To me, Ring Racers feels like some bizarro version of a "what if we made a kart racer that plays like what normies think a fighting game plays like" future (complimentary, not derogatory). It's fascinating to get a glimpse. It's like those weird extinct animals who take over a tiny ecological niche but wouldn't survive in a more diverse climate, like channichthyidae or galapogos finches.
The result isn't quite a kart racer and isn't quite a fighting game, it's...some mix in between, where the difference between coming in first and being in fourth requires knowing that (say) directional influence is reversed while you're teching banana peel spinouts, or how your boost frames are preserved if you cancel your sliptide wavedash around a tight corner, etc etc. The skill ceiling is ridiculously high. For online play, so is the skill floor.
In all honesty I don't think it quite "works" for mass consumption...but it's not meant to! This corner of design space is built by those who love the genre they've made, so to hell with mass consumability anyway. I personally find the experiment fascinating and rewarding to learn. Certainly do check it out.
