Line #19 VideoGame/RallyTrophy


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Frontorig_7505.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:300:Not your average rally sim, kids...]]
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4	->''"Ummm... let's change seats... whaddyasay ?"''
5	-->-- '''your co-driver, after you've plunged your car into another crashfest'''
6
7	''Rally Trophy'' is a rally racing {{simulation game}}, the commercial debut of Finnish {{driving game}} developer Creator/BugbearEntertainment [[note]]better known these days for their BlackComedy demolition derby game series, ''VideoGame/{{FlatOut}}''[[/note]], first published by [=JoWood=] Productions in autumn 2001. The game was in development since the late 1990s and became a surprise hit, with lots of critical acclaim by players and reviewers alike.
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9	It deviates from other existing rally games by being a [[GenreThrowback retro-themed title, focusing on various classic rally cars from the 1960s and 1970s]]. It generally aims for a realistic simulation of these cars of yesteryear, which means they lack various fancy technical enhancements and upgrades of PresentDay rally cars. Thanks to an advanced physics model, driving them actually feels like driving a vintage car, making the game fairly NintendoHard, but enjoyable and challenging nonetheless.
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11	The retro atmosphere is also enhanced by [[StylisticSuck grainy]] [[{{Retraux}} and traditional-looking menu screens]], more regionally-themed and lesser known national championships, lots of PlayedForLaughs elements and some genuinely quality folk-rock style instrumental music, with a heavy dose of 1960s guitar sound.
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13	An archived version of the game's official site can be seen [[http://web.archive.org/web/20050210165316/http://rally.jowood.com/ here]] and its developer site can be seen [[http://web.archive.org/web/20090312062554/http://www.bugbear.fi/rallytrophy/ here]]. Patches, wallpapers, etc. are still downloadable from the official site.
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16	!!This game features the following tropes :
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18	* AceCustom: Each car in the game has a standard rally version and a factory team version. Naturally, the more powerful (and often cooler-looking) factory team version of the car only gets unlocked as you progress through the game, winning new national championships or setting new time records on stages.
19	* ArtifactTitle: ''Rally Trophy'' [[SoOkayItsAverage sounds a bit plain]], doesn't it ? Well, the game was originally (earlier in development) pitched as ''Historical Rally Trophy''.
20	* BadassDriver: Your five opponents in Arcade mode. And ''you yourself'' [[DareToBeBadass will have to become one]], in order to gradually win all the championships on higher difficulties.
21	* TheComicallySerious: Your co-driver, pretty much any time you piss him off with bad driving or crashing.
22	* CoolButInefficient: The Lancia Stratos has an absurdly powerful motor, absurdly great acceleration, break-neck top speed... [[CripplingOverspecialization but apparently zero grip on anything else than tarmac/asphalt]]...
23	* CoolCar: Every damned one of them - and they're all just [[TookALevelInBadass somewhat modified versions]] of [[SimpleYetAwesome ordinary 1960s and 1970s passenger cars]]. Well, except [[ImprobablyCoolCar the two Lancias]], which were among the first purpose-built modern rally cars.
24	* CreatorProvincialism: To a degree. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] in the case of Finland, since it's one of the birthplaces of modern rally racing and a staple of many international rally championships. An amusing PlayingWithATrope version of this occurs with the Russian stages. They're in Russia all right... [[GeniusBonus But judging by the place names and the local enviroment, it's very obvious they're all set specifically in]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karelia Karelia]], [[GeniusBonus the traditional border region between Russia and Finland.]]
25	* DamnYouMuscleMemory: [[PlayingWithATrope Played with.]] Of all the 11 available cars, 8 are [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rear-wheel_drive#Rear-wheel-drive_layouts RWD]] and vary a lot in terms of performance and the amount of skill needed for driving them. While switching from one car to another, you'll often have to unlearn or rethink skills you've learned. It's generally better to start with the more easily accessible [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rear-wheel_drive#Front-wheel-drive_layouts FWD]] cars (the [[BadassNormal SAAB 96]], [[FragileSpeedster Lancia Fulvia]] and [[BadassAdorable Mini Cooper]]) and then gradually accustom yourself to the rear wheel drives. Some [=RWD=]s in the game can be literally sadistically hard to keep on the road along a straight line, with the [[CoolButInefficient Lancia]] [[CrazyIsCool Stratos]] and the 1960s version of the [[TheBigGuy Opel Kadett]] being the worst offenders. But it's all justified, since those cars ''[[TruthInTelevision really were that hard to control]]''. Generally speaking, the most stable to drive [=RWD=] cars are probably the [[spoiler:Alfa Romeo Giullia and the Ford Cortina]].
