Neo Racer: Tetra

Neo Racer: Tetra (ネオレーサー：テトラ - Neorēsā: Tetora) was a game developed by Ocean Games (海ゲーム) and released on November 30th, 2012 exclusively for Nintendo's (任天堂) newest console at the time, the Wii U (ウィー ユー). Neo Racer: Tetra was the first Ocean Games production to be published by Nintendo since 1986's Neo Racer 2: Revenge of X (ネオレーサー2：Xの復讐).

Production
Neo Racer: Tetra was the brainchild of the famous Yoshioka Koizumi, the creator of many different popular Ocean Games series. Neo Racer: Tetra began development on January 6th, 2010 by Ocean Games' Alpha (アルファ) team for Nintendo's unannounced console at the time. Nintendo themselves had actually commissioned the large studio to make the game, with them wanting to have an Ocean Games production at the forefront of their newest launch lineup. Similar to almost every other Neo Racer game, it would be designed by Yoshioka Koizumi, plus many other fledgling designers from the early years of Ocean Games, such as Yoshiro Kamaki, the original composer of the first Neo Racer game ever released.

The game went through a pretty rocky development, with the developers not knowing how to implement Nintendo's newest innovation, the Gamepad, into the actual gameplay without making it a nuisance to the player. One designer, Masaru Yamura, proposed that in some sections the player would have to look down at the Gamepad for gameplay, and in others, the player would have to look up at the television screen. Thankfully, this idea was shot down by Yoshioka Koizumi himself, later saying that it interrupted the gameplay experience and utterly destroyed the game's fast pacing.

Another reason the game had such a bad development was the multitude of bugs that the new console had brought on. Unbeknownst to Nintendo, Ocean Games had already begun development for a new Neo Racer title which was supposed to release on the Sony PlayStation 3 and the X-Box 360, however when Nintendo offered the contract, the higher-ups at Ocean Games snagged the deal, and all of the previous work on the game had to be ported over to the unannounced Nintendo console. This would prove to be a challenge for the developers, and because of that, there were many new issues and bugs that needed to be fixed before the game released to store shelves at the launch of the Nintendo's newest console.

Another bad thing about the game's development was the short development time (for Ocean Games, at the least). The Ocean Games corporation was used to pushing out new games every 3-5 years, which gives them enough time to patch out all the bugs and make great games. However, this game's dev time was half of some other Ocean Games releases, with it being released only two years after development on the Wii U version initially began. This was a great challenge for the developers, with some working around the clock to get the game ready for the November 2012 release of the Wii U. It was so bad that some of the game's developers needing to be hospitalized mid-development. This caused Ocean Games to hire new, contract-based, developers to replace the old ones while they were getting medical treatment.

Neo Racer: Tetra was officially announced at the 2010 E3 by Yoshioka Koizumi himself, appearing at his first E3 event since 2004, when he officially unveiled Ocean Games newest game at the time Warp. The announcement was met with almost immediate backlash, with many fans upset that it would release exclusively on Nintendo's newest, unannounced console. However, Kotaro Yamamato (the previous CEO of Ocean Games) defended this decision by stating that they had officially worked with Nintendo to make sure that the game would be up to snuff and would be a fun gameplay experience. However, this did response angered even more fans because Mr. Yamamoto hadn't fully addressed the reason most fans were mad: the game wasn't going multiplatform.

This caused Mr. Yamamoto to release yet another response to the backlash, stating that the game wasn't going multiplatform because Ocean Games wanted to try something new and experiment as to what they could do with game development. Many fans were still offended by this response and believed that the only reason that Ocean Games was releasing Neo Racer: Tetra exclusively for the Nintendo console was that they had signed a business deal with Nintendo, which was true. However, many fans realized that Ocean Games wasn't going to change their market strategy, and gave up trying to fight against it.

Neo Racer: Tetra finally released to great reviews, with many critics citing the amazing aesthetic and beautiful soundtrack. However, some fans were still angry about the fact that the game wasn't going multiplatform, and blasted the game on sites like Metacritic, etc. However, this didn't stop the game from selling incredibly well. The game sold around 1 million units in 6 months, which was slightly above Nintendo's ambitions for the project. Neo Racer: Tetra sold around 5 million units in all.

Gameplay
Neo Racer: Tetra 's gameplay would be very similar to that of the latest (at the time of this writing) 3D F-Zero game, F-Zero: GX. However, the gameplay would be much more modern than the said F-Zero: GX. Neo Racer: Tetra would feature much fewer racers appearing in races, around 12, while F-Zero GX had 30 racers on the track at the same time. Neo Racer: Tetra would also have many more characters that you could choose to play in the races. While F-Zero: GX featured a measly (compared to Neo Racer: Tetra) 40 racers, Neo Racer: Tetra would feature over 60 unique and different characters that players could control during the races. Each character would have their own unique car and character design. Every character would also have their own separate voice.