Asphalt 9: Legends

Asphalt 9: Legends features an extensive roster of real hypercars from renowned manufacturers such as Ferrari, Porsche, Lamborghini and W Motors. Pick your dream ride and race across spectacular locations around the world. Leave your friends in the dust and become a legend in your own group or break your limits to achieve worldwide glory.

Gameplay

The first thing you’ll notice with Asphalt 9: Legends, is just how much content it boasts. You have a Career mode which is the meat and potatoes of the game, it’s also the main method of earning cash and unlocking cars.

Then there’s online multiplayer, split screen multiplayer and My Club where you can join/create an online team. It’s worth noting that these modes require unlocking by earning flags in career races.

Controls are kept relatively simple, which is to be expected from a port of a mobile arcade racer. ZR accelerates, use X for a hit of NoS and ZL toggles drift mode. There are Touch Controls too, if that’s your thing.

Since this a mobile game, you can expect the usual tropes. Asphalt 9: Legends is essentially a free-to-play game, although I did receive the Starting Racer Pack to review.

For £19.99 you’ll receive enough blueprints (these are what you collect to unlock new cars) to unlock 4 cars, 200,000 credits (the games main currency) and 300 tokens (this is the premium currency).

There is also a takedown mechanic in place. Simply double tapping ZL sends you into a spin, giving you the power to knock out your opponents.

Visuals and Audio

Asphalt 9: Legends is incredibly slick. Everything runs at a silky smooth framerate and high resolution in both docked and handheld mode.

The car models are very detailed and the vistas are simply breathtaking. Seeing it run on the big screen, it really is hard to believe that it was once a smartphone game.

Aside from some of the most gorgeous and exotic licensed motors, no expense was spared on the music and sound effects either. For the audiophiles amongst you, get ready for some adrenaline pumping music from the likes of Moby, Flux Pavilion, Noisia and Axwell, to name but a few.

Each of the cars sound strikingly accurate too. Whether you’re a fan of European supercars or you prefer some American muscle, they are all very satisfying to use.

Critique

Don’t let the Need For Speedesque aesthetics fool you, this is still very much a mobile game at heart. Love em or hate em, loot boxes, microtransactions and storefronts are very much a thing in Asphalt 9: Legends.

In it’s defense, however, I never really found these mechanics to be overly intrusive. You get plenty of opportunities to earn credits and tokens with each race you do and completing the plethora of challenges.

You get daily challenges to complete for rewards as well as a free Card Pack every few hours to draw your attention to the shop. Limited time Events are also included here so you can compete for some of the more “Epic” cars.

I really had a great time with Asphalt 9: Legends and all of it’s over the top bombastic craziness. The load times are very good, as well as the races being shorter than in most games.

That being said, my main gripe is the fact it requires a persistent connection to the internet. If you are busy in your life and you use sleep mode a lot, or you are someone who likes to regularly dip in and out of the home screen, be prepared to wait a few seconds each time while the game syncs back up to the servers.

Verdict

I feel Asphalt 9: Legends is one of the most accomplished racing games on the Nintendo Switch to date. Which is to be expected, given it’s roots on mobile platforms.

Some may scoff at the price of the starter bundle, however, those with less time on their hands can easily skip the first couple of hours or so of grind by taking the plunge.

I wasn’t able to test out the online multiplayer mode or any of the club activities at the time of writing, which was a shame. Most likely these will come in a day one patch and if there is something important to announce, I’ll add it to my review later on.

All in all, I feel Asphalt 9: Legends is one of the more quintessential racers for the Switch. Whether you want some quick pick-up-n-play action, or you’re a completionist hunting every last car, there is hours of fun to be had here.

Highly Recommended

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Reviewed on the Nintendo Switch by Micramanic. Game provided by Gameloft.