When it comes to retro games, you’ll hear some developers talk about how it’s most ideal to not try to recreate retro games exactly as they were. Instead, the goal should be to recreate how those games made the developer feel, and to bring in some modern elements to make a game that exists as a perfectly suitable modern game, but also pays homage to those classic games. Based on my hands-on time with Horizon Chase, Aquiris’ tribute to classic racing games, it could just prove to strike that balance quite well.

The mechanics are simple enough to where you have just left/right steering buttons, a turbo boost, and of course, the gas pedal. But there’s no braking that you control, you just have to let off the accelerator during turns. The game has that tight feel of many of the 2D racing games back in the day, but thanks to the 3D engine that it’s running in, it feels great because everything actually exists. You’re actually bumping into cars! Plus, the low-poly look of Horizon Chase is killer, again straddling that line between looking old-school while also being modern, to a certain degree. It looks fantastic on modern, high-resolution displays. The soundtrack comes off well, too.

Horizon Chase releases for $2.99 next Thursday, August 20th, and for fans of racing games that aren’t entirely realistic, and pay homage to the 2D racers of the 8-bit and 16-bit era? This might just be a must-have.