Final Lap Twin is a very strange game. From the title and boxart it’s fair to gather that it’s an arcade style racer. I mean just look at that cover. That assumption isn’t incorrect, but it’s only half of the truth. What we have here is actually a racing RPG. I was turned on to the concept of mixing genres like this with World Court Tennis which plays very similarly to the aforementioned game. Just swap out Tennis with racing. It was a very off-putting idea when you see it on paper, but World Court Tennis turned out to be one of my favorite Turbografx-16 games. That’s why I was sure I’d have the same love for Final Lap Twin. I’ve spent hours with it and finally reached the end of the quest. Is Final Lap Twin the great game I expected it to be? Keep reading to find out!
Those looking for an arcade racer are in luck, because you have the option here to just compete in races from the main menu. From here you enter your name, select one of four cars, and you’re off. The default mode is a grand prix where you compete against twenty five other racers running laps around a track. If you manage to place you move on, but failure to do so forces you to retry. What’s nice is there’s also the option to have a friend join in the fun and multiplayer is very much the same just with another human behind the wheel. Regardless of which mode you are given only half of the screen to view. Even in single player the bottom display shows the perspective of your rival car. This is likely a hardware limitation due to the console’s scaling abilities.
Final Lap Twin has a very solid gameplay engine for the time at which it was released. It’s a behind the car viewpoint to simulate 3D, and the environment and track simply scale with your movement. I was impressed that they managed to create such a smooth engine on the Turbografx-16. It’s hardly choppy at all, but it does come at some cost. The tracks are very barren and lack environmental obstacles. The courses feel a little empty because of it. All that you have to contend with are the other vehicles as well as the occasional ramp to send you flying which offers you a small boost of speed. You’ll mainly have to deal with the sharp turns and the loss of speed you suffer when going off the track. Bumping into other cars slows you down as well, but this isn’t as detrimental as in other racing games.
That’s all well and good, but the RPG style quest mode is what is going to pique most gamer’s interests. The developers stuck to a very traditional approach despite the nonsensical design. In the quest mode you play as a youth who is the son of a famous racing champion. He gives you a car to start out, and you have to compete against others to move your way to the top of the food chain. Your ultimate goal is to become the new racing champion, but it won’t be an easy adventure. There’s a fair amount of dialogue with many NPCs to interact with. These are devoid of character and only give small gameplay/story hints. Honestly they’re pretty boring for the most part. The bad translation also doesn’t do the story any favors, but it’s easy to look past.
You view the world from an overhead perspective ala Dragon Quest/Final Fantasy. Movement is tile based and you can go up/down and left/right. The play area is covered by a small world map containing within it houses, towns, and race tracks where you face off against a boss. NPCs do not simply wander around and are only found within their dwellings. Like I mentioned earlier they contribute very little to the game so it’s not even worth bothering with. Within towns you can find shops where upgrades to your vehicle can be purchased. There’s also a practice track which let’s you, well, practice driving a basic track and these also allow you to refill your turbo fuel. From just screenshots this game looks like a typical Japanese style RPG, but with a world map filled with roads along with the traditional forests/mountains.
There are also random encounters. These occur while you’re walking around on the world map. Strangely enough these are not battles, and instead races against another opponent. If you win you’re awarded cash, but lose the match and you’re sent back to the starting town. This aspect can be a little frustrating but at least the world map is small. It really doesn’t take much time to get back to where you were going. The encounter rate is very high. Normally I can look past this as a veteran RPG player, but because the battles are replaced with races it can get frustrating. These can take a while to complete and really slow down your progress. You’re given the option to refuse to race, but sometimes the opponent will force it and you’ll have no choice.
Like in most other RPGs you can upgrade your equipment in Final Lap Twin. Well, sort of. You can purchase upgrades to various aspects of your car, and equip them. There are multiple categories for these items that include body, fuel, tire, motor and wing. Along with this are corresponding stats that increase as you get better items like speed, grip, turbo and flight. Unfortunately the effects aren’t extremely noticeable for the most part. Sure, you’ll go faster or slide less, but only slightly with each upgrade. In the beginning of the game it’s tough to win any of the races. Thankfully you earn money even when you lose so saving up for these much needed upgrades comes with just persistence. I really wish the effects were more noticeable to be honest. It’s not a very rewarding mechanic by any means.
Final Lap Twin does have a few problems. That translation as I mentioned earlier is pretty rough. Sometimes it can be tough to figure out what a character is trying to say. There’s also a lot of that early 90s attitude shoehorned in and it hasn’t aged well. The story is also very stale. Whenever I was confused as to where to go next I dreaded forced interactions with NPCs for hints. Final Lap Twin really would have benefited from dungeons or other areas to explore. You can only really move around on the world map and towns which becomes repetitive quickly. Additionally there’s no option for a battery back up save. Instead you have to write down super long and awkward passwords in order to continue. It’s not a user friendly system by any means.
Finally the races tend to last too long. This is bothersome when you’re trying to get to your next goal and just randomly have to drive laps. The developers seemed to realize this and so they included an option for auto-pilot. Unfortunately the AI for this is not particularly intuitive, and I found myself losing races I could easily have overtaken. Because of this, and the fact that any loss sends you back to the starting town, there’s really no reason to use it. On the plus side when in auto-mode you do have control over the use of turbo. This was probably to prevent the AI from constantly using it up and forcing you to return to a garage in order to replenish it. Unfortunately it tends to confuse the computer and while boosting they just don’t dodge other vehicles.
With all that out of the way let’s get to the graphics. Final Lap Twin is a mixed bag in this category. On one hand the racing engine looks great in motion. Sure, the terrain is barren but it’s hard to fault it when the action is so smooth. The scaling looks great relative to the hardware even though there’s some pop up with enemy cars. The RPG exploration however is a little ugly. The art style is off-putting and character designs are very basic. The scenery never really changes on the world map either. It’s the same roads, bridges, mountains, forest and grass. Pretty much everywhere you go looks identical. Despite this I did overall like the graphics. The soundtrack is pretty decent with some catchy tunes that really lean into the strength’s of the console’s chipset.
