Retro Replay Review

Gameplay

The first few races make their priorities clear: speed matters, but knowing the course matters more. Every track is packed with things that tempt you off the obvious route—jumps, tunnels, destructible objects, hazards, and shortcuts—so a race rarely comes down to merely holding a clean turn. You are constantly weighing a safer line against the possibility of finding a faster one, and that arcade restlessness is Hurricane’s best quality.

Boost is where the racing starts to click. Pickups can be combined for bigger bursts, but they take a moment to come online as the engine transforms. That small delay makes you plan ahead rather than mash boost the instant you touch an item. Boost also enables jumps to higher paths, giving route knowledge real value. Drafting behind another boat adds another useful layer: when you are chasing, staying in an opponent’s wake can turn a losing position into an attack.

Collisions are the weak point. Since boats no longer smash rivals out of the way, contact mostly slows you down, which can make a packed field feel needlessly fussy. Explosive barrels are worse, killing you instantly and respawning you. Still, the game gives you enough ways to recover—drafting, boosts, and alternate routes—that a mistake does not always end the race.

Boat choice is more than a cosmetic decision. Novice, Pro, and Expert classes adjust handling, acceleration, and speed, with difficulty moving alongside the class. Flat-bottomed boats slide more readily through corners, multi-hulled craft grip better, and V-hulls sit between them. If the faster boats initially feel too twitchy, step down and learn the tracks; the payoff for improving is tangible.

There is plenty to do beyond standard races. Championship strings events together, Ring Master turns gate-running into a boosted time trial, and Gauntlet asks you to survive a barrel-strewn route. Trophies and credits unlock more races and boats, while race-specific tasks can unlock skins. The eighty hidden Hydro Thunder packages give completion-minded racers another reason to revisit every dangerous corner and high path.

Graphics

From the behind-the-boat view, the courses put their big arcade obstacles front and center: tunnels, jumps, destructible clutter, police-boat chases, and even a giant sea monster emerging from the water. The visual emphasis is on making each course feel like an obstacle course at high speed rather than a plain circuit.

Story

There is no real plot to slow the racing down. Hurricane is built around the immediate question of whether you can find the fastest route and hold it together under pressure.

That absence suits the game. Its futuristic setting is an excuse for outlandish course events and strange locations, not a framework for characters or drama, while the announcer leans into the deliberately cheesy arcade tone.

Progress comes through trophies, credits, unlocked boats and races, plus challenge-based cosmetics, rather than a narrative campaign. If you want a racing game to build toward a story payoff, this is not that kind of ride; its payoff is learning a track well enough to turn chaos into a clean win.

Overall Experience

Hydro Thunder: Hurricane succeeds because it keeps asking you to race aggressively and think one turn ahead. A shortcut is never just scenery, and a boost is rarely just free speed. Once you begin recognizing when to draft, when to bank a pickup, and when a high route is worth the risk, the races become much more satisfying than their goofy surface suggests.

The game is at its best with company. Four-player split-screen is a natural fit for its easy-to-read, high-energy races, while online support for up to eight players extends the same competitive scramble. Rubber Ducky is particularly absurd in the right way: two teams trying to escort their own rubber duck across the finish line is exactly the sort of mode this series can pull off.

Frustration will set in if you hate momentum-killing bumps or instant barrel deaths, and the lack of boat-bashing removes some of the roughhouse charm associated with the earlier game. But the track design, useful handling differences, and genuinely rewarding boost-and-draft flow more than carry it. Give it a chance if you want arcade racing with secrets to learn and enough modes to keep a quick-session game from wearing out too soon.

Retro Replay Score

7.6/10