Weird Import Corner – Running High – PS1

No port, no problem; cybernetically sprinting on the PlayStation is pretty easy

This week/month/aeon on what will hopefully develop into a series of articles on the unexpected and unknown is Running High. This is a racing game for the PlayStation with a huge emphasis on running. Gone are the cars; you’ll have to rely on your little leggies in this one. Only released in Japan, but surprisingly import-friendly, RH has fully quipped dialogue in English and menus that are also 90% in English. It’s unclear why there was no PAL or NTSC release, but it’s easily accessible via emulation, or you can buy a copy off of eBay for the princely sum of about 40 quid.

Character select, records, track select, start. Simple.

On Your Marks…

This is where I’d normally talk about the game modes, but there’s literally just one. Race. Pick a track, a character and go. Simple and to the point. Refreshing! There are three tracks initially, with a fourth unlocked after you place first with each of the 6 initially available characters. This doesn’t seem like a lot at first, but having this unlock condition encourages trying each and every one of the vastly different characters. Each one plays very differently.

You’ve got your average joe, your slow but agile character, and your guy with insane top speed and a turning circle that matches the curvature of the earth. The characters with a high top speed excel on the first two courses with fewer sharp corners and slim straightaways, whereas the characters who can take corners can maintain a higher average speed by actually being able stay on the track.

Wacky Racers

Completing all four tracks with 6 characters unlocks a boss character, Militarious. His stats are absolutely cranked, and he’s arguably the best character in the game. Doing so also unlocks the reverse version of all tracks, boosting the total count to 8. Beating all 8 of those tracks with Militarious unlocks four additional characters:

Maxim. Greatest max speed, worst grip. Be prepared to not turn.
Thunder. The opposite. Be prepared to go nowhere really easily.
Mary. A normal lady with a handbag.
Last but not least, Baby. It’s a baby.

Stuff like this makes me miss unlocks in modern gaming.

Yes, that’s a baby with a bee bonnet. Yes, you can kick him.

RH controls mostly like any other racer of the era. Hold X to run and press square to brake (Don’t do this.) The nuance comes in the drifting. To drift, release the accelerator for a moment, and then press again while holding a direction. This causes the player character to break into a slide tackle that greatly increases their ability to not careen into the walls. Something I noticed with some of the heavier-set characters is that if you repeat this while already drifting, they break into a much tighter drift. Totally inadvisable with regular handling, but it adds skill expression and makes you realise everyone is in their own way viable.

Boosting at just the right time on some tracks can make you jump like Superman. Pretty cool.

Presentation

Graphically, Running High is sound. I played it in the emulator Duckstation at 2x internal resolution down-sampled back to native. I also applied a CRT filter, so the views seen in the screenshots won’t be fully representative of how it looks on real hardware on a modern display. As nice in motion as it looks, it doesn’t match the 60 frames per second of F-Zero X. This will have been a conscious decision, to retain graphical fidelity and run at 30 frames instead. RH has a futuristic setting, while also being set in the far-off future of 2014. You’ll be racing through what look like highways, factories, subways and asteroid mining stations, so there’s plenty of variety.

Of course, there’s an underwater section.

Let’s talk about the music and game feel. Luckily, the soundtrack is uploaded in full on YouTube, so you can listen to your heart’s content. It’s fast and upbeat, which really helps you zone in when you’re nailing those corners. The in-game music is set to random, so there’s no real track-to-track association. You can choose a specific track to listen to in the settings if you like. My favourite track is ‘Kuwai Zoa!’ Give it a listen if you get the chance.

Falling Behind

And now, inevitably, we have the bad. This game’s ‘combat’, shall we say, consists of Road Rash-style whack ’em as you skedaddle past, or a quick hop over the shoulder and a snide remark on the speed of their grandma. In theory, yeah, sounds good. In practice, ever-present rubber banding makes being in first place like an eternal cat-and-mouse game. No matter how fast you’re going, once an opponent locks onto you, you’re getting leap-frogged or passed.

The strategy devolves into letting opponents pass intentionally so you can take advantage of the inevitable speed boost you’ll get 10 seconds later. You end up calculating how many back-and-forths it will take before you end up being the one in first in the last straightaway. It sort of ruins the illusion a little bit. I’ve had runs where I’ve been 20 seconds faster than previous attempts, but have still lost due to the AI deciding to bury my face in the dirt at the last second. This isn’t as much of an issue with the characters boasting absurd acceleration, but the poor guy who specced into top speed and nothing else gets absolutely bowled over.

The AI can be so brutal sometimes. Poor guy.

Finish Line

Now, putting this aside, Running High is worth playing. There’s no multiplayer, unfortunately, so you can’t test your quads against your friends. Passing the controller around could be fun, though. The amount of content is admittedly small, but replaying and improving your skills over time is part of the fun. It took me 5 hours of gameplay to unlock everything, which I feel is quite reasonable. Past that, there’s nothing quite like Running High on the PlayStation that I’ve played. It also has had no sequels, so this is it. Give it a go if you get the chance. For other high-speed content, check this out. For further discussion, comment below or join our Discord!