--A WORLD BEYOND SPEED--

"Hidden Gem" is a term I believe to be thrown around way too frequently in the gaming community, rarely ever being used in a way I would say its "properly" applicable.

Racing Lagoon is a Hidden Gem, and also straight up one of the coolest video games ever made.

Finally being playable in English thanks to the hard work from the people over at Hilltop, Racing Lagoon is a stylish, raw, and just phenomenal racing based RPG made by prime Square during their insane PS1 days. Presentation is off the charts visually and sonically. The stealing parts mechanic keeps the gameplay engaging throughout the games whole runtime and the world kept opening and expanding to a point where I was just like "why did I only hear about this a month ago?"

The world of Racing Lagoon might be its most notable aspect. Yokohama just feels like home and all of its inhabitants are just so charming. The writing and story, while they go some out there places by the end, is consistently engaging and overall is just a very fun ride, with all your shenanigans you would expect from a Square RPG from this era.

if at any point you read me rambling about my love for this game and found it interesting, then please, do yourself and the game a favor and give it a shot, we need more Lagooners in the world.

I think about this constantly. Something about its earnest, yet goofy and uncanny vibe just resonates with me so hard. Some real hard hitting drama as well and the music is legit some of the best jazz fusion of all time. I just want to hang out with these flamboyant racing himbos (and all the really great female characters too) and wear giant jackets and live in a world where everyone is constantly talking about racing and randomly challenging everyone they meet to street race as well. Chicken race is a freaking awesome racing mini game and all racing games need to have it imo.

I played this is Japanese with a friend like months before the fan translation was announced and translated for him as we played and man it was an experience. From what I've sesen of the translation it looks like they did a pretty good job transferring over the vibe from the original which is really respectable NGL considering how much of the original Japanese is sprinkled with unnatural sounding English phrases.

It'd be a 5/5 for sure if it wasn't for all of the clunkiness, loading screens, and wildly complex stats, but playing through an emulator helped to mitigate a lot of these issues.

i never knew how much i needed a High Speed Driving RPG until now. fully customizable vehicles both in stats and visuals by using parts that you buy from shops or loot from beaten racers. a world map you traverse by cruising the night streets. encounters with other racers happen as you're driving around the world map, but they're initiated by speeding drivers flashing their headlights at you. you can also flash your headlights at absolutely anyone, racer or not, and start a race. such a【COOL】and thematically appropriate alternative to the usual rpg encounters.

racing lagoon is a masterclass in presentation. the music, the backdrops, the cutscenes full to the brim with style, and the protagonist's cheesy & poetic monologues all come together to create an atmosphere that pulls you into this world of street racing. and man, this story. nothing groundbreaking, but i would never have expected something like it from a game about a bunch of street racers.

seriously fantastic game all around.

A little jank but I think it was supposed to be a partial love letter to street racing of 80s and 90s. Due to time, it has now become a love letter to the late 90s fantasy. They left their mark on the streets of time. Such a joy to hear and look at the whole time. I did not like getting locked out of the last race and not having ANY clue what to do, I just needed to get good!! But quality writing and Bosozoku’d Evos/Limos/Trucks got me to the end. DREAMING ON THE ROAD. THE LEGEND OF SHOU AKASAKI WILL NEVER DIE.

Playing the fan translation on Duckstation in 4k resolution is the ideal experience. It's truly a fun, innovative game that is a must play if you care at all about racing or Playstation 1 era games.

What if the Final Fantasy 7 team made a car based RPG inspired by Initial D? This is your answer. Neon skylines, 90's anime cool guys racing to be the best of the best. Absolutely phenomenal soundtrack pumping while you fight for your life in the streets -- grinding for better parts and cars like a maniac. It's simply bliss.

This is one of the most unique experiences in gaming. From developers who were creatively on fire, in a time where gaming was highly exploratory and experimental in approach and execution of ideas. Racing Lagoon is the ideal "caRPG" that hasn't been surpassed.

Might actually be the greatest racing game of all time. A joyful fusion of JRPG and racing game. The customization aspect is incredible and it makes it so much fun to try and go through the game with all sorts of car types.

Soundtrack is just actually an absolute banger and listening to the music while driving around the towns never gets old.

