The Chase: Felix Meets Felicity

An offbeat and idiosyncratic IP.

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An offbeat and idiosyncratic IP, The Chase mixes wonderfully innovative gameplay with some incredibly frustrating design choices, creating an original, if ultimately forgettable experience.

Pros

  • Cute character designs, innovative Rush Line system

Cons

  • Frustrating design aspects, trial-and-error gameplay gets annoying

Bottom Line

Adorable, original and utterly frustrating, The Chase is a unique property that suffers from poor design choices and a lack of finished polish needed to call itself a success.

Would you buy this?

  • Price

    $ 49.95 (AUD)

Late for a Date

The Chase: Felix Meets Felicity is heavily based on the idea of simplicity. Simple story, simple controls, and more times than not, simply maddening. Playing as either delivery boy Felix or his female counterpart Felicity, you must navigate your chosen protagonist through a myriad of unique stages, a looming, pixel-destroying storm constantly on your tail. With entirely original gameplay that I can best describe as Sonic the Hedgehog meets Line Rider, you navigate your ever-moving characters through colourful, bustling locales via a combination of the DS' D-Pad and the touch screen's stylus. Using the stylus, players can draw platforms, ramps and pathways in the form of Rush Lines for your characters to traverse.

Things aren't that easy, of course: everyone from marathon-runners to prank-pulling clowns stand in your way, which is where the grinding aspect of The Chase comes into play. Once your character's gained a certain amount of momentum, you can press down on the D-Pad, allowing Felix or Felicity to grind the pavement, bowling over any and every enemy in their path, all the while collecting flowers and pulling off stunts to impress their date.

Something New

While The Chase features some fantastically original and inventive gameplay, it's the game's overall design that ultimately brings the experience to its knees. For instance, every time you fail a level you're given the option to purchase a continue with the coins that you've collected throughout the various stages, but once you're out of coins and out of continues, it's back to square one. That's right - you can be one level away from meeting up with your date and living happily ever after, but a simple slip-up will send you back to the main menu, forced to start the game entirely over from scratch. Add into account that you only have one save file to your name, and you can lose your progress as easily as simply pressing the "New Game" button instead of "Continue".

While the actual gameplay in The Chase ranges from adrenaline rushing races to frustrating mazes, players are actually banned from re-playing their favorite levels until after they've completed the game. Stuck on a near-impossible level with only one continue to go and five coins to your name? Tough luck -- now buckle up your boots and get running!

Fun While it Lasted

While The Chase certainly shines in its addictive and innovative gameplay, it has the misfortune of just becoming too much and too hard too fast. Levels range from a simple race across Rush Lines to getting knocked over every other instance, creating an unyielding experiment in frustration. Where the title shines in its Time and Score Attack modes, there's the undeniable fact that these are only unlockable after completing the entire story mode with as few screw-ups as possible, by which time gamers are sure to have long lost interest. While The Chase is a bold experiment with a creative premise, there are just too many design flaws here to call it a success.

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