From the beginning, this game had a disadvantage of being late to the party. The first day I got a Sega Saturn was the first day I got Daytona USA as well. It was a fantastic racing game as far as I was concerned and today, I still own a Sega 3Pak collection. Sega Rally fell by the wayside in comparison, and didn't interest me. However, throughout my journey with the Saturn, it is a name that constantly comes up when sports games are mentioned. The first time I ever played this was on a demo disc. It had one race and nothing else, so it didn't get played much.
That begs the question, how does it hold up today? Well, playing it for the first time, the first thing that comes up is the controls. They are janky here and there, but it's more of how you use your speed and are able to drift. It's a bit of a harsh learning curve, and many practice rounds were in store for me. Quite honestly, I never was very good at it. I was amateur at best in Daytona USA, more or less because racing games are not a forte.
However, the more I did it, the more I began to get better and enjoy my time with this game. It has some great backgrounds and very smooth rides with a nice little background music. If we're really going to play comparisons to Daytona USA, that is one place where this game falls a bit short. The soundtrack for Sega Rally is good, it's catchy and it's a smooth ride, but it is in no way even close.
This is a great racing game. It just takes some getting used to and you may even get really good at its mechanics. Sega Rally is more just a great bit of old school gaming that brings back that old time country flavor of 32-bit goodness that came out of the mid 90's. It ranks far higher in my books for its time capsule qualities. The Sega Saturn stays such a fine machine because it captures gems like this and holds them in stasis for newcomers and oldcomers alike.
Sega Rally does well to represent what the Sega Saturn is capable of. Even when the 2-player mode doesn't hold together very well all the time, it is still a marvel of its time with the ability to do that. It holds up in high esteem for many reasons. If you love old school racing games, this is definitely one that should be on the top of your list. It's easy to learn, hard to master and reminds us of a time when games were made right.
