Line #81 VideoGame/TokyoXtremeRacer


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tokyo_xtreme_racer_1.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:The Expressway awaits your arrival.]]
3
4	The '''''Tokyo Xtreme Racer''''' series, also known in Japan as the '''''Shutokou Battle''''' series, is a series of racing games developed by {{Creator/Genki}}.
5
6	Dating its' origins all the way back to the days of the [[Platform/SuperNintendoEntertainmentSystem SNES]], Genki released several Japan-exclusive racing games that would serve as the series' foundations. The first, proper game in the series, ''Tokyo Xtreme Racer'', was released on the [[Platform/SegaDreamcast Dreamcast]] in 1999. The franchise spawned seven entires, two of which were spin-offs, with the last entry, ''Import Tuner Challenge'', being released for the Platform/Xbox360 in 2006.
7
8	The game revolves around the world of high-speed highway racing in Japan, with the player being just one out of hundreds of racers attempting to become the fastest. Unlike other games in its' genre, the series set itself apart through the SP[[note]]Spirit Points[[/note]] System, with all drivers participating in a race being given a "Spirit Bar", akin to a fighting game's health bar. Drivers lose Spirit by either falling behind the leading car too much or hitting things on the road.
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10	Related to it is the '''''Tokyo Xtreme Racer: Drift''''', or '''''Kaido Battle''''', sub-series. First released in Japan in 2003, the action moves away from the highways to sanctioned races on Japan's mountain passes. Three games were released as part of this subseries: ''Kaido Battle'', ''Kaido Battle 2: Chain Reaction'', and ''Kaido Battle: Touge Legends''. As a result of the localization being handled by two different publishers at different times, the games were exported overseas under the names of ''Tokyo Xtreme Racer: DRIFT'', ''Kaido Racer'' and ''Tokyo Xtreme Racer: DRIFT 2'', creating major confusion.[[note]]It gets worse, mind you: the original ''Drift'' was never released in Europe, whilst ''Chain Reaction'' was ''only'' released in Europe. When ''Touge Legends'' was released in both, it was named ''Drift 2'' in the Americas and ''Kaido Racer 2'' in Europe.[[/note]]
11
12	The franchise remains a beloved CultClassic amongst hardcore racing game fans to this day, and has a passionate community in spite of Genki having formally ended all development on the franchise in 2007. A brief attempt was made to revive it in 2017 with mobile-exclusive ''Shutokou Battle Extreme'', but the game was pulled from the Japanese app store after ten months.
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14	The following games are all considered to be part of the TXR franchise: those released before the original ''Tokyo Xtreme Racer'' share several elements with later games, be they mechanics, locations, or characters:
15
16	* ''Shutokou Battle DRIFT KING Tsuchiya Keiichi & Bandō Masaaki'' (1997, Platform/SegaSaturn, Japan-only)
17	* ''Shutokō Battle R'' (1997, Platform/PlayStation, Japan-only)
18	* ''Kattobi Tune'' (1998, Platform/PlayStation, Japan-only)
19	* ''Tokyo Xtreme Racer'' (1999, Platform/SegaDreamcast, released as ''Shutokou Battle'' in Japan and ''Tokyo Highway Challenge'' in Europe)
20	* ''Tokyo Xtreme Racer 2'' (2000, Platform/SegaDreamcast, released as ''Shutokou Battle 2'' in Japan and ''Tokyo Highway Challenge 2'' in Europe)
21	* ''Tokyo Xtreme Racer Zero'' (2001, Platform/PlayStation2, released as ''Shutokou Battle Zero'' in Japan and ''Tokyo Xtreme Racer'' in Europe)
22	* ''Tokyo Xtreme Racer: Drift'' (2006, Platform/PlayStation2, released in Japan as ''Kaido Battle'' in 2003)
23	* ''Tokyo Xtreme Racer 3'' (2003, Platform/PlayStation2, released in Japan as ''Shutokou Battle 01'')
24	* ''Kaido Racer'' (2005, Platform/PlayStation2, released in Japan as ''Kaido Battle 2: Chain Reaction'' in 2004)
25	* ''Racing Battle: C1 Grand Prix'' (2005, Platform/PlayStation2, Japan-only)
26	* ''Street Supremacy'' (2006, [[Platform/PlayStationPortable PSP]], released in Japan as ''Shutokou Battle'' in 2005)
27	* ''Tokyo Xtreme Racer: Drift 2'' (2007, Platform/PlayStation2, released in Japan as ''Kaido Battle: Touge Legends'' in 2005 and ''Kaido Racer 2'' in Europe in 2006)
28	* ''Import Tuner Challenge'' (2006, Platform/Xbox360, released in Japan as ''Shutokou Battle X'' in the same year)
29	* ''Shutokou Battle Xtreme'' (January 2017 - November 2017, Android & [=iOS=], Japan-only)
30
31	----
32	!! The ''Tokyo Xtreme Racer'' series contains examples of the following:
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34	* AGodAmI:
35	** A handful of drivers across the entire series think of themselves as deities of the racing world. Special mention goes to God's Estuary, leader of DARTS: his Japanese street name is ''Kami''.
