Opinions wanted on JAP PS2 race games like Initial D

D · Post by D » Fri Jan 13, 2006 3:44 pm

Who of you guys collects/plays the racers that never reach the US or are not that well known, like Initial D or the Xtreme racers series.

How good are they, not expecting GT3 or GT4, but should be enjoyable nevertheless.

I love to hear about your opinions.
And also recommend me some Japanese racers plz

Post by **Ghegs** » Fri Jan 13, 2006 4:07 pm

I have Initial D: Special Stage. It's fun, but nothing special. It doesn't always feel like you're actually driving a car. Drifting doesn't feel like drifting, the car just turns faster without the feel of going sideways. Also the game is entirely in japanese, including menu options, so unless you know the language it's going to take quite a bit of trial & error before you can comfortably play it. Only for fans of the show.

I also have Kaido Battle 2: Chain Reaction, or more accurately, its PAL-port Kaido Racer. For some reason it wasn't a European-wide release, so you might have to import from Play.com. Very nice game, much better than Inital D and it has, among others, the mountain passes made famous by the series (Akina and Akagi). It felt weird driving those passes in Kaido Racer after I had spent hours on them in Initial D. Really drove home the point that they are actual, real-life locations and not just fictional, virtual places.

Post by **nZero** » Fri Jan 13, 2006 4:12 pm

Initial D is only worth it if you were a big player of the arcade game or a huge fan of the series. Both the Kaido Battle series and Battle Gear 3 did the whole drift racing thing better.

Shutokou Battle/Tokyo Xtreme Racer series is by far and away my favorite series of racing games. In my opinion the second Dreamcast one is still the one that plays the best, but both of the Playstation 2 iterations are excellent games as well (although the U.S. release TXR3 seems to be kind of rushed, with bugs and translation errors). I'm really looking forward to the upcoming X-Box 360 Shutokou Battle, if they keep the fun single player driving/tuning/rival model and add online support

Thunder Force · Post by **Thunder Force** » Fri Jan 13, 2006 4:17 pm

Initial D is a good coin-op, but the home PS2 version doesn't quite pack the same punch without the cockpit and competitive arcade environment. The PS2 port also got its all-important music toned down to inaudible levels (allegedly for protective soundtrack licensing reasons). Hopefully the new upcoming PSP version of Initial D will be great. Generally the handling model in Initial D is very simplistic though.

The main rival of the Initial D series is Taito's Battle Gear. The PS2 version of Battle Gear 2 is pretty good actually... despite the PS1-esque graphics its gameplay is intense, and the handling is fairly hardcore. Battle Gear 3 on PS2 has better graphics but the gameplay seemed somehow more 'lite' like Initial D.

Tokyo Xtreme Racer (aka Tokyo Highway Battle, aka Shutoko Battle) series is a much different kind of game, basically 1-on-1 short term sprint racing among traffic, rather than a drift game. It's good and arcadey if that's what you're after. There's several versions on DC, PS2, and also PSP.

Kaido Battle series I've not played but heard good things about... there's a number of them on the PS2 now. It's drift racing, I think.

Last Guardian · Post by **Last Guardian** » Fri Jan 13, 2006 4:32 pm

Genki Racing Project.

Serious racing game fans are playing Genki games

Wangan Midnight, Shutokou Battle (Tokyo Xtreme Racer), Kaido Battle series, C1 Grand Prix and more.

You might wanna pass on the PAL release of Tokyo Xtreme racer 0 as it´s not half as smooth as the ntsc versions. Kaido battling is great fun but might be an acquired taste due to its stop and go gameplay mechanics. It also took me quite a while to get going proper. My first car wouldn´t slide around the corners and it took quite some money to get her do the twist.
I love them though and TXR0 is, despite it´s aged looks/ ropy graphics, still my most played and appreciated racer this gen.

Hope to pick up the PAL release of Kaido 2 next week. One of the things I like about most Genki Racers is thet they feature a lot of amusing background info on your rivals but unfortunately I still can´t read Japanese.

Bingo · Post by **Bingo** » Fri Jan 13, 2006 5:21 pm

I like Initial-D, but it's on the extreme arcade side of the gameplay spectrum. Handling with the dualshock isn't nearly as good as with a wheel though. Way sensitive and hard to get used to. Love the anime too so that's a big plus, the tracks are awesome (as in both road and music). Music is a big factor here too, if you like it. It's toned down a bit but the feeling si still great, what irks me more is that they disabled digital output to prevent copying of the tracks. You can get this cheap as a re-release btw, should run you around 30 bucks.

Ganelon · Post by **Ganelon** » Fri Jan 13, 2006 7:12 pm

The Shutokou Battle games are really easy as long as you tune up right. Turns are almost trivial. Good as an introductory street racer.

Skyline · Post by **Skyline** » Fri Jan 13, 2006 9:12 pm

I'd personally kill for a home port of Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune 2...

it290 · Post by **it290** » Fri Jan 13, 2006 11:08 pm

What about Choro Q? I heard that one was pretty fun.

Post by **Ghegs** » Fri Jan 13, 2006 11:31 pm

it290 wrote:What about Choro Q? I heard that one was pretty fun.

Not really the scope of the thread, but...

