Horizon Chase is a racing game developed by Brazilian studio, Aquiris. Originally made for iOS and Android devices as Horizon Chase - World Tour, it serves as a Spiritual Successor to the old SNES game, Top Gear,note which was shown to be very popular with the Brazilians. Boasting a unique retro aesthetic inspired by old 2-D 16-bit games (namely Sega's, especially in regards to the soundtrack), gameplay consists of the player travelling around the world competing in racing tournaments, though with its own unique twists:
- First, fuel pickups are dotted around the course and can be picked up to refuel the tank. If your tank runs out, you lose. Winning a race with some gas left over will have it be added to the total point count.
- Second, the player can also pick up tokens dotted around the course. Collecting them all as well as coming in first will grant the player a "Super Trophy" and contribute to unlocking extra events and vehicles. These reappear in Tournament mode, though collecting them all will grant the player a nitro boost instead.
- Speaking of nitro boosts, these are also present on the course to give your car a boost of speed.
- There are also upgrade races that can be played to win upgrades for whatever cars you've got.
- Last, weather effects and track types, such as rain and icy roads, can also interfere with handling.
There are also other modes such as Tournament mode and an Endurance mode that sees racers race on all the race tracks in the game.
An Updated Re-release, Horizon Chase Turbo, was released in 2018, for the PlayStation 4, the Xbox One, the Nintendo Switch and PC via Steam, with a physical Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition-only port for the PlayStation Vita in 2021. This version features enhanced graphics, more cars and tracks as well as local and online co-op modes. An extra mode, called "Playground", was since added, featuring themed races with unique conditionsnote and even extra skins for certain events. It would eventually be replaced with an "Adventures" mode that has you clearing a series of challenges with a certain car to unlock unique skins for them. An expansion named Senna Forever was also released on October 20th 2021, focusing on Brazilian Formula One racer Ayrton Senna and his career throughout the ages. A proper sequel, Horizon Chase 2, was released in September of 2022 exclusively on Apple Arcade, with a release to other platforms expected sometime in 2023.
This game features examples of:
- And Your Reward Is Clothes: Some Playground events will reward you with a special skin for one of your cars if you manage to obtain all tokens in every track.
- Awesome, but Impractical: Cars with high top speed might be cool, but they also have terrible fuel usage and mediocre handling, meaning that they just aren't worth using on the more technical circuits.
- Bragging Rights Reward: The Francois, a guy doing the splits on a pair of bikes, can be unlocked by clearing the Final Endurance. Of course, by then chances are that you've pretty much beaten the entire game...
- Boring, but Practical: Cars with good Handling are not exactly fast, but when you're facing courses with some really nasty sharp turns that might come one after another without a break they're basically your best friends.
- In the Senna Forever expansion, the Special Fuel strategy (gives you more fuel to work with) isn't as fancy as the Enhanced Tires (improved handling with less fuel as a drawback) or Advanced Aerodynamics (higher speed) ones, but it will most likely be your most used strategy throughout the campaign, especially when dealing with Senna Marks that require you to avoid fuel on certain laps. The extra nitrous doesn't hurt much, either.
- Cool Car: Many of them, to be exact, although there are also some... strange choices.
- Creator Provincialism: Since the developers of the game are from Brazil, it's not really surprising that there would be levels set there. One of the tracks there is even based on the real life Interlagos circuit that hosts the Formula 1 Brazilian Grand Prix.
- This actually got invoked to hell and back with the "Porto Alegre" update, which added in two race tracks based on the devs' hometown, as well as the Minuano car that you can unlock there, which is named after the cold wind that blows over the pampas (not without reason, as it's one of the best cars in the early game), has two paint jobs that make reference to Internacionalnote and Grêmionote (the two main soccer teams in Porto Alegre) and, if the language is set to Portuguese, its driver speaks with a Rio Grande do Sul accent, the car itself modelled after the "Miura MTS", a rare sports car from a small company that was once based in Porto Alegre from 1976-1992. Also, the track "Nightfall in Porto Alegre" (originally the title of a song
from Engenheiros do Hawaii, one of the best-known rock bands from the city) is shaped like a mate gourd with straw. Going one step further, the music that plays on the "Guaiba Sunset" track is a synthwave arrangement of "Deu pra Ti" (I'm Through With You) by regional duo Kleiton & Kledir, a popular Brazilian song about going to Porto Alegre. - And again with Senna Forever, which focuses on the Brazilian racer Ayrton Senna, widely regarded as a legend in his home country.