36	** God Shift Bunta, instead, is ''thought of'' as a near-deity by other street racers thanks to his unapproachable skill level, to the point they bestowed the street name upon him. In reality, he's a very chill guy who doesn't even care about the others' thoughts.
37	* AlwaysNight:
38	** Mainline games take place exclusively at night, no matter at what hour the InUniverseGameClock is set at. There's no visual difference between 6 PM and 6 AM, even when some Wanderers' appearances are tied to the time of day.
39	** Developing on the previous games, ''Import Tuner Challenge'' manages to push the trope to its absolute limit, as it divides nights into three visually distinct sections: Noon, from 6 PM to 11 PM; Midnight, from 11 PM to 4 AM; and Daybreak, from 4 AM onwards. As such, the player always races at night from a purely technical standpoint. It also doubles as EternalEquinox.
40	** ''Drift'' games do away with the trope completely, giving players a controllable day-and-night cycle: formal races, gymkhana events and entire courses are only open during the day, whereas the more informal one-on-one races happen during nighttime.
41	* AmazonBrigade: There's atleast one team composed entirely of female members in every game. The Cupid Arrows tend to usually carry the trope's flag in most games.
42	* AndTheAdventureContinues: In ''Tokyo Xtreme Racer 3'', defeating every mandatory opponent without achieving HundredPercentCompletion will cause an alternative ending cutscene to play, encouraging the player to resume playing and see their quest through.
43	--> ''The fantasy ends.''
44	--> ''You have arrived at the apex and achieved a glorious and solitary state of mind.''
45	--> ''Do you want to take a rest here, or do you want to continue racing?''
46	--> ''Only the machine knows that answer.''
47	* ArtificialBrilliance: The AI opponents are surprisingly varied in their behaviour, if not downright shrewd in some cases, especially for games this old. They will try to defend the fastest line and use your slipstream to pass you, and some will straight-up try to block your line. In the most egregious cases, they will brake check[[note]]brake suddenly in front of you, or just cause the brake lights to flash to indulge you to brake whilst they speed off[[/note]] and bump into you from behind and from the sides to gain space or force you into a mistake.
48	* ArtificialStupidity:
49	** The player's Autopilot, on the other hand, isn't the smartest cookie around, as it has a bad tendency to swerve around without reason, sometimes right into an exit ramp, bringing the night to an early end.
50	** And as smart as the AI is, as explained above, sometimes, opponents tend to take the wrong turn at a split in the road, which forces the race to end in a draw and causes them to end up on the opposite side of the map.
51	* ArtisticLicenseCars:
52	** The Western versions of the games use Imperial units with no option to switch to metric, despite the games taking place exclusively in Japan, which uses metric units.
53	** The Nissan Cefiro A31 and Silvia S13 in the western version of Shutokou Battle 01 were localized as Nissan Maxima and 200SX S13, respectively. For the former, Nissan did not sell the A31 Cefiro under the Maxima nameplate (although it was marketed as the Laurel Altima in some countries minus Japan and a few of Asian countries). For the latter, Nissan did market the S13 coupe outside Japan, only in North America and it came out with pop-up lights instead of fixed lights and under the 240SX nameplate.
54	* BadassDriver: Almost ''everyone'' is this, to varying degrees. It's almost a given, due to the skill required to be a successful street racer.
55	* BattleAura: Tokyo's Crimson Devil and Jintei, Nagoya's Flame Dragon, J and D3, and Osaka's God's Estuary have these in ''Tokyo Xtreme Racer 3''. They're considered the strongest racers across ''all of Japan'' by that point.
