Why no one seems to remember Enthusia?

Look how you can roll in this game!

At the very same time everybody was playing Gran Turismo 4, Konami launched Enthusia Professional Racing, a game that it was absolutely amazing! Got it when I was visiting my family at the US. I had to buy a new PS2, as the old one fell on the ground (damn you cables) and because it was from the US, I was unable to play downloaded games, I had to buy new games as well.

One of the games I bought it (by mistake) was Enthusia, but I never cared for it that much. In my last years of Playstation 2, I discovered it among the games I had, and decided to play. I was impressed by a bunch of stuff in the game that changed my mind among racing games. And these are the key reasons I consider this as a game better than Gran Turismo 4:

The first thing that really got me was its physics. I was really used to Gran Turismo 4 at the time (I considered the best for the PS2) and simply spun out every-single-time with a very powerful car with no traction control. Weight transfer and suspension was something you could actually “feel” while driving the car. Throttle and braking without care in any car would mean a spin or a drive in the grass, things that didn’t happen so often in Gran Turismo 4. Clutch was present in manual cars, so you could do punta-taccos, burnouts and donuts. One of the modes of the game, the Driving Revolution, was really difficult since you had to combine precise control and speed of the car in order to complete to 100% and unlock cars.

Cars respected the way they came from the manufacturer. This meant that you couldn’t have traction control and stability control in a car that didn’t have this items as standard, making powerful cars from the 70’s and 80’s very challenging to drive (For example, a 93 Toyota Supra only have traction control, since this was the way it came from Toyota). Another example of this fact is the cars equipped with automatic transmission. If you decide to take out the throttle when you’re hauling with your Cadillac Seville at the Nur, it will change to a higher gear, just like in real life.

When driving off-road, cars got dirty. The more you drove, the more dirty it would become. Off-road and weather are a plus in this game, since you have desert stages and snow tracks with snow falling from the sky. Remember what I have said about the physics? Now imagine with less friction. For me this was light-years in front of the Gran Turismo. If you went to the desert stage in a Corsa, you could get stuck at some point.

Now some of the cars:

But if it was such a great game, why no one remembers Enthusia? Key reasons are:

Although great for petrolheads, it was too difficult for the usual game player, you had a penalty system that although you wined the race, you could lose points (if you crashed and went off course) and get behind in the championship.

The lack of money. You winned cars as a prize for winning races, the more you drove with them, the more you were able to improve its levels, with the top level being the 10. But the worst part is that although you could improve the car and change its settings, you couldn’t choose which parts to install and change its wheels for example. This lack of capitalism takes out a bit of the bright for the petrolhead nation, since car parts are the best thing ever.

But the worst thing was the success of the Gran Turismo franchise, already successful and with big hits. Released months after Gran Turismo 4, Enthusia ended up being credited as a Gran Turismo copy. Even the cover design reminded those from Gran Turismo.

Is it worth giving a look? If you’re a true petrolhead, go for it! Get your PS2 out of the dust or download an emulator, try to be the first in the championship and dare to complete the Driving Revolution. If you just like to play a game, but don’t wanna much stress, get the Corsa, choose the desert track and play for about 15 minutes.