El Chavo Kart
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 And I'm not giving you another one because my grandmother was also in this game!
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El Chavo Kart (Chaves Kart in Brazil) is a racing game created by Efecto Studios and Slang and published by Televisa Home Entertainment for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and the PS Vita (presumably) only in Latin America and Brazil. A conversion of the game was also released on Android but was later removed in mid-2018 along with El Chavo.
Gameplay
El Chavo Kart is a mascot-based kart racing game like Mario Kart and it features almost all of the characters of El Chavo: The Animated Series and tracks based on locations from the animated series. The game offers three game modes: Cups, Exhibition, and Challenges. In "Cups", the player can unlock characters, while at the end of "Challenges", the player can unlock scenarios and tracks, and in the same way as Mario Kart, you can collect power-ups which can be used to gain an advantage in the race.
Bad Qualities
All Versions
- The level design tries too hard to be innovative, but it ends up being pretty generic and uninspired at best, the tracks have a very linear design without any alternative routes, most of the curves are very closed and narrow, some zones can frustrate you because of the abysmal amount of obstacles in them and they completely lack shortcuts, something that is unacceptable for a kart racing game.
- Background characters are so poorly detailed that they look like an old GIF image or a Flash animation.
- The collision detection is not well made and sometimes it can get pretty glitchy; for example, if you get too far from a circuit, you can fall through the map.
- Very limited character roster that consists of only 12 characters. While the animated series features a total of 13 main characters, the roster can increase a lot if you count the secondary and occasional characters.
- The 3D models of the characters are so poorly detailed that they don't even blink or change the expression of their faces, making them look really weird.
- Almost every character in the game has a weird 3D model, especially Kiko and Florinda, who is undoubtedly the worst. Amazingly, the graphics of the characters seem to have gotten worse instead of better, compared to the previous game.
- There is no customization of any kind and you can only unlock new characters and tracks, reducing considerably the replay value, and taking into consideration that games like Mario Kart are known for having a wide variety of different vehicles and modifications for them, the game can feel pretty empty in terms of content.
- Also, you can't even change the vehicle color, limiting the game even more.
- Very limited HUD; the game only shows your current position and lap, your equipped item, and some kind of minimap. There is not any kind of speedometer or time indicator, unlike other games of the same genre.
- Inconsistent and unbalanced AI; sometimes your rivals can race like a drunk driver and sometimes they can automatically turn into professional Formula 1 drivers, making the game too easy or too hard.
- While the soundtrack is not that bad, it can get very repetitive after a while.
- Some voice lines can get pretty repetitive and annoying after a while. One example of this is the "¡Ya dejen de pasarme!" (ENG: "Stop overtaking me!") line said by Quico.
- There is no way to get a virtual copy of the game on any of the platforms it was released.
Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 Versions Only
- The minimap is almost useless, as it consists of only a vertical line on the right side of the screen, and you can't change it.
- Multiplayer is limited to local play only.
- The game has a lot of obvious and useless tips; it can even remind you to "Accelerate and drift to obtain turbo-charges", one of the main mechanics of the game.
- The game was only released physically in Mexico and Brazil and there is no way to buy it on the PlayStation or Xbox store, and not only that, the price of buying a physical copy on a website like eBay or Mercado Libre can be up to $60, the price of a modern AAA game.
- According to many rumors, the reason for the exaggerated price is because the game production was very limited, and since it was sold in only two countries, it is even more limited and hard to get in other countries.
Android Only
- This version has a lot of cliche and annoying mobile game mechanics; some of these mechanics are the limited amount of free continues, the use of more than one in-game currency, and the awful vehicle stats by default.
- For technical limitations, the graphics were severely downgraded at the point that they look now like a game from the first PlayStation, the lightning effects are not present and shaders are not as well made as to the console versions.
- Fewer game modes than the console versions and the challenges are not present here.
- Animations look very stiff, especially the character moves and when you jump on a ramp.
- While you can upgrade your car stats like handling, speed, and acceleration, these upgrades are really expensive and they barely improve your car in most cases.
