two weeks, I’d have two dollars. Which isn’t a lot of money, but it’s crazy that it’s happened twice. #DRIVE Rally aims to be a tribute to the early Sega Rally and Colin McRae Rally days, offering some old-school visuals with that classic arcade rally feel we don’t see a lot of these days. What’s It Like? Hold on to the steering wheel, do a Scandinavian flick, and where we’re going, we don’t need roads as we review #DRIVE Rally for Nintendo Switch.

Quick disclaimer: Most of the gameplay footage in this review was captured on Nintendo Switch 2. If you’re wondering how the original Nintendo Switch version performs, I’ll be showing that later in the Performance section.

#DRIVE Rally doesn’t do a lot of onboarding to start you off. You simply pick a team, which also determines the championship you’ll participate in, and go from there. The cars, while not officially licensed, are clearly inspired by real-world rally legends and gradually upgrade the further you progress through each championship. These championships are lengthy by design, usually consisting of three stages before switching cars for the next series of races, and so on until you reach the end, pick another team in a new location, and start all over again.

Winning races also awards you currency, although I honestly had no idea what it was actually used for until about five hours into the game. As it turns out, it’s primarily used to unlock additional cars for Free Roam and Hotseat multiplayer, while upgrades and new parts are automatically awarded and installed as you progress through the championships. Personally, I would’ve loved to see that currency play a bigger role in the single-player campaign. You can still manually purchase upgrades or customise your cars for quick race and free roam, but I feel it would have had a greater impact having to manually upgrade in the championship.

Each location is actually one large map that’s fully explorable in Free Roam mode, letting you hunt down collectibles and race around to your heart’s content. If you’ve got a group of friends, there’s also an eight-player Hotseat mode that pits you against each other to set the fastest possible times on your chosen course. From a content standpoint, there’s plenty here, with roughly 8–10 hours of rallying on offer for enthusiasts. The driving model itself is really fun, and it absolutely nails that floaty feeling of sliding around loose surfaces. When you pull off a perfect corner, it genuinely makes you feel like a rally pro. Recovering from mistakes is fairly easy, and the target times are forgiving, making for a less frustrating, albeit easier, experience. It’s fast, fun, and fuss-free, and I feel like a lot of work has gone into making the handling accessible enough for newcomers while still being engaging for rally veterans.

Unfortunately, #DRIVE Rally starts to break down when it comes to its visuals and performance. The game engine itself nails the low-poly ’90s aesthetic it’s aiming for, but on both Switch platforms it’s held back by an incredibly aggressive level-of-detail rendering distance, with objects and scenery often popping in just a metre or two in front of your car. The glamorous, bloom-heavy lighting shown in the eShop screenshots is largely absent during gameplay, texture quality is fairly low, and I even noticed random textures overlapping parts of the environment. It all combines to make the otherwise interesting locations feel a little messy.

It’s a shame because the cars themselves are actually really well done. They feature nicely detailed models, convincing suspension movement, and plenty of little touches that help sell the fantasy of throwing a rally car through the wilderness. Performance tells two very different stories depending on which Switch you’re playing on. On Nintendo Switch 2, none of the visual shortcomings are adjusted, but the game runs at a consistent 60 FPS, making for a genuinely enjoyable racing experience. On the original Nintendo Switch, however, the variable framerate hovers around the 40 FPS mark. Combined with inconsistent frame pacing, it gives the game a rough, choppy feel that makes it seem like it’s performing worse than the framerate alone would suggest.

For my rally drivers looking into accessibility, there are a couple of control tweaks available, including different steering types and steering sensitivity options. As always, I recommend doing further research to find out whether #DRIVE Rally suits your individual accessibility needs.

At just under $30 AUD, #DRIVE Rally is great fun, but somehow feels incomplete. The racing itself is fast and fun, but the performance and visuals feel undercooked and underwhelming. If you’re purchasing the game with Nintendo Switch 2 in mind and don’t mind the rough graphics, there’s still a lot of fast, fluid fun to be had. But if you’re looking for a rally racer on the original Nintendo Switch, I’d recommend waiting until #DRIVE Rally gets a tune-up before strapping in.

So, What’s It Like? #DRIVE Rally is like old school Sega Rally, crossed with Hotshot Racing.

In the interest of full disclosure, a review copy was provided by the publisher, but this doesn’t influence my score.

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