[Review[ WRC9 The Official Game - Nintendo Switch

Developed By: Kylotonn
Published By: Nacon
Categories: Rally Racing, Simulation
Release Date: 03.11.21

WRC 9 is an unfortunate case for the Switch. I hate to say things like this, but WRC9 probably shouldn’t be on the Switch. It’s not a good fit and the console doesn’t do justice to this game. If you need to play the game, play it elsewhere.

Lets start with a few things I find good, or personally enjoy. The cars look phenomenal, all of them. In a racing game, regardless of what kind it is, the cars should be a priority and WRC9 is on point with that. You can definitely tell that the developers put time and care into thiss. WRC9 is also incredibly deep. Overwhelmingly deep at that. You’ll handle your scheduling, the crew, a quite large skill tree. You’ll have dozens and dozens of options for your vehicle, of which there are over a dozen. All real, licensed vehicles too. There’s also plenty of courses to drive on from a variety of countries. Weather can even be chosen for each course, or just make it dynamic. There’s a lot to keep you busy.

Even personal options are pretty indepth. A personal favorite is changing the language of your crewmate that gives you directions and warnings, despite the fact that it effectively makes it useless if you don’t know the language in question. As a filthy American, I can change the KM/h to MPH instead as well. That said, majority of the options are going to fly over many players heads, including mine.

Now for the list of negatives. Everything that isn’t the car looks awful. The environment at times looks like a low quality PS2 game, not something that should be on a current game console. On top of that, the game doesn’t even run at 60fps, but caps at 30fps. I’d be able to excuse the lower graphics if it ran well, but it doesn’t. This isn’t a solid 30fps either as the game constantly dips, ESPECIALLY in acclimate weather. Hope you don’t like driving in the rain at night. In addition to that, the game never quite has a responsive feel to it, you’ll swear you press a direction, only for it to happen a second later. A not stable framerate isn’t just the culprit to this issue, but also adds onto it.

There’s a fidgety feeling that seems to cover the entire game. If you turn just slightly too much, you can and will spin out. Good luck doing those very sharp turns without just crashing. Mix that with snow or rain on the ground, the unresponsive feeling, and the sub-optimal framerate for a racing game and you are in for a very, very bad time. The entire time I couldn’t help but think that the developers didn’t make this port with the joycons in mind. Expecting a player to buy an optional $80 controller is ridiculous.

I was not enjoying myself. I love racing games, but found myself having a miserable time with this game. Simulation games are fine in my eyes, but for games like those you need precision. To be precise you need the game to feel snappy. WRC9 is not snappy. There is something to be said about how full the game is. You can tell that the developers put a lot of thought and care into the game. I cannot in good faith recommend the Switch edition of this game however.