56	* BossBonanza: Seeks, Darkness Seven, NO LOSER, Baldy's and DARTS in ''Tokyo Xtreme Racer 3'' technically count for the trope, as the game classifies every single member of the team as a MiniBoss or a boss. Out of the lot, however, NO LOSER and DARTS are the only ones to qualify more traditionally, as each member is introduced with their own BossSubtitles.
57	* BossRush:
58	** A very common occurrence is to fight two bosses back-to-back, usually a zone's boss followed by the stage's boss. If [[MiniBoss Mini Bosses]] are counted, this goes up to three, as the player will necessarily fight a team's boss before facing the other two.
59	** More traditional examples include Nagoya's D3 and Osaka's DARTS from ''Tokyo Xtreme Racer 3''. The entirety of D3 needs to be beaten sequentially, whilst only DARTS' GT-R trio follows the same rules: the rest of the team can be defeated separatedly.
60	* {{Cap}}:
61	** There is an hard cap on the player's maximum speed in some games; in particular, it's set at 267 MPH [[note]]430 KM/H in metric[[/note]] in ''Zero'' and 230 MPH[[note]]370 KM/H in metric[[/note]] in ''3''.
62	** ''3'' also features an hard cap on the amount of CP players can have in the bank. It's 999,999,999 in the Japanese version, and 99,999,990 in the international release.
63	* CaptainErsatz: Pre-''Zero'', Genki did not bother to get the licenses to the cars or their names, instead using ones that strongly resembled them without being carbon copies. No longer the case for all games after ''Zero''.
64	* CelebrityCameo: Real-life professional race cars drivers and world-renowed tuners show up regularly as opponents in the ''Drift'' games. Their appearance in mainline games, instead, is limited to ''3''.
65	* ColourCodedForYourConvenience: When the player interacts with their opponents in ''Import Tuner Challenge'', normal rivals' silhouettes are colored green, whilst bosses' silhouettes are colored orange.
66	* CulturalTranslation: Crave's translation converted all measurements to Imperial units, even though the game is set in Japan. In particular, the Credits' value was unilaterally converted from yen to dollars for some reason, which lead to an infamous GameBreakingBug.
67	* DarkerAndEdgier: ''Street Supremacy'', the PSP-exclusive series entry, has a notably darker approach than all previous entries. Gone are the days of romanticized racing, epic sagas and heroic-but-humane drivers: replacing them is an all-out war between teams in their attempt to rule the Expressway all by themselves, no matter who they need to trample in the process. Character bios are more sinister, often containing feelings of resentment, frustration or downright hatred, and [[HappyEndingOverride Happy Ending Overrides]] abound. In a more literal sense, the game's palette and user interface are also far darker than usual.
68	* DegradedBoss: Tends to happen between entries. The most famous example are the Four Devils from the first game: Z.E.R.O and Death Driver became Wanderers starting with ''2'', whilst Exhaust Eve joined them in ''Street Supremacy'' before becoming a member of Be Legend in ''Import Tuner Challenge''.
69	* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu: Most other drivers will often talk amongst themselves about particularly talented or infamous racers, believing them to be on a completely unreachable level. When the player inevitably shows up and defeats those very same racers, they will openly freak out.
70	* DiegeticInterface:
71	** ''Racing Battle: C1 Grand Prix'' features different gauges on the player's HUD depending on what car they're currently driving. If the player replaces the stock gauges with a STACK data acquisition cluster, then that will replace them on the HUD.
72	** ''Import Tuner Challenge'' went even further, implementing detailed interiors that could be modified and a ''first person camera'' from behind the steering wheel, ''years'' before it started to become the norm in games.
73	* TheDreaded: Some teams carry this reputation across entire Expressways. More rare are individual drivers who have a notorious reputation, be it good or bad. The ones who stand out the most, though, are the Thirteen Devils: when the mere rumor of their reunion begins spreading in ''Touge Legends'', it causes a massive freak-out across all of Japan.
74	* DualBoss: Halfway through the battles agaisnt them, some team leaders and Wanderers will suddenly receive back-up under the form of their second-in-command or seniors. The player will need to defeat both to come out victorious.
75	* DubInducedPlotHole:
76	** The way Crave generally handled the translation of the series caused most of the lore to end up LostInTranslation or scrubbed entirely as they rewrote entire parts of bios and dialogue. Whilst this begunt die down starting with the first ''Drift'' game, mistakes and approximations still abounded.
