Part of my goal of writing about titles I have covered is to highlight games that would likely never see the light of day outside of Japan or release in a lesser capacity in the United States. Japan is ‘interesting’ when it comes to the tastes of video games compared to elsewhere. Many genres flourished in Japan and either struggled or took some time to get footings into the American market, and vise versa, with many more simply never made their way outside Japan at all.
For example, despite the proliferation of Tetris in the 1980s puzzlers had a very rough start and were still very niche throughout the ’90s. At one point most Japanese companies thought role-playing games were too difficult for the American market – more familiar with action oriented side-scrollers – and subsequently often ‘dumbed down’ or outright created US market -specific titles (Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, as a well-known example). Scrolling shooters maintained a very niche following outside Japan, but during the ’90s absolutely flourished and have become collector’s items. These few instances being prime examples, among others.
I’ve written about the progression of eroge and how it even formed entire genres itself, however with advances in hardware and graphics games started to go through a minor revolution, even prior to the 3D era. Sprites were and still are always difficult to discern with a need for either supplementary material (i.e., a manual or artbook) or some sort of other visual representation within. And companies were starting to come up with ways to better use limitations of games to progress a narrative and keep the player interested.
It’s not trying to make a point that graphics ultimately made the game, rather with story-driven narratives that weren’t as large as actual books a game’s graphics could help fill in details the narrative did not. I remember enjoying Final Fantasy IV (II) when it was on the SNES, but a hurdle for myself at the time is I couldn’t really envision how Cecil or Rosa or any of the other characters TRULY looked like. They were small sprites, they had small thumbnail portraits, and the enemies in the game being much larger during battles gave higher detail. Cecil’s paladin transformation? I couldn’t quite grasp what FFIV was trying to tell me Cecil was supposed to look like. And why was he no longer this bad ass dark knight? He looked like an other-wordly pretty boy with the paladin transformation.
It was not until the later 1990s when I purchased Final Fantasy Chronicles (the FFIV/Chrono Trigger compilation on PS1) and spurred by the internet that I began to understand Yoshitaka Amano’s artwork more and see more of the intent behind his character designs for Final Fantasy. On the other hand other JRPGs on the SNES did a better job of portraying characters such as Secret of Mana and Chrono Trigger, and other RPG series like LUNAR carried a lot of supplementary artwork even in it’s Sega CD days which didn’t leave anything to the imagination for sprite use.
Regardless, Japan has consistently attempted to up the ante of their games by utilizing identifiable characters within gaming constraints, and we’ve looked at really early examples. Some characters even have fleshed back stories or some degree of narrative to their being. When the 32 bit era of gaming came about, Japan began to really run away with narrative and how games used the assets contained, even with 3D gaming often being the focal point. While I’ve covered some visual novels and in particular have spoke about the issues the Sega Saturn had in Japan, the 32 bit era of gaming may be one of the most diverse in regards to what Japan pushed regarding gaming genres. Shooters, puzzlers, visual novels; eventually tons of genres tried to throw in narratives, characters, and a particular game genre together.
Did you know there was a TON of racing games like this as well?
While outside the scope of what I’m writing about, in the 1980s bosozoku peaked in Japan. Bosozoku was typically affiliated with wild customized bikes driven by Japanese youth, of which police in Japan would often be relatively passive towards their antics so not to cause even more incidents. During this time, a sub-culture of zokusha (often confused with shakotan specifically) emerged and Japanese youth began to perform similar modifications to their cars. From the antics of zokusha were smaller followings such as the emerging amateur drift scene and the running of Tokyo’s Wangan (Bayshore) route at high speeds.
Like similar cultures in the United States such as greasers, a tremendous amount of romanticism occurred. With cars and ‘go-fast’ culture that’s prime for rose-colored narrative exploitation, what else could be thrown in?
Women, of course.
I believe that what a lot of game companies in Japan during this time were trying to capitalize on was the ‘next big thing.’ An emerging sense of ‘character goods’ – a topic I’ve periodically dabbled in throughout this blog – began to form full force in the ’90s, which coincided with the increased capacity & ability of video games. Many products and intellectual properties sold on the characters, rather than the mostly sci-fi era of the prior two decades that sold goods such as mecha and model kits. Nowadays moe and sexy culture proliferates the Japanese character goods markets; even if something doesn’t necessarily have sexual themes there’s often something in the way of sex thrown in, such as the massive amount of dakimakura (hug pillows) and magazines such as Megami.