26	* DarkestAfrica: UsefulNotes/{{Kenya}}, a staple of rally games, is the second country in the championship.
27	* DrivingStick: As in many rally racing games, you can choose either manual or automatic transmission. Automatic is easier to drive with (especially for newcomers), while manual is harder, but more sensitive and responsive.
28	* DuelingGames: With other titles of the early 2000s' glut of rally games. Especially with the second installment of the ''VideoGame/ColinMcRaeRally'' series.
29	* GameMod: Racing games traditionally aren't overly modding-friendly (even the ones with huge fan communities), but RT had a surprisingly great amount of fan-made custom content. Some quality stuff was made back in the day - especially many additional cars, both old and new, and even entire new stages and countries (the Australian maps were among the best). If you already own the game, you can start looking for various mods and addons [[http://www.nogripracing.com/files.php?maincat=1 here]], [[http://www.bhmotorsports.com/RT/downloads here]] and [[http://www.bhmotorsports.com/RT/mods here]].
30	** ''[[http://www.nogripracing.com/details.php?filenr=671 TT Real Mod]]'' is aimed at further enhancing the already high level of realistic driving physics from the vanilla game.
31	** Notable total conversions are the PresentDay ''[[http://www.nogripracing.com/files.php?subcat=16 WRC Mod]]'' and the unofficial FanSequel ''[[http://www.nogripracing.com/files.php?subcat=91 Rally Trophy II]]''.
32	* GenreThrowback: To 1960s and 1970s era rally racing. The whole point and theme of the game, with some AffectionateParody thrown in.
33	* HelloInsertNameHere: You can assign a name, surname and national flag to your racer.
34	* IdiosyncraticDifficultyLevels: They also influence which cars, countries and stages you can select.
35	** Novice
36	** Intermediate
37	** Expert
38	* InVehicleInvulnerability: Played straight, but with a subversion or two. As your windshield and front lights get damaged, your line of sight diminishes and gets a bit obscured (especially on night stages).
39	* LargeHam: Your co-driver, particularly in some instances.
40	--> "[[NoIndoorVoice Stick to the track, pleeeaaase !]]"
41	--> "[[PunctuatedForEmphasis Please. Do. Not. Mow. The Lawn. With. My. Car...]]"
42	--> (animal runs across the road) "[[ScreamsLikeALittleGirl Waaaatch ooouuut !]]"
43	* {{Leitmotif}}: Each country in the game has its own music themes - two alternating ones for the rally stages in Rally mode and one for the circuit races of Arcade mode.
44	* LimitedSoundEffects: Averted very well - [[ZigZaggingTrope except for the crash SFX]], which play this painfully straight, being nearly identical, regardless of whether you hit a rock, tree or some metal object or whether you damaged the car's body or windows.
45	* MadeOfIron: Massively averted in Rally mode ([[AcceptableBreaksFromReality outside of your engine dying completely]]). Even if you completely avoid scratching the car's body, certain parts of the car's undercarriage will gradually accumulate wear over the course of several stages and will require replacement. On the other hand, the trope is played completely straight in Arcade mode, where you can focus on racing against opponents [[LighterAndSofter without having to worry about any kind of damage]].
46	* MinisculeRocking: Much of the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XG3tdaM1DkA&list=PL31AE49B767731B68 game's soundtrack]] consists of themes barely longer than a minute or minute and a half. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]], since most of these themes are designed to run on a loop and provide incidental background music. Most of the time, players hardly even notice the looping, since the songs' ends blend seemlessly into each other.
47	* {{Montage}}: The [[http://youtu.be/vKdZm4CHpCE intro cutscene]], complete with vivid MinisculeRocking and an ActionHoggingOpening involving over half of the game's cars.
48	* UsefulNotes/{{Motorsports}}: European rally racing. Specifically, the early years of modern off-road and on-road rally racing.
49	* NintendoHard: It says something when one reviewer [[http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/p_rallytrophy referred to it]] as the rally cousin of ''VideoGame/GrandPrixLegends''. It's generally considered as having an exceptional damage model and very realistic, yet accessible [[SomeDexterityRequired handling physics]] [[OnceOriginalNowCommon (especially for its time)]]. Many rally racing fans consider it to be the second most hardcore game of the whole genre, right after ''VideoGame/RichardBurnsRally''.