77	** Highway Outlaw is a team made up of ''gaijin'': when the translation of ''2'' and ''Zero'' changed everyone's name into non-Japanese ones, the team lost the main reason behind its existance.
78	** "Shadow Eyes" Akiko Ogata is clearly a woman, as shown by her name and, in ''Touge Legends'', silhouette. She switched back and forth between male and female atleast three times in international releases.
79	* DubNameChange: All over the series. It was particularly egregious in the first three games, where real names were changed from Japanese into American-sounding ones. From the first ''Drift'' game onwards, instead, the changes have been more limited, usually to street names and occasionally to team names. Crave's translations of ''2'' and ''Zero'' changed the names of every driver into Western-sounding ones. This also accidentally caused Highway Outlaw, which is a team made up ''of'' gaijins, to lose its' original ''raison d'etre''.
80	* EasyModeMockery: Some games have an Easy difficulty option, which brings down the opponents' speed and causes the player to lose Spirit Points only when they get in front and begin pulling away, not from hitting walls, obstacles, and other cars as it normally would. The credits gained by winning battles this way are far less when compared to the norm, though.
81	* FourIsDeath:
82	** ''Tokyo Xtreme Racer'''s bosses are split amongst two ''four''-member teams, the ''Four'' Devas and the ''Four'' Devils.
83	** Death Driver, a former member of the Devas, has ''44-44'' on his license plate in ''Street Supremacy''.
84	** The TrueFinalBoss is #400 when seen on the list of opponents in both ''Zero'' and ''Import Tuner Challenge''.
85	* {{Foreshadowing}}: Region-dependant example. for ''Import Tuner Challenge''. [[spoiler: In the Japanese release, Mr. Iwasaki's Skyline [=350GT=] Coupè has the exact same license plate as Jintei's R34 GT-R. In the international release, the license plates reads "EMPEROR", as in "''Speed'' Emperor"; both reference Mr. Iwasaki's true identity as Jintei.]]
86	* FragileSpeedster: The sportier kei car trio[[note]]Suzuki Cappuccino, Honda Beat, Mazda AZ-1[[/note]] are this trope in spades: fast and nimble thanks to their small size and light weight, their key characteristics also makes them easy to push around by anything else on the road.
87	* GameBreakingBug:
88	** In ''Tokyo Xtreme Racer 3'', Crave converted the currency from yen to dollars, putting an hard cap at 99,999,990, whilst in the original Japanese version, it was at 999,999,999. However, an Osaka Wanderer, Whirlwind Fanfare, requires ''100,000,000 CP'' to be challenged. For just 10 CP, you're locked out of facing the TrueFinalBoss and HundredPercentCompletion, since in order to face him, you need to defeat every other one of the 599 drivers in the game. The only way to get around this is to use something capable of editing the Hex values of the game, such as a [=GameShark=].
89	** The first ''Drift'' game features a memory-related bug tied to how opponents are programmed to appear in [=PAs=]. As opponents' spawning is tied to an HEX value that changes anytime the player enters and exits any [=PA=]: players can abuse this feature by constantly entering and exiting a [=PA=] until the opponents they want to face appear. Do this too much, however, even accidentally, and the game will stop spawning any and all opponents altogether, making it completely unplayable.
90	* GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere: [[spoiler: The TrueFinalBoss of ''Tokyo Xtreme Racer 3'', a ghostly copy of the player's car. Even its' bio, hidden deep inside the game's code, doesn't clear up ''what'' it is. It could be a ghost, it could be ''the player'' has become a ghost, or it could be a metaphor that the only one for the player left to beat to become the Expressway's fastest was ''themselves''.]]
91	* GuideDangIt:
92	** The requirements to get Wanderers, drivers without a team and a unique sticker, to show up in order to challenge them. There are minuscule hints scattered throughout the various bios, but beyond those, the game gives you ''absolutely no clue'' on what to do. Only Averted by the time of ''Import Tuner Challenge'', where chatting people up at the PA will give you hints, else the game itself will straight up tell you what to do when looking at a specific Wanderer's profile.
93	** A particularly egregious case are the license plates. The player is not told they can change them once finalized... even though some Wanderers will only be challenged by cars wearing license plates with a specific prefecture (e.g. Green Wild Child), number combination (e.g. Caffeine X3), or ''hiragana'' characters.
