I love pretty much everything about this game, apart from the tail-heavy handling. Change the handling to be more like that in the old PS1 games (better weight distribution, less turn sensitivity without the airbrakes and more with them, more rolling and drifting) and it would be the absolute best racing game ever.
The graphics are perfect. I can zoom in all the way in Photo mode before seeing any polygon edges.
Speaking of Photo mode, I can't understand why more games don't have this feature. Really ace stuff there (although it would be better if it saved images as PNGs rather than JPGs).
The default music is great, and the custom soundtrack feature lets me use any other songs that I want.
The sound effects are awesome, as are the HUD distortions. Taken together, they work very, very well.
The weapons work really well, and they finally have the same effects on both player ships and opponents.
The autopilot actually uses the game's steering model, rather than just sticking your ship on an invisible rail.
The course designs, although simply recycled from the PSP games, are great. It would be nice to see some original development, though.
Did I mention the awesome graphics?