Fast RMX

Fast RMX was one of the first games Switch owners downloaded right after turning on the console, and for a long time it stood as the platform's best technical showcase. It's an anti-gravity racer in the style Nintendo's own F-Zero series once represented: vehicles hover above the track, race at several hundred kilometers per hour, and colliding with a wall means an instant loss of momentum. The tracks run through deserts, frozen canyons, futuristic cities, and orbital structures, and include loops, jumps, and sections where the player clings to a tunnel wall.

The whole game is defined by a single mechanic: phase switching. Boost panels on the track glow either orange or blue and only work when the vehicle is set to the matching color. Switching is done with a single button and must be timed mid-race, so besides holding the ideal line, the player is constantly reading the colors ahead. On top of that, energy is collected into a separate turbo boost, which is also consumed when returning to the track after a crash, forcing a choice between risk and reserve. The mode selection is modest, there are championships, time trials, local split-screen for up to four players, and online races, but the quality of the driving itself carries it a long way.

Technically it was something of a minor sensation: the game ran smoothly at high resolution docked and without any visible drop in handheld mode, which was surprising for a launch title from a small German studio. The audio consists of a hard electronic soundtrack that matches the speed on screen precisely. Reviews were largely favorable, praising the speed, visuals, and price, while mainly criticizing the limited mode selection and the high difficulty at higher speed classes. Today Fast RMX is a reminder that the anti-gravity racing genre didn't die, it just moved to smaller developers who keep it alive. For Switch owners it remains the fastest thing you can launch on the console, and for newcomers a decent lesson in what it means to drive with precision.