94	** Caffeine X3, mentioned above, lives in infamy amongst players because of this reason. In ''Zero'', it was sufficient to be on a day multiple of 3 and have a car with a license plate filled with threes. His criteria stealthily changed in ''3'', adding the clause that players need to drive a car whose chassis code does contains 3s and no other number (e.g. the Nissan Fairlady Z33, or the Nissan Skyline R33). He reverted to his ''Zero'' requirements in all subsequent appearances.
95	** The ''Drift'' games are even worse in that regard, as ''every'' opponent has specific conditions that need to be met in order to appear. Whilst the vast majority of them merely require you to beat a previous opponent, some will instead show up during the daytime or only in very specific weather conditions. The games are generous with hints, this time having them pop up on the BBS message boards, but they're either vague or, in the Crave-published version, poorly translated at times.
96	* HelloInsertNameHere: The second and third ''Drift'' games allow the player to name their character's BBS account, by which they will be referred to on messageboards and e-mails. ''Touge Legends'', however, reveals that the player character of ''Chain Reaction'' has a CanonName: "Supremacy Murder" Tōru Zōshigaya.
97	* HeroicRROD: It's possible for players to overheat their cars' engine and wear their tires down to nothing if they do not take breaks at the various [=PAs=] every once in a while. Doing so will cause a massive drop in performance and make the car near undrivable.
98	* HoldTheLine: A surprisingly viable strategy, especially in point-to-point races, is to pull ahead of the opponent and repeatedly block them, especially against cars tuned with high acceleration but lower top speeds. Some opponents will do this to the player as well.
99	* InUniverseGameClock: The mainline games have these, tied to the console's own internal clock. They come into use when facing some Wanderers, who will only show up at a specific time.
100	* InfinityMinusOneSword:
101	** The Ford GT in Tokyo Xtreme Racer 3 can be either unlocked by beating Osaka's DARTS or, far more simply, defeating Tokyo's Yokohane Heavy Jet Fighter, leader of A.P.S. The GT is good enough to be a player's crutch for the remainder of the game, even though other cars outclass it.
102	** The [=DeTomaso=] Pantera can be unlocked early on in Osaka by defeating EIC@MSR. A well-rounded, rear-engine, rear-wheel drive sports coupè, it also has enormous tuning potential, and is capable of holding its own even in the game's late stages. It's a bit expensive, though, meaning that it might end up being the only car you can maintain until the point where only the Wanderers are left to defeat.
103	* InfinityPlusOneSword:
104	** ''Tokyo Xtreme Racer'' 3 introduces the Engine Swap mechanic, which allows the player to install a different engine on their car after reaching 1249 miles on their odometer. This will give quite a few cars a far higher tuning ceiling than stock and allow them to be put on par with some higher-end cars... but it's possible to clear the campaign without even hitting that number, something requires takes hours upon hours of aimless wandering.
105	** ''Touge Legends'', instead, introduced the "Befriending Opponents" mechanic, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin giving players a very small chance of befriending any opponent they defeat]]. The probability is very small, but any opponent the player defeats will let you loan their cars. This is not limited to normal rivals, either: every opponent, including Slashers, the Thirteen Devils, the Kingdom Twelve, [[spoiler:Forever Knights and Ground Zero]] can be befriended and loan the player their cars. Some, such as Dream Wraith's NSX [=NA1=], are so powerful they are borderline undriveable, but for those who can handle them, they break the game in half, making every single battle a triviality. However, due to the base requirements to face those opponents, on top of the grind required to befriend them, they're usually reduced to more of a fun distraction than a serious tool to help the player.
106	** Across the series, the Dodge Viper [=GTS=] and Honda NSX enjoy this reputation. They are the fastest, best handling cars of the entire roster with a very high tuning ceiling. They are also the most expensive stock cars in those games, the most expensive cars to tune, and require defeating some of the strongest opponents in order to be unlocked for purchase. Outside exceptional circumstances, by the point those two cars are unlocked, players will find no use in them.
107	* JapaneseRanguage: A minor case in ''Touge Legends'': players have the option to apply decals to the sides and hood of their cars, with the game dividing them in categories: "Stripe", "Brush", "Wild"... and then there's ''"Frame"''. Every decal in that category looks like a ''flame''.
108	* JokeCharacter: Daihatsu cars in general are this trope, as they weren't exactly built with performance in mind. Although several members of RATT drive the Copen, its FF[[note]]Front engine, Front Wheel Drive[[/note]] layout makes it far inferior to the other sports kei cars and make them easy pickings. The Midget II, though, takes the cake. It has the worst stats out of the entire series, both stock and fully tuned, and is clearly not meant to be used seriously.
