Tokyo Xtreme Racer: DRIFT 2 - A Diamond That Has Never Had A Chance to Shine

By reading the title, you should recall Tokyo Xtreme Racer series; one of many famous racing games ever published particularly its highway battle games (Tokyo Xtreme Racer 3/Shutouku Battle 01). This is its mountain pass/touge counterpart, hence it bearing the Tokyo Xtreme Racer name. As how it’s named, it heavily focuses on drifting through the corners of mountain passes. It’s exclusively for PlayStation 2 console. Originally developed by Genki (yes, the same company that made other Tokyo Xtreme Racer games) and titled Kaido: Touge no Densetsu in Japan, also released in Australia and Europe as Kaido Racer 2 and as Tokyo Xtreme Racer: DRIFT 2 in North America under the company Crave Entertainment.

I’ve been spending tons of hours playing this game so I thought of sharing my experience and making a review with fellow CTzen. So here we go…

Car List: 8/10

Since it’s a racing game, so us, petrolheads, will look for the cars it’s got. It has a wide range selection of cars, from 3cyl kei-cars like Mazda Autozam AZ-1, Honda Beat, and the like, to high end tuned cars like Ridox Supra RZ, Mine’s Skyline GT-R R34, and others. It also has Formula Drift cars from 2001 and forth seasons. To name a few, they’re Ken Nomura Skyline ER34, Toshiki Yoshioka AE86, HKS Silvia S15, etc.. Despite being heavily influenced by Japan manufacturers, there’s also a number of European cars to justify the taste of player who doesn’t really like the Japs like Audi RS4 B5, Alfa Romeo 155, even the legendary homologated rally cars such as Peugeot 105 16V and Renault 5 Turbo. Not to mention Mercedes-Benz 190E Evo II, Fiat Abarth 1000TCR, Gemballa Turbo R-GT 320 (though removed from USA/PAL version of the game) are there, too. Rally cars (ofcourse not with their official liveries due to licensing issue) like Subaru Impreza WRX STi, Peugeot 206, etc.. Too bad American cars like Corvette and Viper aren’t available as how they are available in TXR3 because… well, the tracks mostly lack of straight line because obviously it’s a game set in mountain roads with lots of sharp corner. So, driving a 700+hp car is almost pointless here; which does make sense why they’re not there.

Physics: 8/10

After knowing how many and what cars it has, we would usually be curious about how they drive. If you take a glance at it, it might look like your average Initial D games, being able to turn at ridiculously 120km/h on a sharp hairpin corner; but wait, it’s not! Handling is surprisingly great (arguably the best among other Tokyo Xtreme Racer franchises), responsive steering and braking, realistic understeering and oversteering, and different handling on different surfaces like tarmac, dirt, rain, or even snow. Your tires and brakes can also be stressed and worn out due to too much braking or sliding. However, it doesn’t have clutch kick feature. With that being said, maintaining your drift will be by either getting a better entry speed or fiddling with handbrake. It’s not a game that you can master how the car handles from day 1. You’d have to adapt with each car you’re driving because none of them actually handles the same. So you get the main idea, it’s pretty close to simulation rather than a game (although it is classified as simulation by its Wikipedia page).

Course Selection and Variation: 7/10

Tokyo Xtreme Racer: DRIFT 2 features real and famous mountain passes of Japan such as Hakone Pass, Haruna (a.k.a. Akina) Pass, Akagi Pass, Omote (Front) and Ura (Rear) Rokko Pass, Nikko Pass, Aso Pass, and the like. There’s also a “short” version of lesser-known passes like Happogahara Pass, Yuki no Otani Pass, Usui Pass, and even Yokohama suburban course. It also features different weather (rainy/snowy, rainstorm/snowstorm, cloudy, and clear in which all affects how your car handles and some requires different sets of tyres), day of time, and starting point (uphill/downhill). They all are very well detailed and represent their real life counterparts accurately. All of them requires quite amount of time to adapt with, thus fret not of crashing on first try because it takes time, even for me.

Graphics: 9/10

Many players consider graphics before going for a purchase of a game (though at the same time they sometimes scream “GRAPHYX DOESNTNT MATTER!!1oneone”). For a game released in 2005-2007, it really was way too ahead of its time. If it’s clear, then you can see the road clear. If it’s foggy, then you can barely see the road ahead. If it’s storming, you literally can barely see the road, the further road will be somewhat very dark and there’ll be randomly generated thunder that suddenly lights on the road.

Game and Racing Modes: 7/10

Race Modes

SP Race: Standard race with health bar for you and the opponent. It will decrease if you either crash or get falling behind. Crashing too much and/or falling way too behind will make your health bar decrease significantly. Be careful!

FL/LF Race: Normal touge race with no health bar, just simply a race. Player will win if they lead ahead of/outrun their rival (usually around 109.7ft) or simply finish first; otherwise they lose. FL is where the player takes the lead and followed by the rival whilst LF is vice-versa.

CA Race: Which CA stands for Corner Attack is the Drift Race of the game. In Conquest Mode (later explained below), not only do you have to pass the determined score, but you also have to finish below your rival’s time. In Record Challenge (later explained below), you simply have to slide as long as you can. Score as many points as possible in the scoring zone (default noted by “ACTION” sound) and try not to stop or hit anything, otherwise you lose your score. Keep that in mind!