50	* NorseByNorsewest: UsefulNotes/{{Sweden}} and UsefulNotes/{{Finland}}, being traiditional rally racing countries, feature in the championship. An aversion of this trope, since they're portrayed faithfully and differ quite a bit from each other (it helps that Sweden is the obligatory "snow and winter" country of the championship).
51	* PetTheDog: While your co-driver will berate you for every crash or driving blunder, he doesn't hesitate to acknowledge your driving skills if you did well :
52	--> [[SugarWiki/MostWonderfulSound Sweet, we're in the lead !]]
53	--> (''impressed grunt'') Pretty good...
54	--> Not spectacular, but not too shabby...
55	--> Not too bad, keep it focused !
56	* PintsizedPowerhouse: True to its RealLife counterpart, the Abarth-produced sports modification of the Fiat 600 lives up to this trope. It might be as small a car as the Mini Cooper, but it's a rear wheel drive and has a very powerful engine, making it a speedy and agile little racer. Unfortunately, the much more powerful engine also provides the disadvantage of the car easily oversteering or understeering at higher speeds if not driven with care.
57	* RaceAgainstTheClock: Played straight most of the time, just as in RealLife rally racing and any serious rally game. Hence why you will have to combine [[SomeDexterityRequired highly-skilled handling and a good instinct for accelerating and braking]] in order to score the best possible times on a particular rally stage. Averted in Arcade mode - as it's name implies, it's a LighterAndSofter take on rallying, where you eschew the setting of new records and listening to pacenotes altogether, and instead go circuit racing with a handful of actual opponents.
58	* RuleOfFunny: ''A lot'' of various [[AffectionateParody tongue-firmly-in-cheek gags]], in contrast to what is otherwise a serious DrivingGame. Your co-driver is... [[LargeHam rather]] [[CloudCuckooLander unconventional]]... In the English dub he has a definitely UpperClassTwit accent and is really fond of [[OnceDoneNeverForgotten chastising you for each car-shattering hit and crash you make]]. His SarcasmMode [[SnarkKnight snarking]] and LargeHam remarks [[PlayedForLaughs are generally hilarious]].
59	** The game's [[CreativeClosingCredits credits]] [[spoiler: featuring grainy footage of two 1950s-style Formula One toy cars pulled by strings competing on a muddy racing circuit built in someone's back yard]].
60	** If you do a nearly flawless DrivesLikeCrazy SpeedRun of a stage, your otherwise snarky co-driver will tremblingly exclaim at the finish line:
61	-->"Way too fast for me, [[PottyFailure I gotta change my pants...]]"
62	** And in contrast, if you arrive to the finish line with a rather unimpressive time score, he'll teasingly spout things like:
63	-->"[[IShallTauntYou Did the gas pedal fall off ?]]"
64	* SomeDexterityRequired: To be expected in a rally racing sim. While the game is perfectly playable with keyboard control, installing a steering wheel helps.
65	* SpiritualSuccessor: The first game of Bugbear's later ''{{VideoGame/FlatOut}}'' series inherited much of the physics engine and visual style from ''VideoGame/RallyTrophy'', albeit with many improvements.
66	* TheStoic: In contrast to his more MotorMouth cousins from other rally games, your co-driver (at least in the English dub) fits this to a tee while reading the pacenotes of each stage. Well, [[MoodWhiplash until you hit something at 100 miles per hour]], that is...
67	* SubsystemDamage: You can damage virtually anything on your car, from your bodywork and windows to your engines, axles, steering, brakes and transmission. Tyres also gather wear with each completed rally stage and require regular replacement. One of the few AcceptableBreaksFromReality is that your engine will never completely shut down, [[MadeOfIron no matter the damage]].
68	* UnlockableContent: New stages and cars (including the [[AceCustom factory team versions]]) become available as you gradually progress through the main championship campaign (career mode) on gradually increasing difficulty levels.
69	* WackyRacing: Present a bit in Arcade mode, where you race against a maximum of five opponents on a circuit track for at least three laps. While not outright vehicular combat, every single lap is a genuinely tense and thrilling experience. Standings of racers change easily and once a race starts, it's basically every man for himself. Even the background music is faster-paced and sounds a lot wackier than that of the stages in Rally mode.
70	* YodelLand: The fifth and final country in the championship mode is UsefulNotes/{{Switzerland}}.
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Context VideoGame / RallyTrophy