109	* LethalJokeCharacter:
110	** The Suzuki Cappuccino is this in ''Tokyo Xtreme Racer 3'': the lightest car in the entire roster, with one of the smallest engines, even Rolling Guy's [=AE86s=] can overwhelm one under the right circumstances. However, [[MagikarpPower once the 1246 miles needed to unlock an engine swap are reached]], the option to swap in a rotary engine becomes available, making the tiny Cappuccino an honest threat on the Loops.
111	** Station wagons and minivans. They are very heavy, and do not look like they belong on either the expressways or the mountain passes, but their large size and engines, combined with a clever use of weight shifting, makes them fearsome opponents. There are even entire teams, such as Rhythm Box, the Black Knights and Super Speed Wagon whose members only drive station wagons.
112	* LifeMeter:
113	** A central mechanic, which makes the series stand out in the racing game genre. Both players and and opponents have an health bar known as an "SP Meter"[[note]]With "SP" standing for "Spirit Points"; it's less the player's physical health, and more their psyche and fighting spirit[[/note]] which will slowly drain over time for the chasing car. The larger the gap becomes, the faster the bar drains. The bar will also drain whenever something is hit, be it the side of the road, a toll booth, or another car. Much like in a fighting game, the loser is who has their SP Meter empty first.
114	** The ''Drift'' series keeps the SP Meter, but introduces events and battles where it isn't used, such as time trials and point-to-point sprints. The latter are later introduced in ''Import Tuner Challenge'' as well.
115	* LighterAndSofter: The ''Drift'' sub-series is this to mainline entries thanks to a multiplicity of factors, such as a day-and-night cycle, the possibility for players to interact with their opponents, the more formalized setting, and the more casual and hopeful presentation of the players' goals. It also has, in a more literal case of the trope, a far lighter and softer user interface with plenty of white, blue and yellow, compared to the mainline entries' black and grey.
116	* LocalizedNameInANonLocalizedSetting: When ''Shutokou Battle 0'' was localized as ''Tokyo Xtreme Racer Zero'', a lot of rival names were changed from Japanese to Western-sounding ones, even though the game still takes place on Tokyo's expressways. Starting with ''3'', the names switched back to Japanese.
117	* MeaningfulName: The vast majority of racers' street names and team names express fundamental concepts about their nature, philosophy, or even personal life. The few remaining ones that don't fit under this trope exist solely because of RuleOfCool.
118	* MightyGlacier: Generally speaking, the larger the car the heavier it will be. Those cars tendentially have good-to-great acceleration and push around lighter vehicles, making them ideal [[HoldTheLine to block opponents and pull away]], but their top speed leaves much to be desired, their handling is comparable to an iceberg drifting on water, and they eat through tires far faster than their lighter counterparts. The most representative example is the Ford Mustang Mach 1 from ''3''.
119	* MirrorBoss:
120	** [[spoiler:The final boss of ''Tokyo Xtreme Racer 3'' is this, [[GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere a head-to-head battle against a ghostly version of your car that can phase through solid objects such as traffic and toll booths]].]]
121	** A more accidental case can happen whenever the player challenges team bosses whilst driving the same make and model of their car. ''3'' rewards the player for doing this with a very well-hidden EasterEgg.
122	* NitroBoost: Planned, but ultimately scrapped in ''Tokyo Xtreme Racer 3'', even though it still plays a lore-relevant role. N2O makes its first proper appearance in ''Street Supremacy'', and returns in ''Import Tuner Challenge''.
123	* NoFullNameGiven: For some bizarre reason, the international releases of the first game completely axed the real names of every opponent: as such, only their street names remain.
124	* NoobCave:
125	** The C1 Inner Loop will be this at the very beginning of most games. When selecting a starting point for the first time, the cursor will always appear somewhere on the C1, prompting players to start there. Thanks to its layout, full of twists, turns and ramps, it's a very low-power-friendly area, and the first teams that appear there are the weakest ones of the Expressway. However, once the first few bosses are defeated, the opponents' level on the Loop will even out with those across the map.
126	** Hakone serves the role in ''Drift'' games instead. It's a relatively simple mountain pass without any particular gimmick or challenging layout. Daylight events are very approachable, allowing players to begin putting some decent amounts of money in the bank, whilst night battles are consistently some of the easiest across each game, due to the low skill level of local drivers. Hakone is paired up with Hiroshima in ''Drift 2'', which is more or less near identical in all things except marginally higher pay-outs.
