It occurred to me that the "race" in SaGa 2 may be intended as a breather, and it does, in fact, feel that way.
* The previous world is a massive 3 dungeon world. (There's only, I believe, 4 worlds with 3 dungeons.) Furthermore, this particular world ends with a rather tricky major boss fight, one that can serve as a wall for many players (including young me), and that can be a roadblock for many parties that can breeze through the rest of the game. Also, you get a lot of the treasures (MAGI) in that world.
* Then there's the Race Circuit. All there is here is one town, and the race acts as the only dungeon. It's short, straightforward, has no time pressure, and the only non-random encounters are random encounters from later worlds. (I have, however, sometimes ended with petrified characters.) This also is the first world where you can use the Aegis magi; one use of it makes your party immune to most things for the rest of the battle, and it has unlimited uses.
* The following world, on the other hand, is another massive 3 dungeon world, with a pair of boss fights at the end. (It's the world I mentioned in the recent discussion about translation and censorship; specifically, it's Edo, the Japanese themed world involving an illegal drug traid, though there's also some political corruption that I didn't mention in the other topic.)

So, I think the placement of that world makes perfect sense.

Dragon Quest 6 and Zelda: Oracle of Seasons, both otherwise good games, do this.

The Batmobile was such an albatross around that game's neck. It's a rare case that one single wrong thing can have such a tremendous impact on an otherwise great game. The Riddler building racetracks was idiotic. All the endless battles against those drone tanks were just so tedious, and felt so forced and unrelated to playing a Batman game. The worst things probably making the boss fight agaisnt Deathstroke another tank battle.

I really wish we got with a living, breathing Gotham City like New York in the Spider-Man PS4 game, instead of having it again be a dead, empty shell of a city to facilitate the Carmageddon/World of Tanks part of the gameplay.

Ooh, the Oracle games have plenty of sins! Would you like your mandatory "Get your stuff back" mission?

Or your mandatory rhythm game? Or the delightful mermaid fins?

Breja. I get what you mean. Reminds me of Knights of the Old Rwpublic. That has a race in it.

Still struck me funny.

:)

The Mad Max-race is bullsh*t. I beat it because the stupid boss got stuck in the middle of the track thanks to a bug ^^

I don't mind the variation but I get your point, I really do.

As much as I didn't enjoy the tank battles, at least they were otherwise survivable. When my condition hit my hands dexterity hard I found the racetrack and particularly the mining vehicle chase to be near impossible in some cases, and this was on the lowest difficulty.

The hand-to-hand combat in the game was highly entertaining. The vehicle battles were ho-hum. The racing was rage-inducing to the point of me almost quitting entirely. If I wanted to race, I'll buy a racing car game, not a Superhero game.

I don't think so. I only remember some car fight scenes where you had to destroy the other vehicles. But I don't think there was a time limit. Then again, it was a long time ago. Still, I'm 100 percent sure there were no real races. At best maybe a scene where you had to chase a car or escape it? But I'm not even sure about that. *If* there was anything remotely similar to a race, it must have been so easy I forgot about it.

EDIT: Oh, wait, I checked my old review and found that I had written this: "I even liked driving around (not so much the racing competitions though)." So apparently there WAS some racing in it. No idea if obligatory or optional.

I was having a lot of trouble with the racetracks too... untill I discovered that you can switch the camera to first person, which made navigating the obstacles way, waaaay easier. I didn't even think it would, but it does. I don't think the game ever actually tells you you can do that though. I'm pretty sure I found that out somewhat randomly online.

Nevertheless, even with that I still didn't like it one bit.

Thing is, aside from the "stealth" mission mentioned above (which I don't like), and the rhythm minigame (which I don't have any difficulty with), I actually really like Oracle of Seasons. It feels more like the early Zelda games, with an overworld filled with enemies (aside from town, of course), and with the starting location being at the bottom of the map, it feels like you actually venture far from home (like in Zelda 1 and 2, and unlike LttP, MM, or Oracle of Ages), and hence more like an adventure. The hub structure of later Zeldas just doesn't have the same feel.

Loved the previous two games, but as soon as I entered the Batmobile in Arkham Knight all my excitement evaporated in an instant.

EDIT: Just adding a trigger warning!

Nope, I have no issue with it at all. I liked all the games mentioned. I see it as being no different than any other challenge to overcome in a video game, I learn, adapt, get better and defeat the challenge in the end. I think what really annoys people in this case is that there's no way of cheating through, you cannot look up a walkthrough like solving a stupid annoying "logic" puzzle (now there's something I hate). For racing you just have to get better, or upgrade your vehicle, if that's an option.

On the other hand, I love racing games and play them all the time. I love racing side missions- they are always my favorite activities, and I cannot think of any that gave me any long-lasting trouble, not even the original Mafia. I think any game containing driving or vehicles as a big part of the game, then the developer has as much right to make racing compulsory as any other game play element.

Or, hear me out for just one second, some people just can't stand racing games. I for one am bored to death by them, to me personally there's almost no genre that is as dull as racing titles.

People having different tastes? No way! They must hate those games, cause they can't cheat!
lol

So you admit that you are not the intended audience for this discussion. If you love racing games, you obviously have no problem that they are inserted into everything else.

NuffCatnip already pointed out the crazy cherry on top, when you insulted everyone that does not like racing games.

Edit: added clarification

Forced racing missions... Ragequitters' best friends.

As almost every human on this planet, I hated Mafia's racing mission, but I don't remember the one in Mad Max' Gastown being particularly challenging... Maybe I was lucky, but I didn't have to retry it, and I didn't perform exceedingly well. You can still wreck most of your opponents in this one, can't you?

Something tells me you already know the answer and are just being s̶a̶r̶c̶a̶s̶t̶i̶c rhetoric. =P
But on the off chance - it's called rubberbanding. A well meaning attempt to make racing more balanced that always has bad results. ;(

Are they though?
I can't think of any modern game that had mandatory racing segments.
I vividly remember how I was playing The Saboteur. Ok, I'll be playing as a guerilla fighter... cometh flashback... I'm actually... a race driver?!?! wtf?

But that game came out 2009.

...

As I was typing this I remembered - even Witcher 3 had a racing main mission... fortunately it was rather easy and you were not forced to actually win.

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re: Mafias racing mission
That one is legendary infamous! :D