Recent reviews by Anthracite

With the most recent 18.04 update, they've nuked all goodwill for this game.

tl;dr Frontier Developments has added pay-to-skip-grind or pay-to-skip-wait mechanics to an already grindy and generally 'slow paced' game.

The primary issue is the Real World Money ships; I did not purchase Odyssey as the on-ground gameplay did not appeal to me and because I'm primarily a VR user anyways, so the purchase wouldn't make sense for me.
FDev thought they'd be able to still cash in on the crowd of folks like me by making the new Python Mk. II exclusive to the DLC OR you could pay for "early access" using their microtransaction shop. At the time of writing, the Odyssey DLC is $14.99 and the ship would cost between $12.97 on the high end and $9.75 on the low end because of their predatory arx pricing. This is for the base version.
If you wanted to get the 'prebuilt' version that is, in their words, "built ready for immediate combat encounters with a killer look" with higher grade modules (as well as a paintjob and ship-kit, which are cosmetic items) it would cost between $26.33 and $19.80 which is, in the best case scenario, about the price of the base game itself.

They have also added three ships that are normally available from playing the game, but you can buy them 'prebuilt' with high grade weapons and modules. They all cost the same amount as eachother, which is between $20.35 and $15.30.

I have never seen a game thrive for a long time and continue to be fun for the vast majority of players when 'pay to skip grind' mechanics are introduced. Yes, you can technically just wait and either 'grind it out' or for the Python MK II to release for all players, but Frontier Developments now has financial incentive NOT to fix the general balancing of the grind in the game, and crack down even harder on what they perceive to be grind-skips or farms.

I will be allocating these ~60 gigs for more fun games. It's sad to see a game I cared a lot about and played hundreds of hours of getting trashed and squeezed for any last bits of profitability.

Picked up the game the literal minute it came out. I was able to get through the main story in ~14 hours of playtime. This was while stopping to smell the roses a bit and do some side content during the main story. It was enjoyable the entire time.

I have a history, like quite a few folks that picked up this game super early, with Jet Set Radio Future. It certainly wears its resemblance on its sleeve, but the developers were not content to make a JSRF clone. It feels like they took their favorite aspects of Jet Set Radio Future and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater while giving the game a fairly unique and engaging story. That being said, the main physics do feel like a refined version of what you might be familiar with in JSRF, much of my muscle memory was able to quickly adapt to the combo system in the game.

The only major critique that I have with the game is that it felt like it might've been able to use a bit more development time. Some of the areas feel fairly empty and boxy, the soundtrack is exceptional, but feels a bit limited at times, you will be very familiar with every song by the end of the story campaign, and while I'd prefer a story to be too short than overstay its welcome, I would have liked to get to know some of the characters and tackle some of the really interesting topics the story touches on a bit deeper.

The game does, however, perform excellently. Runs at locked 60 with all settings cranked on the Steam Deck at native res, and doesn't break a sweat at 1080p with settings still cranked. With minimum settings but still pushing 60, the Steam Deck was pulling about 8 Watts, and it was estimating about 5 hours of playtime. With a lower framerate and/or lower resolution, you could get some proper silly battery life running this extremely well optimized game.

At the end of the day, the question being asked is "is this game worth $40?"
It's a simple and resounding yes; the game is FUN and keeping up your combos rarely feels frustrating with your freedom of movement. The art style and soundtrack are extremely pleasing, and the story hooked me and kept me engaged throughout the entirety of my playtime. I'm just in to the postgame and the challange spike is precisely what I desired, and the rewards are deliciously old-school. If you've played JSRF, you know exactly what to expect.

If it the game looks like it piques your interest from the trailers, chances are you know what you're getting yourself in to. Just buy it!

I believe they call this a "Glow Up"?

tl;dr: 90's-2000's style anti gravity racer with great base tracks, lots of customization, great music, and a lot of replayability. It should cost $20 or more but it's $8. Please buy this game it's so good.

Here's a lot of words;
I did not have the privilege of purchasing the base game for myself. I installed this years ago when it was in early access. I didn't really love the game back then. I loved the concept, being a WipEout fan, but it just didn't... click.
Year or two ago, I reinstalled the game after looking for something to play in my library, and I saw that the game looked... new. I went ahead and reinstalled it and was greeted with a familiar but almost entirely new experience.
Now with near 100 hours under my belt, I feel somewhat qualified to speak on this game;

The game is not without its flaws, but I'll get to those after I take an indulgent moment to share what I love about the game.
The control of the ships feel good; each ship is unique and handles in specific ways that the stats won't tell the entire story with.
The track selection, even with only the base game, is diverse and has a range of specific, challenging parts to them. Even with 100 hours in the game, I haven't yet memorized and mastered every track in the base game, and that doesn't factor in even the free Neon Nights expansion
The customization is top notch. Everything from keybinds across multiple devices making things like steering wheels and hotases possible to play with (though, I prefer a simple controller myself) to specific response curves means you can dial the game in to your liking. This on top of some rather indulgent filters and shaders to make the game look as clean and polished, 'modern' as you want or recreate a more PS1 era look with a CRT filter and vertex rounding, as well as the Steam Workshop and low level modding support means you can really make this game be what you want.
The multiplayer is quite fun, you can choose to use Steam's services to easily add friends to a game and race to your heart's content, or you can host your own direct IP connection server in case you either don't want to use Steam's services, or they're down for a given reason.
The VR support is near perfect. There's nothing quite like racing your favorite track and feel like you're actually going near the speed of sound only feet off the ground. As a VR enthusiast, this greatly pleases me.
The soundtrack is absolutely beautiful. It's indulgent in the era it's trying to recreate, and has plenty of diversity to never get old listening to it. Even the short loop of the menu music is something that could be listened to for hours without getting stale. Atleast, for my ears.

Now I must remove my rose tinted glasses if only a bit for my critiques of the game.
The engine, specifically, the collision detection with the track is less than perfect at times. There are certain corners that you can get caught on, usually where the track diverges, either to a pit lane or alternate route. There are some parts where you can fall through the track, but that's significantly more rare.
The AI are... lacking. This is a rather nitpicky point that doesn't deserve a lot of credence, but the AI difficulty boils down to how much they use their weapons and how fast they take corners. I very rarely see them make mistakes, but this is balanced by the fact that they never seem to use boost. It makes racing, especially at higher difficulties feel asymmetrical. I would love AI that use the boost but might try to turn too early or too late, just to make it feel more 'equal'
An even smaller nitpick that affects even less people; the VR UI elements are way too far apart. I wish there was a way ingame to adjust the UI borders so that things like my health were more in my periphery, even with my Index, I have to take my eyes off the road to see vital information. This, with the different effective FOVs different headsets have would be a killer QOL feature.

As it stands, this is one of my favorite games of all time due to the fact that it's a no frills, bog standard racing game. No microtransactions, no lootboxes, nothing is randomized for the sake of player retention. You pick up and drop this game as you feel fit. It has difficult and lofty challenges to unlock different ships and 'extras' that are insanely fun to pursue. It really is a game from another era, just brought to modern hardware with rather modern QoL.
The fact that one person actively develops this game (with one other person managing the ports to MacOS and Linux) is flooring. This is extremely obviously a labor of love, and is STILL getting updates and content added to the game. As of writing, there is a beta that adds an entirely new class of ship; hoverbikes. As a motorcyclist, this appeals to me intensely.

If this game remotely appeals to your interests, I have a hard time believing it'll let you down. I've purchased this game for so many friends because I just want everyone to experience it. I feel it's a gem in the rough.