Thrash Rally is a racing game developed by ADK for the Neo Geo back in 1991.
The game is played from an overview perspective, with the camera centered at all times on your car, and features two modes: a World Rally Championship, with a total of five stages that correspond to Real Life rallies celebrated in the World Rally Championship and allows you to choose between six cars, er, based on real-life racing ones that differ on their acceleration, tires, handling, and endurance, and a Paris - The Cape, that attempts to imitate the real-world Paris-Cape Town Rally
, celebrated back in 1992. This one features three extra vehicles apart from the six available in the WRC mode.
Tropes:
- Bland-Name Product: the names of the cars in the Japanese version: "Lancian Deleta", "Toyot GT-Four", "Nissun GTI-R", "Citraen ZX", "Mitsuboshi", and "Parsche 911". The export version changed them for more original ones ("Blaster LX", "Land Crusher", "Warp ATV", "Turbo GT", "Thunderjet", and "OD 6000X" respectively).
- Bonus Stage: if you're able to end the five rallyes on the first place, you can play the Paris - Le Cape as a bonus stage.
- Featureless Protagonist: after a stage ends or it's ended after time has ran out your pilot appears as just a silhouette next to the portraits of the others with its position and time.
- Fragile Speedster: relatively, since in this game all vehicles reach the same top speed (240 kilometers per hour). The Offroad bike has the best acceleration and handling, but the worst endurance (and tires).
- Hitbox Dissonance: you can pass over other cars, having just your speed diminished. It's especially funny if you play with the camion given its large size.
- Jack of All Trades: the Sand buggy, that has the four stats at the same level.
- Mighty Glacier: the Camion, even if it's a glaciar In Name Only, as its top speed is the same of the other vehicles. Highest endurance and tires, but worst acceleration and handbrake -it also has a big sprite that dwarfs the ones of all other vehicles-.
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Nintendo Hard: even if graphics and gameplay are quite simplistic, if you screw up things just once from the second stage onwards, you can say goodbye to ending the race. Not to mention that ending on the first place can be very difficult. - No Celebrities Were Harmed: the pilots you're competing with (in theory at least, since their cars are not identified) are based on real-life ones, in both name and portrait ("C. Saint"- Carlos Sainz, "D'Arend" - Didier Auriol, "J. Kincaid" - J. Kankunnen, etc.).
- Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: as much justified as it can be, the Paris - Le Cape stage does not certainly look at all like a 14,000 kilometers-long race that crosses southern Europe and all the African continent
- Shout-Out: the "OD-6000X" name is probably an allusion to the "SUX 6000" car of RoboCop (the 1987 movie) fame.
- Stuff Blowing Up: occasionally, a computer-controlled car will collide with either the fences that mark the racetrack or another car and will blow up
- Every Car Is a Pinto: see above trope.
- Timed Mission: each stage has a time limit to end it. If you cannot, Game Over.