TA Race: Which TA stands for Time Attack. You get the idea. Finish the race as soon as possible and your fastest time and ghost record (this however depends on your preference) will be recorded.

TAC Race: Similar to TA Race but this time player is given a health bar. The goal remains the same: score faster time than rival’s but try not to drain the health bar way too much or otherwise you’re done for.

CAT Race: Similar to CA Race but this time player has to score a certain amount of score in each turn.

Game Modes

Conquest Mode: Also known as Career Mode in other games. Here is where you start your journey through sticks and stones to become the most well-known racer in the game, beating challengers that may come toward you, building reps and cars from zero to hero.

Record Challenge: Here is where you customize any cars available to set a personal records on many courses. There are CA Race and TA Race. Tracks are mostly available from the very beginning of Record Challenge. Scoring and beating personal bests will reward you RP which you can exchange for new cars and courses to be used in Record Challenge.

Record Tour: This is like WRC of the game, with it being separated to several classes. It takes place on existing courses with random section covered in dirt. Cars are already tuned to the max so all the player’s got to do is tune it to fit the upcoming course.

Gameplay and Storyline: 5/10

Although I did say that physics and graphics are great for its time, the gameplay and storyline is somewhat bland. The gameplay is repetitive (like other TXR games) and the storyline is boring. You get a car, you get to battle a rival, you win, you repeat, you win, you move to the next stage, you do that regularly. Until bam, surprise, you’re on top of the top. On several occasion, you’d meet Wanderers; top notch driver who gambles ridiculous amount of CP but does take quite amount of time and patience to beat; depends on what car you’re driving. The storyline didn’t help either. It’s about a legendary racer named Emotional King who somehow disappeared from the street and people claimed they were the best racer after his disappearance. So by winning races and building reps, you’d get to challenge him and take that “best racer” title from him. SPOILER ALERT: You’ll disappear like how Emotional King did, and everything started over and over and over again.

There is an interesting feature called Weather Doll that you can use to control the weather, literally. But they cost amount of fortune your family have….not. It’s around 10,000,000CP (the currency of the game) and packs several dolls; Clear Doll, Foggy Doll, Rainy Doll, and Stormy Doll. It can be used to take advantage of the game. Had it not been the weather doll, I would have given 4/10, but that’s just me.

Performance Tuning and Units: 9/10

Unlike the games from its time, it gives technical performance units instead of…

Acceleration:===========
Top Speed:=============
Handling:=====

Power unit is displayed as Ps and torque as kg/m.

Talking about performance upgrade, it still adheres the rule of “The higher the level is, the better it is.” However, you can combine parts from different manufacturers to produce the bigger power and optimize the engine alot better. It’s divided into three levels of compatibility: normal, moderate, and critical. Critical means optimized very much and highly produces optimum performance output. Moderate means optimized moderately, and normal means your engine is in a state of so-so. Different sets of tyres means different purposes, giving different levels of grip as well. Not to mention you can also remap your ECU to produce torque or power peak, giving different results.

Since it is classified as simulation, it’s mandatory that the tuning must be as realistic as possible. Not only are you able to tune the suspension, but you also are able to tune LSD ratio, handbrake strength, steering angle, even how strong ABS works. Each slider gives you different results, too. Too bad they’re in a scale 0 to 10/-5 to 5/50% to 150%. If they were in real units, I’d give a solid 10/10; although it makes tuning easier to be done. There are also tips to help you tune your car so you won’t be clueless when tuning.

Visual Customization: 6/10

Although its physics is what I’ve been praising, I admit visual customization isn’t that good. In previous games, you could select variable front bumpers, rear bumpers, side skirts, hoods, spoiler delete, even fenders. TXRD2, sadly, combined them all into one full aero package (with rear wing being able to be changed by installing GT wing, but still…). In exchange, full aero packages are mostly from well-known companies such as RE-Amemiya, C-West, etc.. Another good news is rims selection is not really a letdown, and they’re accurate compared to their real-life counterparts. To name a few: 5-Zigen, GramLights, Volk, and Watanabe.

Artificial Intelligence (AI): 7/10

AIs don’t rubberband. Rather, they can get pretty annoying sometimes, blocking your line and prevent you from passing them. Despite that, on several occasion, they’re pretty clumsy, going out of the line but catching up pretty soon and headbutting you from behind. Things can get to a point where you’ll be enraged by their behavior but at the same time you really want to beat them.

Overall: 8/10

It was sadly overshadowed by other games coming out during that time (not that they’re better than this). Is it worth to play? Yes, it is. Although you’ve got to struggle a bit for a while. If you want a fun yet challenging game or abuse your anger due to inability to build a drift car or drifting in general IRL, go fire up your PlayStation 2, find your dusty copy or get a new one. There isn’t any? Worry not, there’s always link to download a digital copy on sites like emuparadise.me (use it at your own risk). Have you no PlayStation 2 but do have a decent computer? Simply emulate it using PCSX2 or any other PlayStation 2 emulators out there. I recommend using PCSX2 1.2.1 as it’s the latest and most stable version of aforementioned emulator. If you like to just cruise around, drive from a get-go, and win easily with no sweat, this isn’t really suitable for you.

That’s all from me. Thank you for reading my review. I hope I can write another review in the future and improve step by step. If I make a mistake, do tell me by commenting below!