In the rare event that you’ve ever found yourself wondering what a cross between F-Zero, pinball, and Sonic the Hedgehog might look like, you needn't look much further than the psychedelic racer Uchuu Race: Astro Go! Go!
Released in early 1994 for the Super Famicom, Uchuu Race: Astro Go! Go! is a Japanese-exclusive game from the developer KAZe Co. Ltd and the music publisher Meldac that features Mode-7-style visuals, anime-inspired character designs, and high-speed action-packed racing. It originally came to our attention earlier this year thanks to being one of the first titles that the future Sonic Jam artist and Samba De Amigo designer Satoshi Okano worked on prior to joining Sega and is the type of game that you'd probably suspect to have a large cult following due to its cool, retrofuturistic aesthetic and familiar gameplay.
Despite that, though, it seems to have largely gone under the radar in the decades since its original release, with very few articles being dedicated to the history of the game and its development. So, in an attempt to remedy this, we recently got in touch with Okano, a character designer, and planner on the project, to try to find out more about this unique title. During our conversation with Okano, he was able to give us more information on where the idea for the game originally came from, what the influences were that shaped its distinctive art style, and also told us a story about how he at one point turned down the opportunity to pursue a sequel on the original PlayStation.
Before we get into all that, though, it's probably best that we talk a little bit about how Okano originally got started at the game's Tokyo-based studio, to set the scene.
According to Okano, he originally got his foot in the door at KAZe during his junior year at the Musashino Art University in Western Tokyo, after turning up at the studio one day out of the blue and asking for part-time work. At the time the company was busy developing the shoot 'em up Abarenbo Tengu for the Nintendo Famicom (which was later released for NES under the name Zombie Nation), so his first role at the studio was to draw illustrations for the upcoming title. This then led to other similar assignments within the company, including creating a bunch of illustrations and advertisements for the 1992 sequel to Tenjin Kaisen / Mercenary Force, Tenjin Kaisen 2: Yomihon Yumegoyomi, and the packaging for the 1993 Game Boy title Battle of Kingdom.
As he explains, "During that period, I mastered pixel art and working Apple computers. Then I graduated from art college and went to work for KAZe Inc."
It was at this stage — he tells us — that he came across an opportunity to pitch his own idea for a project, coming up with the rough idea for a retrofuturistic version of KAZe's Super Famicom title The King of Rally that would eventually morph into Uchuu Race: Astro Go! Go!
Okano recalls, "The game director, Norio Nakagata, and the president of KAZe, Jyunichiro Kawazoe, were thinking about making a sequel to The King of Rally for the SNES. So I proposed a new project with Ichiro Shibata, a friend of Kawazoe's. That was ‘Uchuu Race: Astro Go! Go!' I wanted to rework the game with a retro-futuristic worldview, which was booming at the time! And so I thought, 'Now is our chance.'
"The director, Norio Nakagata, was a former Namco game composer and developer. He had a background in Japanese-style games such as Samurai-Ghost / The Genji and Heike Clans, but at the same time, he liked old sci-fi movies and TV shows such as [the Gerry Anderson television drama UFO]. Together with the president, he seemed to like our enthusiasm, and I'm still so grateful to them for suddenly entrusting me with so many things."
Together with his fellow planner Shibata, Okano came up with the concept of a single-player game based around a fictional competition called the Astro Go! Go!, where the best pilots from across the galaxy had gathered to put their skills to the test. Players would be able to choose from one of five characters (including the hero Jet, the girl-racer Love, the robot EO, the bat-faced newcomer Fly High, and the skeletal mutant Baribroon), with the goal being to race across a selection of planet-themed courses in the grand prix or try to improve their best lap times in the game's time trial mode.
For the visuals of the game, Okano tells us that the artwork of the manga artists Osamu Tezuka and Shotaro Ishinomori proved to be a huge inspiration for the style of the game, along with the cover artwork for the American dance group Dee-lite's second album, Infinity Within. As for its gameplay, Ichiro Shibata and Satoshi Okano drew influence from whatever they could, including King of Rally, Super Mario Kart, and F-Zero, as well as some slightly less conventional influences such as Super Pinball: Behind the Mask and Sonic the Hedgehog.
As Okano states, "The gameplay is more of an action pinball game than a racing game. At the time, Ichiro Shibata said, 'Racing is good, but let's have more action like Sonic the Hedgehog!'"
In the finished game, this desire for more action is represented in several ways. For instance, players can bump into others to send their opponents into nearby hazards like bumpers or pits, or complete laps to earn abilities to use against their opponents. These abilities start with a basic barrier/shield similar to the one found in item boxes in Sonic the Hedgehog but can be held onto and upgraded to evolve into speed boosts and other power-ups that serve the same function as Super Mario Kart's mushroom or star.
Uchuu Race: Astro Go! Go! was eventually released in Japan in February of 1994. However, there seems to be very little available information about how well it was actually received in the country, with Okano himself struggling to communicate how it did. Instead, it appears that the only actual information we have about what critics thought of the game comes courtesy of import reviews from Western media at the time, which seemed to disagree over its quality.
Frank O'Connor of the UK magazine Total!, for example, awarded it 80%, praising its "Bonkers colours, crazy ships, and fast action", and calling it "smart stuff from beginning to end".
Meanwhile, Jonathan Davies of Super Play the game a significantly harsher score of just 51%, expressing disappointment that it didn't live up to his expectations. In the Super Play review, Davies argued that "the only thing Astro Go! Go! has actually got going for it is an extraordinarily weird atmosphere created by a combination of odd colours and bizarre sound effects...but that's hardly enough to save it from damnation."
In particular, he argued the game lacked the "edge-of-the-seat action" that had made F-Zero so great, lamenting that the player hardly sees the other racers and there aren't many moments where players have to jostle side to side with the AI for a better position. He also criticized the course design for holding few surprises and complained about some of the sharp bends where the player has very little warning over incoming obstacles.
If you're wondering where we fall on the subject personally, we more or less find ourselves agreeing with O'Connor's verdict on the game more, with many of its frustrations becoming a thing of the past once you've actually taken the time to learn the various courses and master the mechanics within.
Following the release of the game, an international version of the game was planned from the publisher Seica's North American branch under the title Freeway Flyboys but was eventually cancelled, according to Okano, due to the publisher experiencing "a shortage of money". This was then followed by discussions inside KAZe, about a potential sequel to the game for the original PlayStation. However, Okano wasn't too enthusiastic about the project, inevitably still being disappointed about the cancellation of its overseas version.
"Junichiro Kawazoe suggested that we make a sequel to Super Pinball for the Sega Saturn," says Okano. "Then, around the same time, he said, ”Why don't you release the sequel [to Astro Go Go!] on PlayStation?' I was not too keen on the idea, as the international version of Astro Go! Go! had just been cancelled. However, 35 years later, I heard a story from the president of the company, that Kazunori Yamauchi of Gran Turismo fame came to KAZe and said, 'I want this title (Astro Go! Go!) for PlayStation!' I later worked for Kazunori Yamauchi at Sony Computer Entertainment. I had no idea how that happened. He later created the PS1 game Motor Toon Grand Prix."
Uchuu Race: Astro Go! Go! certainly isn't the best racing game released for the Super Famicom, nor is it a replacement for F-Zero, but if you've been looking for some fun Japan-exclusive SNES games to play that have plenty of charm, it's definitely one worth adding to the list. It's just a shame it never had the opportunity to sand off some of its rough edges, in the form of a sequel.