- Collision detection has gotten much worse. You can get stuck very easily if you crash against a wall and sometimes your car can handle very weird after crashing, mostly striding to the sides.
- Broken driving physics. Your car won't stop accelerating after you crash into a wall, in a similar way to Taxi 2.
- The AI is even more unforgiving than the console versions, and since your default cars are very awful, it can take a lot of time to only win one single race.
- You only race against one opponent in the "Cups" mode, ruining the concept of a tournament race.
- There isn't even a multiplayer mode, making the game even more limited and empty.
- The rewards for winning a Cup are not worth it, as they only give you a low amount of coins or lollipops (The other in-game currency).
- This version doesn't even have a minimap, instead of that, you can only know the positions of your rivals by looking at their faces at the bottom of the screen.
- Frequent crashes on most of the cases, and since the game is not supported anymore, this is a really big problem.
- The game was retired from the Google Store, meaning that buying lollipops or coins is not possible anymore. You will need to download a hacked version of the game if you want to avoid any major issues because of the pay-to-win nature of the game.
2020 Version Only
- This version is too noisy, even louder than the PS3, Xbox 360, Android and iOS versions, the noises of objects are very loud and the characters almost never shut up, in addition, the voices for the characters are re-used from the other versions, but there are less of them, in addition they are still irritating and annoying.
- Average graphics; the characters look like plastic dolls (They wanted them to look like Funko Pops, but still that doesn't make them look like Cel Shading) and the maps look poorly designed.
- The music is repetitive; it's basically a 5-second loop, because the races last 2 minutes on average, the music quickly becomes irritating.
- While in the original versions the drifting was done by pressing one side/button of the screen and then another, here you press one side twice to make the character jump AND drift, it's effectively a more uncomfortable way to drift and there was no reason for this change.
- There is the occasional frame drop during the gameplay.
- Microtransactions: To get more characters or customize your character you must buy card envelopes, to get card envelopes you must spend purple gems, the price of purple gems ranges from Mex$19 to Mex$1,300. While obtaining a single character, kart, or a tire was changed to gems only, you still need to pay gems to unlock characters, karts, and tires, which is still a problem. Despite that, some characters can cost 350 gems. Because of this, you need to grind gems or buy them.
- Cheap rubberbanding: Opponents keep spamming items on you, birds are constant, they ruin the experience for new users.
- The latest update removed the Free Race and story mode, making people unable to get stuff faster, practice or test out modes for every track and speedrun them.
- Even though this is a new version, game freezing still constantly happens in races, it was patched in later updates.
- There is a glitch where in a race you can go out of bounds, you can do it when you drift if you jump from a ramp or using the stomp.
Good Qualities
- Good use of the source material, the game setting is very faithful to the original series and it can please both original series fans and non watchers of the series.
- Ñoño and Godinez have very well-made models, especially when compared to the other characters.
- Incredibly well done cel-shaded graphics (Except for the Android version).
- Despite the poor amount of available characters, the personalities of all of them are well portrayed and they react differently depending on the situation.
- Very good voice acting that features the voice actors from the animated series, despite the fact that some lines can get repetitive.
- The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions don't suffer from major gameplay issues, if you like El Chavo or kart-racing games and you can handle the difficulty issues, you can like this game.
- The idea of making a racing game from El Chavo is not that bad, despite it seeming weird for most people.
- Very good controls that are proper for a kart racing game.
- Decent driving physics for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions, it can even be pleasing to make a drift.
- The intro animation looks great and has the original drawing style from the cartoon.
Reception
El Chavo Kart received mixed to negative reviews. Rodrigo Villanueva from Level Up! Games criticized the lack of personality of the characters and the uninspired vehicles and tracks; classifying it as "a shallow and frankly mediocre exponent of the kart-racing genre". On the other hand, Emilio Reyes from Atomix magazine praised its beautiful circuits, smooth animations, good voice acting, and fidelity to the original series, but criticizing the unbalanced difficulty and the repetitive gameplay. The game currently has a user score of 7/10 in Metacritic, though some of the reviews are ironic. The game would later be used as a meme in the Mexican gamer community.
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