Tokyo Xtreme Racer - The Cult Car Culture Game
Tokyo Xtreme Racer, or Shutokou Battle as it was known in Japan, was a series of racing games created by Genki back in 1994.
The games were also known by the names of Import Tuner Challenge and Street Supremacy among other things. The series was focused on the street racing scene in Japan and aside from some spin-off titles, the main part of the series was set in Japan’s highway network. The main premise of the game involves the player beating members of 20 different fictional racing gangs that roam the highway. In the first and original game [which is the most well-known entry due to it being a Dreamcast launch title], this means that the player would have to beat 130 rival street racers before facing the final bosses in the game, known as the “The 4 Devas”. After beating them however, the story is not yet done because the player must now defeat the real kings of the Tokyo highway, known as “The 4 Devils”.
Although the series never reached unreal heights globally like the Need For Speed series for example, the setting and general atmosphere presented by the game made it a cult favorite among those who are deeper into Japanese car culture. In terms of car selection, the game focuses much more heavily on Japanese-made cars and includes all the JDM classics such as the Hachiroku, GT-R’s, and the different iterations of the Lancer Evolution with the later games including foreign cars from manufacturers such as Ford and GM.
Other than this, Genki continued on to create the wildly popular Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune series of arcade games based on a manga of the same name which also happens to be a game that takes heavy inspiration from the highway street racing scene of Japan.
Have a look through an underrated classic of a racing game in the image slides above.