- This actually got invoked to hell and back with the "Porto Alegre" update, which added in two race tracks based on the devs' hometown, as well as the Minuano car that you can unlock there, which is named after the cold wind that blows over the pampas (not without reason, as it's one of the best cars in the early game), has two paint jobs that make reference to Internacionalnote and Grêmionote (the two main soccer teams in Porto Alegre) and, if the language is set to Portuguese, its driver speaks with a Rio Grande do Sul accent, the car itself modelled after the "Miura MTS", a rare sports car from a small company that was once based in Porto Alegre from 1976-1992. Also, the track "Nightfall in Porto Alegre" (originally the title of a song
- Expy: Many of the cars in the game are based on either real-life ones or ones from pop culture.
- Special mention should go to the teams in Senna Forever, who are all based on real-life Formula One teams with different names for trademark reasons.
- Fauxrrari: The cars are this, with all of them based on a number of real world sports and supercars, as well as a few shout outs (see the entry below).
- A rather literal example of this trope could be seen with the Cavalli team in Senna Forever, who are basically Ferrari in all but name.
- Green Hill Zone: San Francisco's Grass Hills in USA stage. While the World Tour allows you to select other US tracks as your first race, this trope plays straight at the beginning of Tournament and Endurance mode.
- Hailfire Peaks: Jormungandr, located in Iceland which is notorious for having active volcanoes in an otherwise cold place.
- Also Getting Cold in Brighton Beach which combines Palmtree Panic with snow and rainfall.
- Hippie Van: One of the unlockable cars, the Janis, is basically this. Its driver even talks like a hippy.
- Lethal Lava Land: The aptly-named "Final Challenge" in Kilauea, Hawaii which at one point has you driving right next to molten lava.
- Magikarp Power: The Gentleman, an old-timey car that looks like something your typical Quintessential British Gentleman would drive. Has mediocre acceleration, but give it time and its high top speed and good handling will allow it to dominate the road. Just try not to crash...
- Meaningful Name: The game title refers to how most of the scenery objects are in the horizon, like most eighties and nineties driving and racing games.
- Palmtree Panic: Brighton Beach, French Polynesia and most of Hawaii.
- The first DLC, Summer Vibes, pretty much runs with this.
- Port Town: Salvador, Cape Town, Santorini, Palm Island, Dubai, Sydney and Hong Kong.
- Remixed Level: The Summer Vibes DLC features remixed versions of levels previously seen in the main World Tour, all in a Palmtree Panic style. Same goes with the Playground events, all of which remix existing levels in various ways (examples include setting it at daytime as opposed to night, or having it in mirror mode).
- Shifting Sand Land: Death Valley. Also Atacama, Uluru and most of United Arab Emirates.
- Shout-Out: A good few cars are references to more famous ones:
- The Ladybug is probably Herbie's long-lost cousin.
- The Loveride looks an awful like Christine, which probably has some rather dire repercussions...
- The Royal, aside from being a James Bond car, also has a skin that makes it into a four-wheeled version of Kaneda's bike.
- The Explorer is pretty much the DeLoran with the
Serial Numbers Filed Off. - The Deja Vu looks like it came straight out of Initial D, only missing the Fujiwara Tofu decals.
- The Madbot is pretty much Bayformers Bumblebee, complete with quotes from the films.
- The Nano looks like something Mr. Bean would drive.
- The Walker-X is pretty much like something out of 2 Fast 2 Furious.
- The Night Rider is pretty much the Batmobile In Name Only. It also has a Blue Falcon livery option.
- The Breeze, introduced in the Summer Vibes DLC, is basically the car from OutRun. Its alternate skins also reference Miami Vice, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Modern Family, Thelma & Louise and Orange Is the New Black.
- One of the music tracks in the game is a remix of one in Top Gear (the 1992 video game, not the TV show). No coincidence, since both games were composed by Barry Leitch.
- Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Snow Flurry and Cold Day in Santiago, most of Iceland and Snow Festival in Sapporo.
- The Lost Woods: Sequoia National Park.
- Version-Exclusive Content: The Switch version includes extra Switch/Super Mario-themed skins for some cars to use. The Xbox One version meanwhile includes Xbox-themed skins for certain cars as well.
- Writing Around Trademarks: Many of the racing teams in Senna Forever have been given different names to avoid copyright issues with the real-life F1 teams they're based on. For instance, McLaren becomes "McKeena", Ferrari becomes "Cavalli" as mentioned above, and so on. Logos are also rendered in simplified shapes for similar reasons.
- Wutai: Both China and Japan, with the latter having also a bit of an Anime Land slant.
