A user friendly front-end showing all the options you would expect of a game of this nature is an encouraging start to the game. Starting with a fairly standard, if also fairly scant selection of boy-racer approved motors (Toyota Corolla, Ford Focus RS and the inevitable Subaru Impreza and Mitsubishi Evo), all with tuning options akin to the game's big brother, this game has sacrificed none of the features which made its predecessors great, although it chooses to drip-feed them to the gamer in a true 21st century 'unlocking' style rather than having most features and cars open for use from the word go.

Given the obvious constraints placed on the developers by the Gameboy Advance hardware, the 3D in this game is handled very effectively. Even though the textures are blocky in the extreme, it looks not a million miles away from early PSX titles of this nature, and while the roadside texture tearing which occurs on certain stages (particularly the Village circuits) is a shame, the game looks so good on the whole that most gamers will be able to forgive it easily. The frame rate is more than adequate to create a convincing impression of speed, and there's even a passable - albeit rather pointless - stab at a replay after each race. Sadly, there is a flipside; the courses feel very channelled, and it's not easy to imagine spinning the car and ending up facing the wrong way; further to this, your car is held on the track by invisible forces on either side of the road which refuse to allow any off-road action. This is more noticeable on open stages, but still takes the edge off the otherwise very slick operation of the main game engine.

The co-driver voices are taken directly from Sega Rally 2, and will bring a smile of recognition to the faces of those gamers who haven't played Sega Rally for a while. The cars sound a good deal less whiney than you would expect from a handheld title, and although we're a long way from the throaty roar of real cars, or even real consoles, the hardware limitations are overcome as much as possible by the developers, and the car sounds alone won't have gamers reaching for the volume dial. However, as is becoming the norm with next-gen games ported to GBA, the music is the biggest casualty in the aesthetics department. While the Sega Rally games were never particularly noted for their soundtracks, the tunes which grace this conversion are predictably weak.

The only place where the game is clearly and sorely lacking in comparison with modern racers is in the controls department. It was a long time ago that people were happy with digital controls for the Saturn version of Sega Rally, and there are few genres which have been revolutionised by the advent of analogue controls quite the way that the driving genre has. As a result, the forced shift back to digital comes as something of a hurdle to a 21st century gamer, and the frantic dabbing at the D-Pad and relentless clicking on and off of the accelerator isn't nostalgic in the least. It would, however, be unfair to criticise such a well converted game for the hardware which it's running on. It's not oversimple in the same way that Outrun or Chase HQ feel these days, but it does miss the taut and finely honed feel of the Saturn version's digital controls. Consequentially and inevitibly, the tremendous player satisfaction generated by the original is largely lost. A persevering gamer will never love the handling in this game, but will at least get used to it quickly.

Short of the instruction manual and box art, there are no language concerns whatsoever with the Japanese release of this title. The whole game is in English, with no hidden surprises buried deep in options screens to contend with.

This is a better driving game than those which have come before it on the GBA, and if only it wasn't called Sega Rally, it would appeal to a lot more gamers. As it is, the lofty expectations placed on it by the world's nostalgic memories of its predecessors will lead most to dismiss this as an impossible dream on an underpowered system. In reality, it's an entertaining little racer that, despite one or two flaws and glitches, isn't far off the best racing action you can have on the bus on your way to work.