The story is absolutely batshit insane and I love every second of it. It's absolutely ridiculous and played completely straight which makes it all very enjoyable.

holy hot diggity dog damn. I definitely have never played anything like this before in my life, for better or for worse. First off, if you are even remotely averse to grinding, this game will not be for you. Racing games as a genre are inherently grindy as you hone your skills by doing the same courses over and over, and this being an RPG version of that same exact gameplay means theres a WHOOOOLE lot of grindin going on. Theres also a fair amount of padding in the fact that the optional missions aren't as optional as you might think (don't slack on those UORs buddy). With all that being said, you might be surprised as to why I gave this such a high score, and that high score is purely off of memorability. I am definitely not going to forget my time I had spent in Yokohama and Hakone playing this game. Not only was the environmental design and overall visuals extremely unique and the 3D rendered courses look phenomenal for PS1, but also the soundtrack is incredibly vibin and most of all, the plot is absolutely insane in this game. There is no way you will ever predict how the game is going to go with all of its twists and turns making the plot the absolute biggest driving force for progress, even if the grind can be kinda annoying at times. For freshness alone, I don't think I'll ever forget this game without a doubt. Must play for any racing fan that can tolerate the grind.

Racing Lagoon is undoubtedly one of the coolest video games I have ever played. Literally every single screen and piece of dialogue culminates in a sleek, artistic aesthetic of its own domain. Characters have shonen-esque appearances, upheld by their hip, slang filled street talk, and even at times poetic speech styles thanks to the brilliant English translation provided by Hilltop and the rest of the crew that helped bring such an underrated gem into the light of Western audiences.

Gameplay is a mixture of high speed drift racing, with the addition of JRPG elements such as vehicle upgrades and customization that is surprisingly in-depth and far more involved than simply equipping a better engine or cooler looking body onto your car. Building the proper vehicle requires analysis and consideration depending on the challenge that awaits you on the road.

The story itself absorbs you into the moody and heated rivalry of street racing teams competing for the title of “Yokohama’s Fastest Legend” in Japan’s 1990s nightlife. In addition to the beautiful presentation of Racing Lagoon, I immediately fell in love with its jazzy and techno soundtrack, one that I consider to be a favorite of any video game score.

There is very little that this game suffers from. Times where you might feel lost in the winding streets of Yokohama’s cityscapes are deliberate, and exploring various gang hangout spots and street corners are necessary to progress further into the plot. What starts off as the exciting progression of Sho Akasaki’s street racing career soon unveils a darker, more disturbing tale of loss and misidentity in typical Squaresoft fashion.

Put simply, my experience with this game went beyond my initial excitement when I first found out that Squaresoft developed a racing JRPG for the PS1 with a jazz soundtrack and anime aesthetic. Racing Lagoon is impressively ahead of it’s time in many regards, and fans of Square or JRPGs in general need to look into this game.

"That's right... I'm 'YOKOHAMA'S FASTEST LEGEND'... or so I'm told..."

Racing Lagoon is a Japanese-exclusive SquareSoft RPG for the PlayStation, originally released in 1999. Unlike any of Square's other RPGs, Racing Lagoon focuses on street races rather than battles with weapons and spells. The player freely explores parts of Japan (mostly Yokohama) at night in their car with numerous parking spots to stop at to progress the story, interact with characters, take part in optional challenges, or purchase new parts for their car. In place of random encounters, players are challenged to short races by other cars on the street that flash their headlights. Rather than traditional equipment and level ups, cars can be customized with parts and add-ons. The winner of each race can select a part in the owner's inventory to take for keeps—whether it is the player or the CPU opponent. Reward Points (RP) are also given to the player upon victory with the amount varying based on the opponent(s). There are three main part types that can be interchanged and level up through winning races while add-ons are static, much like equipment. Levelling a part will increase the number of slots for add-ons.
As one would expect, racing in Racing Lagoon is the forefront of the gameplay. Every battle takes into account your current setup and its respective stats, but the core racing still calls for skill... and even some luck. The racing can be rather stiff, and at times, feels downright jank. Unfortunately, this is no Ridge Racer, and simple bumps in the road like a sidewalk is more than enough to stop you dead in your tracks as if you collided headfirst with a brick wall. If you can manage to get used to its oddities while maintaining a powerful car, the game is more than doable, but it is easily one of the most difficult RPGs I've played solely on the basis of its core design.

"South Yokohama... Our home, our 'STREET'... This town comes alive at night... and our driving brings the 'HEAT'."

The story of Racing Lagoon is a wild ride that starts simple enough. Sho Akasaki is new on the racing scene and has joined the Bay Lagoon Racing team in South Yokohama. Showing great potential, BLR's leader Ikki Fujisawa takes him under his wing and helps him grow as a racer. BLR's dream is the Yokohama Grand Prix—a shot at professional racing. Shortly after Sho's first real jump into the big leagues, catastrophe strikes as a series of mysterious incidents begin to pile up without explanation. Rumors of Yokohama's Fastest Legend returning after ten years of absence brings great strife for street racers all over Japan. Sho takes it upon himself to find out the source of the chaos and put an end to it once and for all.