And don’t get it wrong; EVERYONE experimented with this sort of thing.
One example I don’t think I can give justice to here is Squaresoft and their effort known as Racing Lagoon on the Playstation. This is a RPG/racing game that is effectively Squaresoft creating a Final Fantasy racing game. Yes, this actually exists. And despite it’s rather jumbled narrative is actually a really decent racing game on the PS1. Well before Squaresoft’s attempt at the more racing oriented Driving Emotion Type S (that is one of the more poor racing game choices on the PS2), the company tried creating an RPG utilizing street racing. It’s a game I’ve considered talking about, but more than cringe rather it’s very polarizing, as you either think the concept of an RPG and racing is either genius or grasping at straws.
Now that I’ve set all this up, I want to talk about two unique racing genre games in my collection, Wangan Trial Love & Code R on the Sega Saturn.
We’ll look at Wangan Trial Love first. WTL was created by Pack-In-Soft. Pack-In-Soft was a company that had at the time of this game’s release recently merged with Victor Interactive Software, the original creators of Harvest Moon on the Super Famicom. Pack-In-Soft was used as the publishing arm for most of the company’s console titles, and they would release quite a few games on the Saturn and Dreamcast. One in particular, Ochige Designer on the Saturn, allowed players to create their own puzzle games similar to an RPGMaker -type title. In the early 21st century Pack-In-Soft and Victor Interactive Software merged with Marvelous Entertainment. Yes, that’s right; THE Marvelous Entertainment that creates fan service titles such as Senran Kagura. In a possibly way out there angle of looking at it, Wangan Trial Love might be a spiritual ancestor to Marvelous’ Kandagawa Jet Girls as both are about racing and anime girls.
In WTL, you play as a nameable character who gets caught up in the local street racing scene. There’s actually a few progressing narratives to choose from, but what you ultimately need to know is that you play some visual novel scenes, move on to scenes where you have to control what your character does (such as go to work, school, workout, study, even sleep) then eventually have to participate in street races. The visual novel segments I have to say are incredibly poor and have some exceptionally basic dialogue. The backgrounds are this strange mash of pixelated photographs attempting to have an artsy feel. It doesn’t work at all and ultimately the story itself is pretty boring.
The cars in the game mimic real life 90s tuner cars decently, but there’s no official license; keep in mind, even Initial D console games didn’t have official vehicle licenses until the series moved to arcades.
The character building aspects are rather interesting and are more robust that some circa visual novels. You have to go to work, study, take on various jobs, manage sleep, and partake in some rather odd mini games for a racing title. In one, you have to perform what is effectively traffic control in the neighborhood by switching traffic lights. Then as quick as you’ve performed that work, you’re thrown into a drop down puzzler similar to something like Bust A Move. It’s all incredibly strange for a racing game, and combined with the visual novel segments you’ll find yourself not doing a lot of actual racing.
When you do get to the racing segments – or simply not select Story Mode – it features one of the most difficult-to-play driving models I believe I have ever played in a racing game. First picture the layout of a Sega Saturn controller. There is a directional pad, two top triggers, and six buttons. To steer the car you have to use the two top triggers, L & R, which is already a real load of bull. To accelerate you use your typical A & B. To shift gears – you’ll love this – you have to clutch in with C, THEN USE THE DIRECTIONAL PAD TO MOVE THE GEAR LEVER INTO WHATEVER GEAR YOU WANT INCLUDING SELECTING TO AND FROM NEUTRAL.
Imagine that for a minute. Real hard. Your hands are on the Saturn controller. Your index fingers are on top to steer, and there’s very little straight areas on most of the courses. Your left thumb is shifting the gears. However, you only have one other thumb that you need to work gas, brake, AND clutch. A second to third gear shift requires you to clutch in, press up, right, then up again. It’s abysmal.
And yet what’s unfortunate is for a racing game on the Saturn it actually looks decent and moves well. The graphics are really good and not only is there the typical wangan racing segments, per the game’s title, but you also get a go-kart trainer of sorts that at points go along with the narrative. THANKFULLY in the karts you don’t have to do all that crazy mess with the gears, but it’s a relatively small portion of the game compared to the street racing focus. In addition to the wangan courses there’s also drag races where the controller’s layout actually makes more sense for shifting and feels like a cheap man’s Need For Speed Underground.
