Progress Racer RPG

You may have seen a dozen games that look like this one, but it's a surprising standout among the rest. Very strong roots as an incremental. The racing elements contribute to a setting more than they do the mechanics, and the game is forgiving if you don't pay them much attention. The first few hours are about learning the systems; after that, your stated goal is to use that knowledge to speed run through it to reach an ending. This also means it is not an idle game as there are frequent prompts that require input. It's not a perfect title, and I kinda wish there was more complexity or reason to continue playing after completing the basic story. But if you dig incrementals, I suggest you give it a look. Easily one of my favorites for the year.

This review isn't meant to come off as disrespectful or hateful, it's just conceptually this game fails on multiple levels. [h3] Progress Racer [/h3] The game can't be classified as an idle game because you simply can't idle. The racing tracks are mostly winding with only some brief respite when you get some straight roads. When you get to these straight roads, however, you still can’t idle as the game pauses every 2–5 minutes in order to show upgrade menus and continue story progression. I don’t think the game is supposed to mainly be an idler, so let's focus on the incremental aspect of it. As an incremental game, it fails because the gameplay is so basic and bare bones with nothing really special to it that you are better off playing the other thousands of incremental games out there with more engaging gameplay. There are 4 main stats with only 3 of them having any actual use. Even then, they don’t really provide anything fun other than getting faster or better vehicle handling. There are two systems later on in the game, stock market and buff wheel, which you think would make the game more fun or engaging, yet those fall flat too. The gameplay is also very tedious and gets extremely annoying near the end of the game. Especially when the prestige system gets introduced, since it doesn’t add anything to the gameplay except saving stats. The gameplay isn’t improved by it at all, it's just there so you can beat the arbitrary 45-min goal to finish the game. [h3] RPG [/h3] The game falls flat when it comes to being an RPG, as the actual story is very generic, with a meta narrative anime-esque "plotline" with uninteresting characters. The protagonist is non-existent, you only find out about them through in-game logs. Everything the logs say about the guy makes him seem like an emotionally inept person who does nothing to better himself, yet you are supposed to root for them? The guy is a VRChat player who creates AI girlfriends who he spends more time with than his actual girlfriend. The girlfriend gets emotionally abused and ends up getting physically hurt all in pursuit of saving this jackass. Like this guy is not worth saving, just leave him. My only conclusion is that the story is actually all in the guy's head and the supposed real girlfriend is also just AI or a figment of the guy's imagination. Overall, a really disappointing game. I am a big fan of idlers and incremental games, so seeing a game that used that as the gameplay to further a story seemed pretty interesting to me. Unfortunately, it just didn't hit any of the marks it set up, which leads to something not worth your time.

Played this game a lot during their closed beta, hence the long play time (I left it running a lot, which I do often bc I have kids). Due to the nature of this game I don't want to spoil too much, all I can say is that there is a lot more to this game than meets the eye. It absolutely will take off about an hour in and then again after the halfway point. It's a rollercoaster and both gameplay and story deliver, they are more intertwined than you originally think. IMO it's one of the most creative incremental games I've ever played (and I've played a ton) and for sure the best story of any incremental I've played. It really surprised me. Also the music is a vibe. It's 100% worth 5 bucks on sale. I recommend it to anybody