"Last night I had a dream... I was driving through the flames of a fiery hellscape, yet couldn't feel the heat. Stuck on a road with no exits, and no escape... On a night when dawn would never come... I wish I could have stayed dreaming."

The course of the plot takes place over eleven nights with each night effectively acting as a chapter with some additional, shorter chapters in between. The story is presented both through dialog during visual novel-esque scenes and in replays of the player's races with character interactions playing out during the action. What begins as a simple tale of seeking glory suddenly turns to surprisingly somber and evocative moments of self-reflection wrapped in an absurd sci-fi/fantasy tale of corporations, experiments, and lingering spirits. Nothing about this game is as it appears initially, and while it reaches critical levels of cheesiness, the CRAAAZY story is entertaining from start to finish.

"...I have a recurring dream... I find myself at the murky depths of the ocean floor... Within that darkness, I find a glimmering fragment of a star... And then I'm at peace, wrapped in the gentle embrace of the waves... The lights flicker across my eyes, coaxing me back into the waking world..."

The characters range from simplistic and stereotypical to straight up crazy. Sho Akasaki is an aspiring poet as he monologues and self-reflects in nearly every scene in the game. His colorful descriptions of his experiences and his feelings create an air of desolation and longing, though it often borders on being too melodramatic for its own good. Like many other great SquareSoft protagonists in the PSX era, there is more to Sho than meets the eye, and his story is worth exploring and finishing. While ridiculous, Sho's internal monologues breathe life into his otherwise blank persona, and there are plenty of twists and turns within his life that keep him compelling and entertaining in his own right.
The supporting cast are not as complex as Sho, but are all entertaining enough in their given tropes and moments. Their dialog (which in my experience is from a recent English fan-translation) is all equally humorous and quotable like Sho's. Many characters do little in regard to the main plot, but I would not necessarily consider this a negative as I believe it effectively builds the world of Racing Lagoon to be a believable, lively environment that does not simply revolve around the player's character.

"The roof of the hospital provided a breathtaking view of Yokohama. It was a vast blanket of darkness, studded with tiny specks of the city's lights... Within the dark abyss inside me there was also a faint, quivering light... The light... of hope."

The presentation of Racing Lagoon is, to me (and probably most others who have seen or played it) the strongest asset of the title. I am an avid enjoyer of early 3D FMVs and pre-rendered models. From FINAL FANTASY VII to GADGET, I cannot get enough of that style, and it is in full force in Racing Lagoon. Unlike the two aforementioned games, there is far less animation at play in Racing Lagoon. Many scenes are static or stiff with the animation limited to three frames on average. I, personally, do not mind this, but I can see many finding fault with it, thinking it lazy, cheap, or just otherwise unappealing. Despite these limitations, the game oozes with '90s urban Japanese style. Think Initial D meets FINAL FANTASY VIII with some unique flair in between. Do be prepared to see some very uncanny looking people contorting their bodies in all sorts of bizarre ways, though.

"The way the water reflects the lights of the city... It's stunningly beautiful. I have to ask myself which is real? The one in the sky or the one in the sea... When we dream and when we wake, it's as if we step out from one and step into the other..."

Similar in its visual presentation, the music of Racing Lagoon is a memorable, stylish roller coaster of fun. Mixing many electronic elements with various styles of jazz, Racing Lagoon's OST builds an atmosphere like no other. The raw sense of late night urban sprawl is another aesthetic I love, and it is unmatched in South Yokohama. If you cannot find yourself able to deal with the rough gameplay of Racing Lagoon, I suggest looking up its soundtrack on YouTube to enjoy some aspect of this game.

"South Yokohama... Our home, our 'STREET'... The starting line for this sordid story... Our own twisted legend of speed. On these streets we called home... With its thousands of people living thousands of lives... I found myself feeling alone."

Racing Lagoon is far from the storytelling marvels of FINAL FANTASY VII and Xenogears, but about halfway through my 20-odd hour playthrough, I decided it deserved a review on a similar scale. The sheer uniqueness of the title, coupled with its perfectly insane cocktail mix of style and melancholic drama make it an unforgettable experience—one I wish I could have gone through legitimately. If you are lenient on retro game jank and have an admiration for late '90s Japanese style, I recommend giving this game a shot. I think it's well worth your time baring witness to...

THE REVIVAL OF YOKOHAMA'S FASTEST LEGEND