154. ChoroQ (Barnhouse Effect, Playstation 2, 2004)

ChoroQ is a series of racing video games based on the pull back toy car line made by Japanese toy company Takara. There have been dozes of ChoroQ games released throughout the years, but this one is the only title released in North America to feature the ChoroQ name. All the others were released as Penny Racers, Gadget Racers, or Road Trip. This particular ChoroQ game is actually the 4th title in  a Playstation 2 specific subseries of hybrid RPG/racing games, and was released as ChoroQ HG 4 in Japan.

The story of the game has to do with some emperor of races who went into hiding after an incident at a race 20 years ago. The main gameplay is split into exploration and racing. You can drive around a small town, talking to other cars (all called ChoroQs) for information, visiting shops to buy new parts, or finding side quests. While some of the dialogue was cute, and I love that all the cars live in houses, this portion of the game was generally kind of boring, not helped by the slow text speed and horrible bloopy text tone.

There are a lot of systems going on in this game. In addition to being able to enter certain races at any time, there are also limited time races and others that you have to sign up for. There is an almost Persona-style advancing months system, as well as a day/night cycle.

The very first quest has you competing in a series of beginner races, but your default car is not equipped to win any of these, and I was unable after about an hour of playing and searching online to find a way to upgrade my car to actually win a race. The racing itself was fairly uninteresting and did not feel good, at least with the default car. I could see this getting a little fun eventually but man you start out so weak.

The music kept me going and is probably the best part about ChoroQ. It alternates between peppy and chill but it really puts you in the mood to have a good time. While driving around the town was not amazing, it was still more fun than actually racing.

2/5, a racing RPG with a lot of neat ideas, but no fun gameplay to hold it together