I actually love the ChoroQ games. One of them (never remember which) got a PAL release under the name "Road Trip". That was the first time in a very long time I played a single game for 8 hours without taking any breaks. Fun gameplay, but it was the absolutely massive environment which you could explore freely without a loading screen in sight that really appealed to me.

The one that got released in US as "ChoroQ" was a bit of a disappointment (it was a newer one in the series), but still okay.

jindo · Post by **jindo** » Sat Jan 14, 2006 1:43 am

Awesome game but could've been better... if it were 2 player game.

Thunder Force · Post by **Thunder Force** » Sat Jan 14, 2006 3:26 am

Last Guardian wrote:Genki Racing Project.

Serious racing game fans are playing Genki games
Wangan Midnight, Shutokou Battle (Tokyo Xtreme Racer), Kaido Battle series, C1 Grand Prix and more.

You might wanna pass on the PAL release of Tokyo Xtreme racer 0 as it´s not half as smooth as the ntsc versions. Kaido battling is great fun but might be an acquired taste due to its stop and go gameplay mechanics. It also took me quite a while to get going proper. My first car wouldn´t slide around the corners and it took quite some money to get her do the twist.
I love them though and TXR0 is, despite it´s aged looks/ ropy graphics, still my most played and appreciated racer this gen.

Hope to pick up the PAL release of Kaido 2 next week. One of the things I like about most Genki Racers is thet they feature a lot of amusing background info on your rivals but unfortunately I still can´t read Japanese.

Nice, well I've now ordered a copy of "Kaido Battle 3: Touge no Densetsu" and will look forward to it arriving.

My most played racing game this year was actually a western release called "Juiced" on the Xbox that contained a surprising amount of good gameplay ideas (and a nice JP car list), but was far from perfect...

BrianC · Post by **BrianC** » Sat Jan 14, 2006 4:42 am

Ghegs wrote:
it290 wrote:What about Choro Q? I heard that one was pretty fun.
Not really the scope of the thread, but...

I actually love the ChoroQ games. One of them (never remember which) got a PAL release under the name "Road Trip". That was the first time in a very long time I played a single game for 8 hours without taking any breaks. Fun gameplay, but it was the absolutely massive environment which you could explore freely without a loading screen in sight that really appealed to me.

The one that got released in US as "ChoroQ" was a bit of a disappointment (it was a newer one in the series), but still okay.

Actually, to make things more confusing, a few of the ChoroQ games got releases in the US under the name Road Trip too. I think one of the GCN ones, one of the PS2 ones, and one of the GBA ones got released in the US as Road Trip. There were also games that came to the US as Penny Racers and Gadget Racers (including a PS2 Gadget Racers). So, as far as I know, at least three of the PS2 ChoroQ games came to the US. Some of them had a very quiet release, though.

TWITCHDOCTOR · Post by **TWITCHDOCTOR** » Sat Jan 14, 2006 5:13 am

I've always like the Tokyo Extreme Racer(Shutoku Battle) games very much.

Wangan Midnight should be a more straight foreward arcade version of TER.
PLus, Wangan uses the "i-Link" for use with two PS2's. So both players will need their own TV/monitor. (I hate two player split screen)

MA7 · Post by **MA7** » Sat Jan 14, 2006 10:46 am

I've been looking at the 'Kaido Racer' for a few days - I have loads of driving games and not sure I can justify getting another...

I bought a game in the same vein a while ago, but I'm having trouble identifying it. Can anyone help?

It's called Road Rage 3 (at least the PAL copy I have is). Publisher's logos on the box are Pheonix Games (the UK/EU publisher I presume), and Atlus.

When you load the game, up pops the Cave logo!

Once into the game, the car list (and indeed the box cover art) is very reminiscent of Initial D - you get the Trueno by default, and there are loads of other Initial D cars - the different RX-7s, the Skyline GTR, Cole's Sylvia etc. There are no characters in the game though. Starting courses to race are Akagi, Myogi etc.

But despite searching about the net, I can't work out what it was called when released in Japan.

Any ideas peeps? ta

Post by **Ghegs** » Sat Jan 14, 2006 10:50 am

MA7 wrote:But despite searching about the net, I can't work out what it was called when released in Japan.

Any ideas peeps? ta

Yep, I had Road Rage 3 for a while as well - it's Touge 3.

MA7 · Post by **MA7** » Sat Jan 14, 2006 11:10 am

aha! great stuff!

thanks yo

TWITCHDOCTOR · Post by **TWITCHDOCTOR** » Sun Jan 15, 2006 10:39 am

^ Are you sure its CAVE, and not Crave?

Post by **Ghegs** » Sun Jan 15, 2006 11:01 am

TWITCHDOCTOR wrote:^ Are you sure its CAVE, and not Crave?

Touge 3 is by Cave indeed.

Ganelon · Post by **Ganelon** » Mon Jan 16, 2006 12:59 am

No shooter references, I'd imagine?

Post by **Ghegs** » Mon Jan 16, 2006 12:52 pm

Ganelon wrote:No shooter references, I'd imagine?

Didn't notice any, but I didn't spend that much time with the game. It wasn't anything special, plus I seem to remember it lacked 60hz option.