Tokyo Xtreme Racer is the name of the series that inspired or had a hand in inspiring almost any modern racing game we see today. The first installment was released in 1994 and was called Shutoko Battle ‘94: Drift King. The series has been developed by Genki since the first release and their latest installment is available on PC and console as Tokyo Xtreme Racer 2025.
What The Driving Feels Like
It is safe to say the game feels like it never left, those who remember the original titles will feel right at home here. The game manages to strike a perfect balance between realism and arcade racing. Imagine a more polished Need For Speed for example, but in Japan racing across their famous narrow highways and tight corners.
While Need For Speed has always been sort of in your face and always starts the player off very quickly in terms of explaining its various systems. This installment of Tokyo Xtreme Racer takes a more laid back approach with an introduction to the controls, then an introduction to the currency system, how one should earn and spend these currencies.
While the gameplay loop has not changed, it still feels fresh and simple, for those that don’t know. We start off in the garage and are told to pick our starting car after which we head out to earn credits, we then use these credits to buy upgrades and start challenging crew members until we eventually get to challenge the crew leader.
The Perk System
While the main goal of the developer seems to preserve the look and feel of the originals, the perk system is a completely new addition to the series. There are plenty of unique and useful perks that players can unlock and choose, but what is interesting is that only one active skill can be chosen each night.
This makes it so that the player will have to really think what he or she needs the most before choosing and heading out. There are active skills that help in lowering the amount of SP lost when hitting walls, skills that earn the passive income for a set amount of distance driven etc.
A weird feature is the fact that new cars are unlocked through the perk system, for example each car of the various companies appear as unlockable perks. We can unlock higher tier Toyotas or higher tier Nissans as we progress and earn money.
The Wanderer Are Back
Now those familiar with the Xtreme Racer series will know about this one but essentially across the map as we drive we can enter Parking areas, where we can tune our cars to our preferences, another we can do is talk to other racers who are also in that area.
These racers sometimes drop hints about certain rivals who have unique and special cars, these mysterious rivals spawning depends on whether the player managed to meet a certain criteria or not.
Meeting this criteria for these racers can be extremely specific but at the same time very rewarding as defeating some of these rare rivals can reward the player with their specially tuned cars that would otherwise be unobtainable.
A Much Awaited Comeback
The game in a word is phenomenal, in an era where every racing game feels like or sort of lifeless, Tokyo Xtreme Racer manages to stand out with their unique style, personality and amazing music. Even in early access the game is buttery smooth throughout its demo, it is even optimized for the steam deck running at a stable 60fps as well.
Tokyo Xtreme Racer is a standout experience for wanting to relive the glory days of the PS2, Xbox 360 era, it has amazing music, driving feels amazing, the UI is never in the way, each driver we race against always has a back story and a unique personality with them.
All in all this game is a solid addition to any racing game fan’s library, a full release date hasn’t been announced yet but the game is planning to stay in this early access period for about 4 months as they will be adding new storylines, cars and customizations as Genki plans for a final release.