Retro|Spective 017: Ridge Racer

[nakamura]

Outrun 2 has boring as hell drifting. Drifting in arcade racers is so boring and skill less nowadays. And it probably started with Ridge Racer PSP. (or maybe burnout).

But I liked the PSP game, mind blowing technically and plays well. But all the rest felt too similar and lacking in personality.

I've had the next Ridge game in my head for about 10 years. It would be amazing too. Maybe one day I'll pitch it to Namco!

[Nu-Eclipse]

Outrun 2 has boring as hell drifting.

That and the fact that it still largely consists of the same point-to-point beat-the-clock racing gameplay that it had back in 1986.

Don't @ Me.

[wakka]

Outrun 2 has boring as hell drifting. Drifting in arcade racers is so boring and skill less nowadays. And it probably started with Ridge Racer PSP. (or maybe burnout).

But I liked the PSP game, mind blowing technically and plays well. But all the rest felt too similar and lacking in personality.

I've had the next Ridge game in my head for about 10 years. It would be amazing too. Maybe one day I'll pitch it to Namco!

What’s your idea for the next Ridge?

[ZipZap]

That and the fact that it still largely consists of the same point-to-point beat-the-clock racing gameplay that it had back in 1986.

It's often overlooked, but Outrun 2 SP actually has quite a complex scoring mechanic. I got pretty hooked on working my way up the leaderboards at the time it was out. You can completely manipulate the traffic for the best times, but there are also a bunch of other bonuses you can pick up along the way. It's one of the few racing games where expert players don't just get from point-to-point as quikly as possible. It's very different to most other arcade racers in that respect. Agree about the original Outrun 2 though.

I do agree drifting has become really boring. Most games that claim to be inspired by classic 3d arcade racers actually seem inspired by Burnout to me. I remember when Hoshot Racing came out, there were loads of comparisons to Daytona, but actually it handles nothing like Daytona. It handles like Burnout 3. It takes a lot of practice to dift around Seaside Street Galaxy at high speed.

[Nu-Eclipse]

It's often overlooked, but Outrun 2 SP actually has quite a complex scoring mechanic. I got pretty hooked on working my way up the leaderboards at the time it was out. You can completely manipulate the traffic for the best times, but there are also a bunch of other bonuses you can pick up along the way. It's one of the few racing games where expert players don't just get from point-to-point as quikly as possible. It's very different to most other arcade racers in that respect. Agree about the original Outrun 2 though.

I said that I didn't want to be @'d!

Not being funny, but most people STILL don't realise that you can manipulate the traffic in the original OutRun too - the cars and trucks are all actually programmed to get out of your way.

OutRun 2/SP/Online Arcade, etc., no matter how you want to slice the technical nuances of the scoring, all still have a core game that still remains point-to-point racing against the clock just like its forefather.

[wakka]

Yes, but, they're fun

[Neon Ignition]

Game 12 - Ridge Racer 3D
Other than an attempt to piecemeal the second PSP game on iOS the next proper entry was this 3DS launch game and the final proper launch game Ridge Racer ever made. Continuing on from the nitro based gameplay the series had moved into, the new entry brightened up the visual style again but fell afoul of some due to performance issues on the handheld.




Where does RR3D land amongst the series history?

[Nu-Eclipse]

Yes, but, they're fun

GO AWAY.

[Nu-Eclipse]

Game 12 - Ridge Racer 3D
Other than an attempt to piecemeal the second PSP game on iOS the next proper entry was this 3DS launch game and the final proper launch game Ridge Racer ever made. Continuing on from the nitro based gameplay the series had moved into, the new entry brightened up the visual style again but fell afoul of some due to performance issues on the handheld.




Where does RR3D land amongst the series history?

Tried to play this recently for the first time in a LONG time.

It felt and looked and played a hell of a lot rougher and shoddier than I remember it being when I got it with my launch 3DS a decade ago, and that's not accounting for the issues that it had back then, such as repeatedly crashing because it didn't play nicely with the older 3DS firmware BITD (which might well have been the reason that I stopped playing it IIRC).

It is basically a very rough and unpolished draft of the PSP Ridge Racers.

[ZipZap]

Not being funny, but most people STILL don't realise that you can manipulate the traffic in the original OutRun too - the cars and trucks are all actually programmed to get out of your way.

They don't get out of your way, they get out of each other's way.

From memory, the Corvettes are roughly the fastest, then Porsches, the small convertables, the trucks, Beetles and finally lorries. Then within those groups there is a small random speed element, so they all move at a slightly different pace to each other. One lorry that's moving faster than another will change lane so they don't go through each other (quite clever for the time!), but they don't give a crap about your Ferrari and will pull out right in front of you. The difficulty with playing the original Outrun for score is that a randomly placed car can easily screw up a good run. You can theoretically predict if a car is going to pull out, but it's very hard when you're travelling at speed. The best players just get so good with the gear gacha stuff that they don't even need to drive on the road!

With Outrun SP though, the traffic is always the same, but their speed changes depending on your position in relation to them, so you can "push" cars further into the stage to slipstream at a particular point. Whilst it is essentially point-to-point, it plays like no other racing game I know of once you start to play for score.

[Asura]

I really wanted to like Ridge Racer 3D; it was the game I chose at launch for the 3DS. There was a lot to enjoy with it, but I had two major issues.

Firstly, for an arcade racer, the game seems to take an age to get from boot to actually in a race.

Hit start (which I think had to be a touch input for no reason)
Select the mode
Select the car manufacturer
Select the car
Select manual or auto
Select the colour
Select the finish of the paint
Select the cup which has the track you want
Select the track
Select the track route
Select forwards or reverse
Select the difficulty
Select your music

I might be exaggerating here but I just remember it being a pain for an arcadey racer. Every arcade racer needs a DO RACE NOW button on the title screen which just gives you a random of everything above and plonks you in a race.

Secondly, I remember that the game was ridiculously easy. I had the game for weeks, played it a lot, and I remember even when I was most of the way through it, you spent the entire race in first and never came even close to losing.

Other than those problems, it was fun; I remember the 3D looked great and it was bright and colourful... But similar to @Nu-Eclipse, I always felt like I'd be better off playing Ridge Racers.

[Nu-Eclipse]

They don't get out of your way, they get out of each other's way

Nope. They get out of your way. Go play OutRun again and see it for yourself.

Without wanting to further derail a Ridge Racer thread, I'm pretty sure that Yu Suzuki actually confirmed this. Might try and find the article(s) for quotation.

[Dogg Thang]

RR 3D was a bit of a misfire and it's a shame because it had some good tracks. I liked that it was so colourful and I loved some of the 3D effects details like splashes and so on. But after the PSP games, the drop in frame rate was hard on the eyes and felt like a real step backwards. And as Asura mentions, the game wasn't anywhere near as easy to get into as the PSP ones either. It wasn't as rewarding to just dive in. But had that been better and it ran at a better frame rate, I feel like it could have been a contender.

[Asura]

Oh also, I just became aware of this:

Someone is working on re-creating Ridge Racer within VRChat, and the results if I'm honest are shockingly good. The handling isn't quite there yet but it's already much better than I thought it would be.

[ZipZap]

Nope. They get out of your way. Go play OutRun again and see it for yourself.

I play it all the time! I've been as high as 7th in the leaderboards for Route D on the Switch version (though a long way behind the best players!) and I also play the real hardware regularly at Arcade Club.

You can't influence the traffic in the way you can with Outrun SP and it's generated by random numbers, so is different every game. If a car is on a part of the road where you want to be, you have to drive around them, there's nothing you can do to make them move out of the way. It can become quite difficult when you get clumps of them on the later levels.