Retro Replay Review

Gameplay

Auto Modellista starts with a strong hook: you are not only picking a fast car and heading to the next race, you are building toward a better garage. Garage Life is the main draw, sending you through seven levels with a varying number of races in each. Finishing first is not just a result screen trophy. It is how you unlock more cars, parts, and items, giving the racing a useful sense of momentum.

That structure makes the game more satisfying than a collection of disconnected events. You choose from the cars you have unlocked, race your way through the current level, and return to a garage where the rewards can change what you drive or how it looks. If you like the steady loop of race, win, unlock, and experiment, there is enough here to make progress feel tangible.

The garage also gives you room to make a car your own. Stickers and earned body parts let you change its appearance, while adjustments to brakes, suspension, and tires invite some practical tuning. That is a welcome layer for anyone who wants more involvement than simply selecting a vehicle, though you should come in wanting to engage with that customization rather than treating it as a one-time detour.

Outside the main progression, arcade mode and time trial are useful for getting straight to the driving, while two-player split-screen gives the game a more immediate couch-racing purpose. The US release also includes broadband online play. Garage Life remains the reason to stick around, but these side modes help prevent the game from feeling locked into one format.

Graphics

The cel-shaded look is Auto Modellista’s clearest visual calling card. Its high-performance cars, including models from Mazda, Honda, Toyota, and Subaru alongside Japanese concept cars, are rendered with an anime-inspired style rather than a conventional realistic racing-game look. It gives the game a distinctly stylized alternative to the more literal car simulations of its era.

Story

Garage Life gives the racing a progression framework. Garage Life supplies the closest thing to a throughline: move through its levels, take first place often enough to advance, and build up your collection along the way.

That lighter framing works because your car becomes the continuing focus. Each unlocked part, item, or vehicle marks the results of prior races, and the garage becomes a record of how far you have climbed. Results and customization keep the focus on the garage you are building.

Garage Life rewards persistence: improve your garage, make a car look right, tune it, and prove it on the next set of races.

Overall Experience

Auto Modellista is most interesting when you let its garage progression and stylized cars work together. The racing gives you the wins, and the wins give you new material to experiment with, which makes even a modest set of modes feel more purposeful than it first appears.

Its biggest strength is that it serves two related urges at once. You can jump into an arcade race or a time trial when you want something quick, then return to Garage Life when you want your results to lead somewhere. Split-screen also makes it easier to share the game with someone sitting beside you instead of keeping every race solitary.

Give it a chance if a cel-shaded racing game with Japanese performance cars and hands-on garage customization sounds more inviting than a bare-bones lap chase. The seven-level Garage Life climb is a sensible payoff for players who enjoy earning their way into new cars and parts. If you have little interest in unlocks and tuning, its central loop will have less to offer.

Retro Replay Score

6.6/10