Arcade Archives 2 Ridge Racer review – They don’t make ‘em like this anymore

No fluff, no nonsense: Arcade Archives 2 Ridge Racer is the original 1995 arcade iteration of Ridge Racer, perfectly adapted for Nintendo Switch 2, PS5, and Xbox Series consoles. You probably won’t be playing with a wheel and pedals, but this is a fantastic port of the arcade original with some neat bonuses you won’t find elsewhere.

To get into the meat of it, Ridge Racer is made up of one track – two if you count the extended route in Advanced and Time Trial modes – and the goal is to master the best possible time in each mode. Novice is a low-speed two-lap mode, Intermediate ups the speed and adds a third lap, Advanced takes place on the extended course at the same speed, and Time Trial increases the speed again on the extended course. 

Speeding through the course in the various modes and posting your best times onto the online leaderboard is the aim of the game, and you can combine all of the previously mentioned modes into a single marathon with Time Attack Mode. Here you play each mode in order to completion, and finally post your best time clearing the whole game in one sitting online. My first successful run was little over 14 minutes, which put me into 17th position on the worldwide leaderboard. Which is less impressive when you realize that just clearing the mode will safely put you into the top 100 at the time of writing.

It’s content-light, compared to a lot of modern racers, and even games at the same price point. At launch, $16.99 is a pretty high asking price for a game now 30 years old. Yes, the online leaderboards and Time Attack are new features, but they’re minor additions to what is a relatively simple game at its core. It’s a good thing that core is so damn satisfying.

Ridge Racer feels fast and cleanly drifting around a corner still manages to feel immensely satisfying in a way that most games never hope to achieve. Completing a race without crashing out is par for the course in most racers, but being able to maintain speed, hit checkpoints, and overtake other racers without scraping barriers and cars is a genuine challenge in Ridge Racer. 

It makes a clean lap or tight drift feel electrifying, and even with only a single track to take on I’ve found myself returning to the game time and time again for short bursts of speed since launch. Things are a bit easier on modern controllers, mind: the arcade game is built for a wheel and pedals, allowing for degrees of analogue movement that aren’t possible on most standard game controllers. As a result, the digital inputs can make tough corners and drifts easier to achieve, so don’t think you can take your skills into a real arcade and impress people.

Again, it is a bit pricey though. It’s more expensive than Switch 2 launch title Fast Fusion, which is a full-fledged new game. While I can’t argue with how good it feels to play, it’s more than a bit thin on content to recommend without a sale, given the competition.

Ultimately, Arcade Archives 2 Ridge Racer is a near-perfect version of the arcade original. It plays great, runs smoothly, and the new Time Attack mode is a great addition. Once the price drops or goes on sale, this will be an arcade racer that everyone should have.