Rally-X and How Not to Do a Sequel
by Zube (zube@stat.colostate.edu)
Created:  Dec 19, 2004
Updated:  Dec 29, 2004
http://www.stat.colostate.edu/~zube/rallyx.txt

Rally-X is perhaps one of the simplest and most challenging video games
ever made.  Premise:  collect 10 flags before time runs out, avoiding 
enemy cars and rocks.  What could be simpler?

It's pure gaming goodness.

But it's hard, arguably merciless.  It's on the very outer edge of reasonable 
difficulty, but not so difficult as to be silly (see Super Zaxxon for that).
Still, it would be nice if it was a bit easier.  

It is easier.  New Rally-X plays almost exactly like Rally-X, but the
difficulty is turned down a notch and the music is kicked up a notch.
When I want to ease into my happiness, I play New Rally-X; when I want
a serious challenge, I play the original.  Both are excellent
interpretations of the same theme.

Fifteen years later, the Namco Classics Collection, Vol 2 came along.  
It contains the Rally-X Arrangement.  I have anticipated playing it
for a long time.  

It's awful, miserable, terrible.  It appears that whoever designed it 
didn't play or understand the two originals very well.  Here's why:

1) The music is muted and far more in the ambience category than in the
tradition of catchy Namco music.  I can sometimes catch myself humming
the music from New Rally-X, Mappy, Hopping Mappy or MetroCross, but the
theme from the Rally-X Arrangement is forgettable.

2) We have a bunch of dodads and geegaws.  Flags now also give bonuses
such as destroying all rocks, making the car faster or slower, etc.  
We have lots of distracting pictures on the board as well.  Oh boy!
Admittedly, the layout of the playfield is far more fetching than the
austere originals, but I'm not sure that it's a plus.

3) The color of the rocks in the Arrangement seems to have been designed 
so as to blend in as much as possible with the board.  The originals
needed no such subterfuge to make for a challenging game.

4) The challenging stages violate the Never Make A Sequel That Is *Slower*
Than The Original, _Don't Stand So Close To Me '86_ Rule.  The original
challenging stages were frantic, but the new ones are more annoying than
anything else.  Near the end of Arrangement's challenging stages, your car 
is moving so slowly that you can take naps between turns.

5) There was a *reason* things like, oh, the map was placed on *side* of the
bloody screen, not at the bottom.  It allowed one to glance back and forth
between the map and the screen and still keep one's bearings.  In the
Arrangement, the map is placed on the bottom right, along with a bunch of
idiot clutter (like the "Next Item" picture, way too big in the bottom 
center).  It makes glancing back and forth between the game screen and the
map *stupidly* difficult. 

I have played the Arrangement a fair number of times and have desperately
wanted to like the game, but to no avail.  So, another failed sequel 
effort.  Not much news here, eh?