Which Platform Racing Game is the Best?

[Northadox]

I’ll do it by positive points/negative points.

PR1:
Pros

• Was the original that started it all
  
• Charming for its minute size
  
• Player-head bouncing was pretty cool, and it didn’t make a return until much later with the Jigg Hat in PR2
  
• Had some Jiggmin-original music tracks that haven’t made a reappearance since
  
• Can change usernames at a whim
  

Cons

• Extremely small amount of content; nothing to do once you’ve beat all the available levels but grind for ranks
  
• Gameplay was sluggish and tedious
  
• No customization features besides body part colors
  
• Notorious for extreme hacking problem
  

Generally a sweet little experiment to translate the Mario Kart formula into a sidescrolling platformer with multiplayer features, but there’s not much there to keep you entertained for more than an hour.

PR2:
Pros

• Most popular and successful out of all Platform Racing games
  
• Innovated with its primarily user-generated gameplay (it came out six months before Little Big Planet!)
  
• Robust level editor with plenty of features to keep your levels unique, such as more elements and the ability to draw in your levels
  
• Physics are fast and fluid, makes racing a total blast
  
• Low skill floor yet very high skill ceiling with physics; there’s a whole audience for frustrating super hard levels and yet I’ve never even beaten a single level of traps
  
• Charm is dialed up tenfold from Platform Racing 1 with the ability to customize your characters/levels to an excessive degree
  
• Keeps you playing with having an exponentially increasing EXP requirement for ranks, so you’ll never max out in a day
  
• Hats make gameplay fresh, and give you options for how to tackle levels (unless they have hat removers, in which case, oh well)
  
• Campaigns with levels that are well-crafted and iconic (at least for most of the classic campaign levels, anyway)
  
• Tons of prizes to earn to keep you hooked in
  
• Communication aspect increased immensely, so you can communicate with friends during a race
  
• Absolutely amazing soundtrack, even Switchblade is enjoyable in a cheesy way
  
• Freeze Wave is a pretty cool item
  

Cons:

• Is made on Flash, which is dated and vulnerable nowadays
  
• The physics are rather glitchy, but some would argue this enhances the skill needed
  
• Server response speed makes racing other players a rather choppy experience, especially in Deathmatches
  
• Level editor may seem robust at first but it’s rather limiting on ocassions, with no customizable blocks, multiple art layers, copy/paste tools (specifically for art)
  
• Vault of Magics may be perceived as microtransactions
  

Probably the pinnacle of the Platform Racing series, so far anyway, and it seems that most people here would agree. It certainly has quite the legacy.

PR3:
Pros

• Level editor has been greatly expanded, particularly with the block editor which allows almost limitless levels of customization
  
• Level editor also introduced user-generated gamemodes like Capture the Flag or Survival stuff
  
• Huge single player campaign that allows for time attacks and the ability to earn parts if played well enough
  
• Formally introduced Deathmatches, alongside Hat Attack and Coin Battle, two moderately enjoyable modes
  
• Physics were different from PR2 but nonetheless functional with their own quriks
  
• 8 players can race at a time in a single level!
  
• Polished up, professional art style
  
• Five/six new items (Angel Wings, Black Hole, Portable Block, Rocket Launcher, Shield, and the Bow if you count PR3R) which are welcome additions
  
• Level of the Day system, something was desired in PR2
  
• Whole new soundtrack, with some good tunes
  

Cons

• Undeniably, the chokehold that Sparkworkz/InXile held on the game and Jiggmin, which left the game in a sadly unifnished state with little updates 
  
• Sparkworks was nicknamed “Lagworkz” for a reason; the game was incredibly laggy
  
• This is debatable, but the artstyle lacked the amateurish charm that PR1/PR2 possessed, probably due to the outsourced art
  
• Due to levels always having wildly different styles due to the extreme customization features, there wasn’t really a consistent style, which is also debatedly an issue
  
• As mentioned, physics were different, but some players longed for the more fluid and loose control of PR2
  
• Less popularity than its predecessor, which means not many people to play with
  
• Soundtrack was less memorable than PR2
  
• Doesn’t even have an HD rendition of the classic parts
  

All in all it took the PR franchise several steps further but due to the game’s ownership it lagged behind, pun intended. I really do think there’s a lot to love in PR3, especially the level editing features and the eight player races, but it’s just held back by a lot of things.

So yeah, with that out of the way, I’ll say that PR2 is definitely the best, mostly just because it’s the most consistently enjoyable (and accessible too; PR1 was filled with hackers and PR3 died with Sparkworkz) and I can’t wait for the future of the series. I really do hope that PRF/PR4 lives up to PR2 and exceeds it but also doesn’t forget what PR3 did for the franchise. I’ve got a fair bit of ideas for it myself but that’s for another day.