For the steering sections however, no, the control is terrible. I’d even stand way out on a dead limb and say the entire game is just ruined with the shifting and control mechanics. I don’t know how anyone competently played this game. They must have used the Saturn steering wheel, which I do not have.
Finally of note out of the two games I’m talking about here, this one received Sega’s “yellow 18” rating for highly suggestive themes in the dating sim elements. Code R received the “green all ages” rating, as it is more about racing than woo’ing ladies.
The next game we’ll look at is Code R [コードアール], with the greatest Engrish tag line that the game constantly repeats; “What a hell are you gonna make?” Seriously; this phrase is EVERYWHERE on loading screens. This game was developed in 1998 by Quintet; the same Quintet more known for RPGs like ActRaiser, Soul Blazer, and Terranigma. This would be the only racing game the company would publish.
Code R is an absolute knock off of Initial D. Not only is Initial D heavily parodied but the game also brings in elements of the then manga-only Wangan Midnight, as the main character drives a blue S30 Fairlady Z. He competes against the typical 90s street racing line up, including a yellow Levin (I guess a panda Trueno would have been just too obvious) and a “black bird” Porsche 911. There’s no licensed vehicles, but weirdly enough the game DOES have an agreement with Esso, the fuel company, who has signage all over the place.
The game’s setting is purposely ambiguous and makes up it’s settings, but one of the tracks is listed as Akime Touge. Akime is a real place in what is the southwestern-most area in Japan; an incredibly small traditional fishing village known for being a filming location for the Bond movie You Only Live Twice. The entire area is exceptionally rural, with towns and villages separated by dense forests, and the nearest train station is a 40 minute drive away. The course actually listed as Akime has small references to Highway 226 that runs through Akime, including a finishing area that’s looks similar to the village of Akime yet it does look like liberties were taken in the game. I honestly do not know if that’s the location the game is trying to mimic, but considering how rural the tracks and visual novel settings seem to be it may not be a far out assumption.
The driving mechanics… well, a lot like WTL they’re terrible. CR may be one of the more terrible drift racing games out there, with some of the worst rubber band mechanics I’ve ever experienced in a racing title. If you’re losing the opponent simply slows down near to a crawl. If you’re winning, your opponent will simply drive faster to maintain a set distance behind you. The steering is very floaty, and you’ll find yourself constantly tapping walls. The build for the game – that is, it’s engine and completed product – also looks like it could have used some work. Not only is there issues with clipping but polygons on the cars often either disappear or change colors at random.
There is some character building mechanics as in Wangan Trial Love. However here they’re a lot more simplistic and come down to selections for the day. The actual dating sim mechanics are also not as pronounced, since the goal of Code R is more the actual racing, rather than both racing and dating as in WTL.
When you finish a race, a replay begins where animated scenes are added into your race’s replay, to make it feel like you’re watching a long cut-scene with your driving. I believe this is why the rubber band mechanics function the way they do. If one driver gets too far away from the other, then the cut scene functionality doesn’t work as effectively. It’s interesting if anything, and yet seems like a real wasted effort for this sort of game.
One thing I do like is as there is no dynamic lighting the game simply lights up a set of polygons on the road in front of each car to simulate headlights. Night driving moves very fast with good frame rate. Day driving has considerable frame drop with massive draw-in. Sadly it’s STILL a step above Initial D on the Saturn with better graphics and overall movement.
Speaking of Initial D, it’s a series that has become so popular that it’s often parodied in various anime series such as Lucky Star and Dai Mahou, but I believe as far as complete parodies or “inspirations” this may be one of the very first that tried to mimic everything from Initial D.
Both of these games ranked fairly poorly in Japan. For as many of these sort of racing games that did release I feel the Japanese gaming public knew a load of bull when they saw it. While neither of these titles released outside of Japan, Pack-In-Soft’s previous racing title Wangan Dead Heat did come to the US market as Highway 2000. A game that’s interesting in it’s own right, like WTL, WDH uses girls – live actresses, rather than anime waifus – and racing. For the North American release all the Japanese cut scenes and references were removed. Quintet on the other hand just assumed we needed RPGs, with no chance of Code R coming stateside.
The Cringe Gamer 