Doraemon Kart 2

Doraemon Kart 2
This is what happen when you do a racing game that could have been good but turning it into one of the absolute worst game in a good franchise and making it unplayable. Doraemon's face on the box art says it all.
Genre(s): Racing Platform(s): Game Boy Color Release Date: December 3 1999 Developer(s): Epoch Publisher(s): Epoch Country: Japan Series: Doraemon Predecessor: Doraemon Kart

Doraemon Kart 2 is a racing game released in 1999 only in Japan developed by Epoch, it's the sequel to Doraemon Kart on Game Boy. This game receives extremely negative reviews by the Japanese website rewiews.

Plot

Nobita is crazy about continuing the race from the previous game. He want more race and ask Doraemon to find a planet where he can do more race. Doraemon reluctantly launches a space lifeboat, and Nobita and his friends go to the stars of the race. Nobita is astonished by the speed of the King, who immediately race with the king who welcomes him. He secretly uses secret gadgets to cheat and win. However the king noticed this and got angry, picked up Doraemon's secret gadget, scattered it all over the planet, and kicked out Nobita and his friends. Nobita and his friends go to see the king again while collecting secret tools wherever they go.

Why It's Still a Loser

1. The idea of making a sequel to the first Doraemon Kart game, is a very bad idea, since the first game already had a negative reception, and that it does not warrant a sequel. Not to mention, the sequel is even worse that the first game.
2. The controls are awful, in fact, even worse that the first game; for example, you have to press A and B to use a power-up, which the game doesn't tell you. They are so unresponsive that it makes the game barely playable at best. It's so bad that the game is very unplayable and not fun; at least the first Doraemon Kart did not have a big issue with the controls, even if the gameplay was rather slow. The tracks are long, boring, and tedious to play. Even other racing games on the Game Boy Color, such as Looney Tunes Racing, have better tracks, even if the port of the game was boring.
   • It's also worth noting that the races have an issue with horrible level design (see WISAL #11).
3. The gameplay is very terrible, especially compared to Super Mario Kart or even the first Doraemon Kart, which was playable compared to this game. It also feels dated for even a 1999 racing game on Game Boy Color.
   • Even if it's faster, it's still bad and boring; in fact, it's so bad that even the first Doraemon Kart has better gameplay, even if it's a lot slower, and there was barely any stop if you skidded too much, so there was no excuse to do something that bad for a sequel to a racing game.
4. Speaking of the gameplay, it's very repetitive and boring, as most of the tracks are almost the same. It can also be said that it's already bad enough that making it repetitive makes everything worse.
5. If you skid too much, your character stops moving a bit, and they are extremely slow to re-move, so good luck beating a race first, thanks to how awful and unresponsive the controls are.
6. The soundtrack is godawful; it hurts your ears, and it's not sound as nostalgic or as nice as the first Doraemon Kart, even if it fits the theme of the races, but that's not an excuse. In fact it's might be one of the worst soundtrack you would ever heard of a Doraemon game.
   • Also, there are probably no more than five songs in the entire game, which is barely acceptable for a 1999 racing game on Game Boy Color.
   • Most, if not all, of the music doesn't fit well in the world where you are on the map.
   • By the way, one of the two songs is exactly the same as the song used in the GB software "Genuine Shogi Shogi King," released the year before this game, which is beyond lazy.
   • There is a short loop of BGM and an SE that does not sound, so if you play continuously, you will definitely get sleepy and turn off the console and the game just to stop this nightmare of a game, especially for a Doraemon game.
7. The game is very glitchy, especially in the graphics; when it starts a race, it even doesn't have color at the right start. Even the first Doraemon Kart is not glitchy.
8. Terrible plot: Nobita secretly cheats for a win with his kart, and the king is angry at Doraemon and Nobita, and he kicks Nobita and his friends. Due to that, they have to make a long way to apologize and race again with the king with no cheat this time.
9. The graphics are even worse than first game. The character faces (in the game only) are empty, and the colors are washed out and oversaturated.
   • They are also very subpar; for example, the Dorami ribbon is pink instead of red.
   • They are so bad and awful-looking that even Doraemon: Akure Akure Labyrinth looks much better, and it was released a bit before this game and was made by the same developer.
10. There are not really any new characters except Dekisugi.
11. Horrible level design, Some of the races don't even work with the horrible physics of the game, and some of them are rehashes of previous races in the game.
12. There is not even a longplay or proper walkthrough of this game; even the first Doraemon Kart has one, at least outside of Japan.
13. Like in the first game, most of the characters play the same, which proves how lazy the developers were when making this game.
14. The gadgets that you have to collect in adventure mode are almost useless and are here just to feel like a faithful adaptation of the anime series, which is just nothing special.
15. Some gadgets have to be gotten, but you can't know what gadgets you have to get to progress in the game, which can make you think that this game is glitchy or that you have to do some other race again.
16. Weak roster: all the characters except Dekisugi came from the previous Doraemon Kart, which is beyond lazy.
17. The king has a very generic and lazy design, especially by Doraemon standards, even with the games. In fact, it looks like a character from a Mr. Driller or Dig Dug character, as it doesn't even look like a character that could be in Doraemon, and he looks like a dog.
18. Most of the new characters that appear only in this game are just clones of Nobita, Suneo, Shizuka, and Gian, even though their designs don't look bad.
19. When you do a sequel to a game, it should be improved, but this one isn't; it's even worse than the first one. The only thing that improved from the first game was the flickering, and that says a lot.
20. Awful drawn distance, even for a 1999 Game Boy Color racing game. The draw distance in games like Looney Tunes Racing and Wacky Races, both on Game Boy Color, is better than this one. Keep in mind that Looney Tunes Racing was released in the same year as Doraemon Kart 2 and was released earlier than this.