127	* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: When street racers interact with one another, they tend to do so by using their street names. That, however, is out of convenience more than anything, as some do know each other's real names, and the player will learn their opponents' upon defeating them.
128	* PropRecycling: Sticker sprites were recycled for all games between ''2'' and ''Street Supremacy''. On a minor note, Shadow Rebel's sticker was modified and given to Rolling Guy for their appearances in ''Drift'' games.
129	* QuestGiver: Instead of battling the player directly, some rivals in the ''Drift'' games and ''Racing Battle: C1 Grand Prix'' will challenge them to beat their record in a time trial or drift run.
130	* QuirkyMiniBossSquad:
131	** Originally, it was the Four Devas in the first game. They were replaced by the Thirteen Devils and the Zodiac starting with ''2''.
132	** The Kingdom Twelve play this role in ''Drift 2'', parallel to the Thirteen Devils.
133	** Finally, the latest in a long tradition are ''Import Tuner Challenge'''s PHANTOM NINE.
134	* RainOfBlood: Battling Bloodhound in rainy conditions in ''Tokyo Xtreme Racer 3'' will cause the weather to turn stormy and the rain to turn dark red in color.
135	* {{Retool}}: The original ''Tokyo Xtreme Racer'', released for the Dreamcast in 1999, was this to Genki's earlier attempts at racing games, retaining the same drivers, but with brand-new lore, mechanics, and an open-world map.
136	* RegionalBonus:
137	** NSTC-US and PAL versions of the first game feature the Mistubishi Eclipse 2G and 3G. Later games would add the Eclipse to the car roster for all versions.
138	** Likewise, NSTC-US and PAL versions of ''Zero'' feature the sixth-generation Honda Civic Si Coupè, which was exclusively sold in North American markets: it was added as part of a cross-promotional efforts for the soon-to-be-released ''Film/TheFastAndTheFurious''. Furthermore, as part of the promotion, international releases also contain the film's trailer and exclusive, F&F-themed stickers for the player to use.
139	* SchrodingersCanon: ''Street Supremacy'' exists in a bizarre canonical grey zone. Whereas some elements line up with previously established lore, others clash horribly with it. Furthermore, ''Import Tuner Challenge'' may or may not be referencing to it, and further lore established in that game seems to override ''Street Supremacy'' in its entirety.
140	* SerialEscalation: ''Racing Battle: C1 Grand Prix'' took the core idea of all games and massively expanded on it, by creating a professional circuit racing league which, amongst other things, utilizes Japan's entire highway system as closed circuits.
141	* ShoutOut:
142	** The leader and second-in-command of Rotary Revolution [[Manga/InitialD are rich brothers who drive a white RX-7 FC and a yellow RX-7 FD]].
143	** Several opponents in ''Drift 2'' are straight-up parodies of ''Manga/InitialD'' and ''Manga/OverRev'' characters, with whom they'll usually share their car with some minor differences.
144	** One of the franchise's signature bosses drives [[spoiler:[[Manga/WanganMidnight an impossibly fast dark blue Fairlady [=S30Z=], with the boss themselves being completely shrouded in mystery.]].
145	** Two Tricksters in ''Drift 2'', Lightning Shift and God Shift Bunta, are clear references to [[Manga/InitialD Takumi and Bunta Fujiwara]], down to driving the exact same cars.
146	** Crimson Devil is a giant [[Anime/MobileSuitGundam Char Aznable]] reference. From his unique sticker, to his red Skyline GT-R [=R34=], which goes from having Commander Zaku's horn on the front of the hood to insane body kits modeled after the Z'Gok E.
147	* {{Superboss}}: In a first-and-only for the series, [[spoiler:Ground Zero]] is this in ''Touge Legends''. The player can only face him after having defeated the TrueFinalBoss [[spoiler:Forever Knights]], and he'll be waiting for them all the way back where they first begun their journey. He's also a brutal battle, bordering on unfair, as he drives an experimental vehicle based off of an [=R34=] GT-R with incredible performance capabilities. Furthermore, as he doesn't count towards HundredPercentCompletion, defeating him is nothing more than a BraggingRightsReward.
