Tokyo Xtreme Racer 3

[valkyrie999]

what happened to the very atmospheric soundtrack of shutoku I & II ?

I'm shocked!

the main purpose of the game is to get in the mood, then play as much as possible;
yet the overly hard soundtrack makes it hard to play for too long...

Do you know if the music/game has been censored/altered for north american release? maybe shutoku 01 jp has better tunes ?

[marcus]

Dont know about that, I do know its a terrible choice for a soundtrack. We have a review of this onsite I beleive, perhaps I captured a video for it which may show you, I dont remember offhand.

Ive been on this for the last few weeks, and am about 60% completed now. Its a nice game, but far from perfect, yet I find it strangely addictive despite its flaws. The fact there is only one other type of road user (the yellow van) is plain lazy, the AI is really quite poor (in line with the rest of the series) and that for the most part, the game is incredibly easy (I have a 600HP car now which leaves 95% of other cars in the dust). Yet I find it very addictive, I enjoy the premise of the street race, and want to beat all 600 cars. Kitting up the cars is perhaps its biggest draw, the cars look good, and the customise aspect of the game is very well done.

There are games out there which are far more deserved of my time than this, but I feel drawn to it all the time just the same.

[MonkeyWrench]

I always turn the music off as I prefer to hear the pur of the engine, so I couldn't tell you if the music was any good or not, though if my memory serves me correct it was some horrible widdly widdly guitar crap (IMHO).

I should really get back to it sometime soon.

[valkyrie999]

ok this is the answer I wanted, they switched from atmospheric techno to crap guitar in the jap version too

I'm about to go as far as make a bacup of my original us game,
spot the game audio files and try to replace them with ripped-correctly-encoded versions of music of the previous ones.

Don't know how hard it will turn out but I'm really desperate about the soundtrack

[MonkeyWrench]

Don't quote me on that!

I will check for you

[marcus]

The soundtrack does change dependant on the course you are on, I dont know if you have progressed through the first section of the game yet or not. It is never great though, but I tend not to notice it as whilst its poor, its not overly offensive. Do you really want to go to all that trouble for a soundtrack? If I were you Id just turn the music off. If you do do this, then let me know how it went however.

[charlaph]

If you buy and race in a certain car then you get white vans instead of yellow. I can't remember what and I've since sold my PS2 so I can't check, but it adds a tiny amount of added variety to the game.

[marcus]

Interesting I never realised that. I doubt it would make much difference though, they are so incredibly repetitive. The only time I lose is when I slam into the back of one, I even found myself deliberatly selling a top car and purchasing a lower spec one to give me more of a challenge. Its a shame the game is this way, Im sure Shutokou Battle 0 was more challenging than this. There are occasional instances where I am unable to catch a rival, normally its due to engine deterioration than anything else though.

[Tobal]

Interesting I never realised that. I doubt it would make much difference though, they are so incredibly repetitive. The only time I lose is when I slam into the back of one, I even found myself deliberatly selling a top car and purchasing a lower spec one to give me more of a challenge. Its a shame the game is this way, Im sure Shutokou Battle 0 was more challenging than this. There are occasional instances where I am unable to catch a rival, normally its due to engine deterioration than anything else though.

The 1st dc one was hard as nuts when challenging the 'devils' i could only beat two of them (one was a constent blocking battle, the other was a opponent luckly hitting a car in a single line turn off so i could steam ahead and win). Plus the gang boss battle are just as hard.

[Shibusawa jr.]

Ahem, entering grey area, mods feel free to move.

I'm currently playing TXR0 (pal) on my PS2 and I'm loving the game to bits (currently phantom of professional ). So much in fact, that I'm planning on getting the supposedly much better NTSC version.

I think it's one of the finest racers I've ever played and maybe the most fun this gen. I love the concept and I think it's been worked out pretty well. You just really wan't to get all those sideskirts and rear spoilers for your car. (The 13 Devils, The Zodiacs and some wanderers are pretty hard to beat but that could just be me being a crappy tune up artist ).

Naturally I'm now interested in it's prequels/sequels/spinn-offs but I get the impression (one van on the road) that they aren't quite of the same quality. What happened ?

[marcus]

Whilst it may look nicer, I dont feel that anything Challenge 3 (aka 01) has improved upon 0. Main problems I have with it are the difficulty, and of course, the yellow van issue discussed above. I do like the way you only have a small selection of cars available at the start, opening up more as you win races. In 0, I basically went out and bought a Skyline which I used throughout the whole game, it was quite superb by the time I finished it (240mph+). I also like the dual battles, where you race against two opponents at once, although I feel they could of made more of that, as you only ever really feel that one of the cars puts you under any real pressure.

*This thread is now more about the gameplay than anything else, as as its a new game and theres no thread for it Ill move it to First Play.

[charlaph]

Well the racing isn't much better (if any) in 3 than in 0, and the van thing is annoying, but since TXR3 is a $20 release in the states and can be imported for well under ?20 I'd say get it anyway. It does very little wrong and if you enjoyed 0 then you'll enjoy 3.

Personally I preferred the tuning options in 3 with the flexibility to swap engines and play about with different material aero parts which (finally) affects your performance. This side of the game is a bit deeper than the previous games. You sound like you're enjoying the tuning aspects of the game and this is where 3 scores highest. It's already on my shopping list for when I replace my PS2 so I can finally get to read what I'm buying.

The only real downside to 3 is that the majority of the racing is easier, but like Marcus says you can always detune your car to make it more challenging.

[Smeghead]

for me the original Dreamcast one has always been the best. Fantastic audio, hard as nails races fantastic (for the time) graphics and so much atmosphere it's untrue, it's weird as the other games seemingly improved the game in everyway, but its just never gelled like the original did. Hopefully they'll crack it some day.

[valkyrie999]

I'm a few hours into play and I must admit that despite the shortcomings of 01 compared to shutoku II, I begin to be really grabbed by the game;

as a shutoku game it's not that much of a progress, but it's shutoku nonetheless !

The 2 dc versions of shutoku are the best graphically and have a better atmosphere overall though.

quick note: tokyo xtreme racer 0 (ps2) + minor improvements - uglier graphically = tokyo xtreme racer 2 (dc)

[marcus]

I found a bug in my version, Im about 65% through now, and unlocked the Speed *somethings* (goddammn my poor memory), after the cutscene the game would continually crash. I got round this by skipping the cutscene altogether, so if anyone else gets this problem then thats what to do.

Ive unlocked the Ford GT, and am thinking of swapping over to that.