World Grand-Prix: Pole to Finish is an F1 racing game also, released in 1990 in North America as
Al Unser Jr. 's Turbo Racing. The main mode of the game is a career mode where you race across 16 different tracks based on real world locations. There is a very strong resemblance to game #97
Top Gear in both graphics and gameplay. While neither are quite as polished here, mostly due to
World Grand-Prix being an 8-bit title and not 16-bit, the same speed-focused simple arcade racing bones are there.
That said, there are quite a number of features in
World Grand-Prix. In addition to the career mode, there is a 4-player time trial mode where you can control everything from your car's stats, to the level, to the number of laps, to whether you want to include computer-controlled cars or not. In the career mode, you can even choose your car's color! Typically Famicom games have little to no character customization, so this was actually really cool. There are also 4 selectable music tracks, which are each pretty listenable but also very distinct.
The 3D road effect and scenic backgrounds start to look halfway real when you're deep into a race. Unlike Top Gear, you have 3 gears and a limited amount of boost energy that is used when trying to shift up beyond 3rd gear and can be refilled in the pit. Collisions with other cars are also a bit less fair, as your car can crash but your opponents cannot.
Unfortunately, the main difference between World Grand-Prix and Top Gear is that Top Gear limits a race to a few laps, while World Grand-Prix tries to be more like a real F1 race, so you are doing a huge number of laps. It took me about 18 minutes to finish the first course, and while the driving feels good, I also would like to change my course more than a few times an hour.
4/5, probably the best racing game I've played ont he Famicom, I just wish the races weren't so long
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