After having a working PSP in my hands again after so many years, this is one of the games that I immediately replayed. I've been playing this game a ton in the past few days, and I can confirm that my nostalgic memory didn't betray me. It's even better than my 9-10 year old memories would led me to believe.
There's no Career mode or any sort of campaign mode here. Instead, you can earn credits by racing in the arcade mode. You can choose between regular races, time trials or drift trials. You can also choose how many laps you want to do, and there's a good variety of tracks to choose, from real world circuit tracks to offroad tracks. The credits you earn depends on how long the tracks are, and how many laps you chose to do. You can also race in higher rankings in each track, which will unlock as you win races in said tracks, and that will also boost your earnings, but the AI will be a bit harder to beat. You can use the credits to buy cars, but only 4 brands will be open up shop, and they will cycle out every 2 days. You can progress to the next day by doing a race or doing the (infamous) driving challenges, which also gives you credits for completion.
While this progression system lack the inherent focus of traditional career modes, and can seem a bit too simplistic at first, the game's trust in letting you choose how you want to progress is very much in line with the portable nature of the game, and it can be quite addicting. You can make the races to be grueling marathons, or just bite sized sessions so you can earn some credits to save up for whatever cool car comes next. There is a ton of cars to collect in this game, from the most iconic cars such as the Nissan Skyline, to the rare and less known cars, and there will be at least a couple of cars that will truly grab your attention and make you want to save up for it. I think they could do a bit more to incentivize daily play sessions or longer race sessions, but that might be a bit too ahead of this game's time, considering such things only gained prevalence years after this game released.
The fact that the regular races are limited to only 4 cars at a time are a bit disappointing, but it doesn't really hurt the game much. Also, there seems to be minimal effect in doing slipstreams in this game, which is kinda weird.
Technically, the game is very sound. The game feels like a true Gran Turismo title, and that might be the game's most impressive feat. The graphics are impressive for the time, and it's a joy to see such an old and small device run a game with this level of technical complexity so smoothly. The driving physics are more forgiving than the mainline Gran Turismo games, but it fits the PSP's control scheme like a glove, and it is very fun no matter what car you're using. The soundtrack is also quite solid, although I do wish that there's more tracks for during races.
I believe that this game is still the peak of true handheld racing games, and I'm very glad that I got the chance to revisit it.
There's no Career mode or any sort of campaign mode here. Instead, you can earn credits by racing in the arcade mode. You can choose between regular races, time trials or drift trials. You can also choose how many laps you want to do, and there's a good variety of tracks to choose, from real world circuit tracks to offroad tracks. The credits you earn depends on how long the tracks are, and how many laps you chose to do. You can also race in higher rankings in each track, which will unlock as you win races in said tracks, and that will also boost your earnings, but the AI will be a bit harder to beat. You can use the credits to buy cars, but only 4 brands will be open up shop, and they will cycle out every 2 days. You can progress to the next day by doing a race or doing the (infamous) driving challenges, which also gives you credits for completion.
While this progression system lack the inherent focus of traditional career modes, and can seem a bit too simplistic at first, the game's trust in letting you choose how you want to progress is very much in line with the portable nature of the game, and it can be quite addicting. You can make the races to be grueling marathons, or just bite sized sessions so you can earn some credits to save up for whatever cool car comes next. There is a ton of cars to collect in this game, from the most iconic cars such as the Nissan Skyline, to the rare and less known cars, and there will be at least a couple of cars that will truly grab your attention and make you want to save up for it. I think they could do a bit more to incentivize daily play sessions or longer race sessions, but that might be a bit too ahead of this game's time, considering such things only gained prevalence years after this game released.
The fact that the regular races are limited to only 4 cars at a time are a bit disappointing, but it doesn't really hurt the game much. Also, there seems to be minimal effect in doing slipstreams in this game, which is kinda weird.
Technically, the game is very sound. The game feels like a true Gran Turismo title, and that might be the game's most impressive feat. The graphics are impressive for the time, and it's a joy to see such an old and small device run a game with this level of technical complexity so smoothly. The driving physics are more forgiving than the mainline Gran Turismo games, but it fits the PSP's control scheme like a glove, and it is very fun no matter what car you're using. The soundtrack is also quite solid, although I do wish that there's more tracks for during races.
I believe that this game is still the peak of true handheld racing games, and I'm very glad that I got the chance to revisit it.