21. There are no replay values, except if you want to play with the unlocked character, but that will probably not happen because, after beating this game for the first time, you will probably not return to it due to how horrible this game is.
22. The game is pretty short, lasting only 2 hours.
23. The ending is lame and uninteresting; even the first Doraemon Kart ending is better than this, and that means something.
24. While you can get power-ups in the races, they are not visible and are very random. Some of them are almost useless, if not useless, because they won't hit or punish your opponents, which makes them useless.
25. The map where you choose a level or a city is pretty much useless and pointless because there is not anything useful except for replaying the races you have previously beat, and the story is not even interesting (most of the time).
26. The opponent AL is very dumb because most of the time they are very slow, and their power ups are not that much of a problem due to the fact that Doraemon have overpowered power ups, and with these, you can stun them for so long that you will not have to worry about that.
27. Unlike the first game, this one is always 1 vs. 1, and there is no exhilaration of overtaking rivals one after another. If you use a power-type secret tool, you don't even have to worry about spinning, so once you pull it out, it's just a matter of silently turning the steering wheel by yourself.
28. The win and lose screen is pretty lazy because it doesn't have the position of you and your opponents, unlike the first Doraemon Kart.
29. The performance disparity between characters is terrible.
    • This is a game that pays particular attention to curves, so inevitably, characters with excellent cornering performance will be advantageous, and conversely, characters with poor cornering performance will be extremely difficult.
      • Suneo has the best cornering performance among the characters used. There is a clear difference: almost no spins occur when playing with Suneo.
      • Conversely, Gian has poor cornering performance. Even a slight curve will spin, so he will no longer used in the area of restricted play.
      • Nobita emphasizes acceleration, and although his cornering performance is average, he recovers quickly after decelerating on curves and spins. Although he is not as good as Suneo, it can be said that he is a character suitable for the game system of this work.
        • Although the maximum speed is set to be high, his maximum speed does not show its true value in this work's course, which has only sharp curves and almost no straight lines. In addition, the acceleration performance is set to be bad, so it is a performance that is hated by the game system because it spins quickly and has a bad recovery.
      • Shizuka is a balanced type and has no strengths or weaknesses.
      • Doraemon's performance is low, but as usual, he can use secret gadgets as much as you want, so you might think he's the strongest character. There are many cases that are discouraged.
    • Furthermore, the poor balance of the secret tool described later is a disaster, and the usability of Doraemon in this work is clearly bad if it is limited to the beginning.
30. The race with the king is very frustrating.
    • He abuses a secret tool that spins anywhere. If you fight straight, you will often be spun, and it is quite tough.
    • This game has a reputation for its unstable game balance, but it seems that the promise of a difficult final boss has been kept.
    • Of course, if you use Doraemon with a large amount of power-type secret tools, you can beat even the final boss by half a lap, so don't worry.
31. The game has barely any challenge when you play as Doraemon, Suneo, Nobita or either Shizuka because they don't have that much weakness and are overpowered.
32. The 1vs1 and time attack modes are pretty bad and not even interesting because they're barely any different than the main story mode and that show. There are also only 6 tracks in the entire game, which doesn't help the game have that many replay values.
33. As said in WISAL #31, the game has only 6 tracks, which is unacceptable for a racing game that was released in 1999. Super Mario Kart, which was the first Mario Kart game, has much more tracks to offer than this game, and its release was in 1992 (even though it's been released on a 16-bit console, not an 8-bit).
34. Like in the first game, there are no sound effects, which makes the game feel even more rushed than it already is.
35. Overall, this feels like a huge cash grab and an insult to Doraemon fans due to how bad this game is compared to the other Doraemon games made by Epoch, which were great, but here it's extremely bad, and there are no words to describe how terrible this game is. It's so bad that it can almost be compared to Bubsy 3D, which means a lot. Thankfully, Epoch made better Doraemon games with Doraemon: Midori no Wakusei Dokidoki Daikyuushutsu on the Game Boy Advance and have been improved from this game.
36. The animations are laughably bad and horribly stiff, especially when you skid or stop yourself when you skid too much.
37. The King is an horribelly unlikable character, such as when he kicks Nobita and his friends (due to Nobita secretly cheating), and due to that, he gets blamed by his friends, especially Gian and Suneo, which is not better at all in this game (although Doraemon and Shizuka don't seem to be angry at him and even say that they will forgive him). The worst part is the fact that in the anime, while they bullied Nobita for his 0 score in the school test, they at least sometimes help him, but in this game, it doesn't seem that they do (or at least not that much).
38. Some of the clone characters of Doraemon friends have some lauchably bad color choices, such as Suneo or Gian, as the Suneo clone is green in everything (with the exception of his eye), and the Gorrilla theme for Gian doesn't translate well in this game (due to having awful graphics in general).
39. Due to WISAL#34, the game also feel like a huge insult to the Doraemon franchise as a whole, much like Hunt Down the Freeman and Sonic Omens.

The Only Redeeming Quality

1. While this game is still bad regardless, it is actually and at least better than the game Doraemon no Game Boy de Asobouyo: Deluxe 10, which is actually saying a lot.

Reception

The game receives overwhelmingly negative reviews on the Japanese website. It's sometimes considered one of the worst, if not the worst, Doraemon games.

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