Wheel World review: "By merging Burnout Paradise and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild with pedal power, Wheel World arrives somewhere unusual and worth visiting"

There's an entrepreneur who appears again and again against the charmingly continental backdrop of Tramonto. He's responsible for setting up Wheel World's fast travel system, which harnesses a sacred spiritual power via a network of porta-potties. "You just can't beat that kind of convenience for getting from place to place," says Portal John, in between thwacks of his hammer.

Among all the inhabitants of this compact open world, he's one of the few not to get it. Almost everyone you meet out here is enamoured with the momentous magic of cycling. The giddy glee of gravity-enhanced acceleration on a long downhill stretch, the smooth strategic satisfaction of a well-planned gear change. When they open their mouths, it becomes clear they're obsessed – either with the lightweight benefits of carbon saddles, the wattage generated while wearing toeclips, or bananas as a source of potassium ("nip those muscle crampons right in the buddskis"). Convenience? No thanks. Not when there's a ride to be had.

Pedal power

Your role in this grand celebration of cycling culture is a somewhat fantastical one. Accompanied by an ancient bike spirit, you must retrieve the ancient legendary parts, and assemble a ride capable of traversing the sewer of spirits to Mount Send. There, you must perform the great shift that allows souls to pass on to the afterlife. The sacred spec sheet demands it.

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Tenacious-D-esque flourishes aside, Wheel World is mercifully low on lore – its quest merely providing a framework for your meandering journeys around the vineyards and walled towns of Tramonto, and the more urban landscapes further afield. You're typically following only your nose, and whatever path happens to be unfurling ahead of you – ringing your bell to challenge a passing cyclist to an impromptu race, activating a bell shrine to mark points of interest on your map, or screeching to a halt to pick up a hidden part. In an age when 100%ing Assassin's Creed Shadows means setting aside a full season of a year, it's a pleasure to engage wholeheartedly with an unbloated open world that won't demand more than ten hours of your time, at the outside.

The heart of Wheel World – or perhaps its drivetrain – are the two dozen staged races scattered across its hills. Win these and you'll gather Rep, gradually proving yourself worthy to take on the handful of boss bikers who cling to those legendary parts. Each gang of racers you approach has their own mildly amusing gimmick that binds them together; the Handlebaristas are coffee nuts, while Practice are all off-duty doctors. It's a setup which adds a surprising and nostalgic flavor of Pokémon to the game as a whole – as if you'd reached for your water bottle and discovered it had unexpectedly been filled with Sunny D.

It's during the rigors of racing that Wheel World's riding mechanics are put to the test, and I'm pleased to report no snapped chains or burst tyres. Its physics simulation is forgiving yet robust, and greater nuances reveal themselves with time – like the bunnyhop, manually activated with a flick down-and-up on the thumbstick, which can be used to clear low hedges or amplify a jump. Extra airtime builds your boost bar, as does dodging traffic and slipstreaming behind fellow racers. The lead opponent in a pack tends to get fighty, nudging you off-track, so once an opening to overtake emerges, it makes sense to slam the boost and put clear air behind you.

That said, Wheel World doesn't shoot for high tension for most of its runtime. Many races can be bested with imperfect times, and customizing your bike is, to reclaim a term from the AI snake oil salesmen, mostly vibe-based. While tweaking your 'aero' or 'grip' stats can make the difference between winning and losing, certain bike builds push toward silly extremes that defy sporting analysis.

When one time trial victory eluded me, I put together a ride tuned for boosting through grape bushes. Its frame was a big old log, its wheels were green, and the fork resembled the blades of a lawnmower. It looked like something Radagast the Brown would ride into battle, and turned the rules of the race upside down – encouraging dashes off the path into the nearest bramble patch.

This flippant, friendly air serves Wheel World well for the most part, and covers for the moments when its optional race objectives – like collectibles and times-to-beat – introduce erratic spikes to the difficulty curve. Nevertheless, it's gratifying when the story relocates to the scrapyards of a corporate wasteland, and finally asks for the kind of mastery that all great racing games do: a head for speed, a memory for corners, and a certain amount of stubborn persistence.

It's a shift that comes a little too late, for my tastes. Perhaps that's a symptom of completionism, and the fact that I'd spent more time than strictly necessary chasing top scores across Tramonto before triggering the next phase of the ride to Mount Send. But there's a sense that Wheel World holds back its gnarliest challenges a little too long, leaving less time to enjoy the subsequent sweaty-palmed chicanery.

That's certainly the case with multi-speed drivetrains. Despite the boxes and boxes of parts out in the wilds, only two ever yielded a gear change option for my bike. And their implementation left something to be desired. With your eyes fixed on the track, only subtle vibrations in the gamepad clue you into the need to shift from first to second. I got into the habit of firing the boosters to cheat my way into higher speeds, rather than engaging with the clunky and distracting matter of shifting into lower gears and back again.

The odd bump, however, can't knock all the momentum out of this offbeat open world – distinguished by its geographical sense of restraint, gentle observational comedy, and soundtrack which deftly splits the difference between focus and euphoria. Not to mention the bikes. For an afternoon or two, you won't regret trading in the real for the wheel.

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