R4: Ridge Racer Type 4
Usually I would save this discussion for a part of a greater whole, like say a Ridge Racer series retrospection, but R4: Ridge Racer Type 4 deserves its own spotlight. It's the Summer and I've been on an arcade racing game binge lately. Feeling the rush of going fast while driving stylish has always been a combination that few games have achieved over the years. Usually, when games feature "racing" as the core gameplay, it involves sanctioned racing and official circuits. In the case of GRID Legends, it may even be the source of narrative and drama.
Ridge Racer Type 4 can be considered the first true "narrative driven" racing game, mere months before the TOCA series started to come in on its own. It also served as a foundation for future Namco simcade racer R Racing Evolution, which gave players a fleshed out story on the racing track. R4 differed from games such as these by simply featuring real-world locations as opposed to conventional race tracks. This was always Ridge Racer's strong suit as a series, fantasizing exhilarating highway races with inclines, twists, and turns, through familiar urban locations.
The previous game, Rage Racer, attempted a more "simulation" twist by offering a career mode similar to Gran Turismo. Players purchased a starter car and earned more money via races in which they can upgrade cars and purchase new ones. Ridge Racer Type 4 replaced career mode with a more straightforward Grand Prix tournament-style mode. Players race across eight different tracks across three different heats, two main ones and a final heat to declare the winner.
Racers will find themselves cruising along the highways and harbors of Yokohama in Helter Skelter and Out Of Blue. Phantomile extends to the city's residential area as the shortest course in the series history. Exclusive to Ridge Racer Type 4 are the obvious references to Klonoa Door To Phantomile, another game that most of the members of the R4 Ridge Racer Type 4 team had worked on. In Western Japan, Wonderhill and Heaven and Hell are the two mountain courses located in Fukuoka and its aesthetics alone spawned an obsessed Fukuoka fan in Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune 5DX+.
The tracks aren't exclusive to Japan as there are three tracks held in cities across the United States. Edge of the Earth and Brightest Nite sweep around the various highways and city centers in residential Queens as racers center around the nearby airport. Lastly, Shooting Hoops is the most "traditional race track-esque" course in Ridge Racer Type 4, shaped like a basketball hoop, roughly. It was also the course that I fangirled about when I saw the track layout in Victory Heat Rally's demo.
Before the player can make their attempt at the Gran Prix, they must first pick a team and a car manufacturer. The team chosen determines the handling and top speed of the cars as well as the difficulty of other racers. These range from "Slow and easy to control with simple AI opponents" to almost "simulation-mode physics with aggressive AI to contend with." Here are the four teams ranging from easy to difficult.
- R.C. Micro Mouse Mappy, A French team led by Sophie Chevalier who wishes to prove that a woman can manage a successful racing team.
- Pac Racing Club, A Japanese team led by Shinji Yazaki who wishes to overcome the dark past surrounding his team.
- Racing Team Solvalou, An Italian team led by Enki Gilbert who are currently front-running the Real Racing Roots 1999 tournament.
- Dig Racing Team, An American team led by Robert Chrisman who is on the verge of bankruptcy, colloquially known as the "Dig-Your-Own-Grave Racing Team"
The four car manufacturers not only determine the cars that the player can earn in a playthrough, but also the car's handling. There are two manufacturer's for each type, Drift and Grip, with Drift cars being naturally faster on straights, requiring control to handle corners. Grip cars can handle the technical corners like that in Fukuoka but are "slower" on straights. It's ultimately up to player preference but like the racing teams, certain manufacturers are built for speed more than handling and vice versa. All except Terrazi had debut in Rage Racer before.
- Age Solo, A French manufacturer with an emphasis on Grip and handling with aerodynamic designs.
- Terrazi, A Japanese manufacturer that's the faster of the Grip options with more unique designs.
- Lizard, An American manufacturer with wild Drift capabilities and iconic muscle-inspired car designs
- Assoluto, An Italian manufacturer specializing in top speed and cutting through corners like a hot knife.
The Assoluto Bisonte is one of the cover cars of R4 Ridge Racer Type 4, identified by the R.T Solvalou livery. The Bisonte is one of literally hundreds of cars the player can unlock as unlocking cars depends on where the player places during each of the heat's races. Finishing in any combination of first place to "as dead last as the game can allow the player to progress" will unlock cars ranging from high spec to low spec.
In order to truly 100% the game, the player must unlock every single variant of every car by placing in every event and unlocking said conditions. This turns Ridge Racer 4 into an absolute grind fest and just like Crash Bandicoot 4, it's a game that is very fun to play and complete. It is not fun to 100%, at least not in one sitting although I do know someone crazy enough who has. Not even my Finnish friend, ALZERI28 could do this in one sitting but he sure as well can do it in three if he could.
So what makes Ridge Racer Type 4 an impressive game? I think it's simply that very few games from '98 and '99 can stand the test of time to this day. When I talk fondly about games like Klonoa or Dead or Alive 2, it's coming from my childhood of course. R4 is one of the most gorgeous pieces of media I've ever witnessed and it should be heled in a museum. Everything works well in its favor, the jazz fusion soundtrack, the simplistic yellow and black UI, and the way it interacts with the background menu music. I often find myself humming the tune to the rhythm of the background animations.
The menus are easy to navigate unless players are swapping cars from their personal garage to the default garage. As the player cannot have all 200+ cars at the same time, the player can swap any number of cars from the default roster of eight or so "basic" cars to whatever cars the player unlocks. This include special machines earned by completing time trials. Finally, the game replays. Players who have seen the live replays after finishing a race and hearing "Move Me" by Kohta Takahashi will know immediately why this game is lauded as one of the best.
If, for some reason the player has yet to try R4 Ridge Racer Type 4 out, I have fantastic news. For the first time in almost a decade, R4 and Ridge Racer 2 are both included in the PlayStation Plus lineup under the Premium tier. This includes downloads for PSP and PSX games although I wish that Sony allowed fans to purchase the games without needing a PS+ subscription. I guess locking one of the best games in history behind a paywall beats trying to get the necessary tools to run it on actual hardware, especially trying to run PSX games over HDMI.
R4 Ridge Racer Type 4 is available on PlayStation Plus via the Premium tier. Play this on the official PlayStation 2 hardware with the neGcon controller if you can!