148	* TerribleTrio:
149	** Nagoya's D3, made up of "The Rook" Hiroaki Sakuraba, "The Bishop" Shin'ichirō Kanaya, and "The Knight" Keita Arai.
150	** DARTS' second unit, made up of Humanity Kawasaki, Earth Tadokoro, and Heaven Nagai.
151	** Two more minor examples, Desire and Oboru, show up in ''Import Tuner Challenge''.
152	* TeruTeruBozu: Featured in ''Touge Legends'', where they can be used to manipulate the weather. [[NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer No, really.]] They are very expensive, but downright mandatory in order to draw out specific opponents who, at first, will only show up with a specific weather.
153	* TokyoIsTheCenterOfTheUniverse:
154	** As the ''hashiriya''[[note]]Japanese for "street racer"[[/note]] phenomenon was largely concentrated in the Tokyo area during its' heyday, it becomes obvious as to why most of the action would be set in the city. The trope is later done away with completely in ''Tokyo Xtreme Racer 3'', which also features Nagoya and Osaka as equally important, only to return with a vengeance in ''Import Tuner Challenge''. [[spoiler:To the point that Nagoya and Osaka teams mount expeditions to Tokyo to prove their worth.]]
155	** Averted in the ''Drift'' series, as no race take places within the Tokyo metropolitan area or prefecture due to the absence of mountain passes in the area. Some mountain passes are located in the Kanto region, though.
156	* TrueFinalBoss:
157	** UNKNOWN serves as this role in every mainline game except for ''3''; they'll only appear to challenge the player once every other opponent has been defeated atleast once.
158	** The Drift sub-series games do not have one in the traditional sense: rather, the last opponent the player will face in the storyline slots into the trope, with Hamagaki in the first game and [[spoiler:Forever Knights]] in the second and third.
159	* UnintentionallyUnwinnable: ''Whirlwind Fanfare'', in the NTSC-US and PAL versions of ''Tokyo Xtreme Racer 3'', cannot be raced against without using an external cheating device. This was caused by the translation team converting the in-game currency from yen to dollars and placing an hard cap on it without adjusting the requirements to challenge her or fellow Wanderer Exotic Butterfly.[[note]]Both require the player to have a minimum amount of currency in the bank. Whirlwind Farfare's requirement is ten credits beyond the hard cap, meaning it is impossible for her to spawn without cheating.[[/note]]. As a result of this error, HundredPercentCompletion and access to the TrueFinalBoss became impossible to international players.
160	* UnusableEnemyEquipment:
161	** Happens in ''Import Tuner Challenge'', where several opponents drive cars that the player cannot buy, even in stock form. The most egregious example is the Toyota [=AE86=], which shows up as the car of choice of Rolling Guy members, as usual, but is not available to the player. Their team leader's custom version is available to be bought, however, and it becomes necessary to own in order to complete the game.
162	** Likewise, in ''Drift 2'', the Toyota Verossa cannot be bought, in spite of it being used by several rivals and a couple of bosses. It can be loaned from them, however.
163	* WakeUpCallBoss:
164	** Betrayal Jack Knife, in every single game he appears in. Usually having twice the horsepower of the player's car by that point, he's also the first driver to have a downright erratic driving style, blocking and bumping into the player with impudence. First-time players, who will not know he's coming, will usually end up thoroughly trashed. His appearance serves as a signal for players to start upgrading their cars.
165	** NO LOSER will take this role should the player decide to start in Osaka in ''Tokyo Xtreme Racer 3''. They'll be the first opponents you race against with all-wheel-drive cars, and will serve as an introduction to [[DualBoss Dual Bosses]] and [[BossRush Boss Rushes]].
166	* WideOpenSandbox:
167	** The player's ultimate goal is to defeat every single street racer to lay a claim to being the very best: thus, there are only so many ways one can progress. However, there is no time limit to this quest, and the game does not railroad players in any way beyond that, leaving them free to mess around and challenge anyone they come across, even repeatedly. This extends to the map: whilst players can only drive on the Expressway, they're free to roam around it, gradually unlocking more areas to explore as teams and bosses are defeated.
168	** The ''Drift'' games lack the free roaming aspect, and still maintain the ultimate goal of becoming the greatest street racer of Japan, but otherwise leave the player free to play them as they see fit. If there are any limitations, those are of a technical nature in the first ''Drift'' game: ''Chain Reaction'' and ''Touge Legends'' leave the player near unrestrained.
169	* YearX: ''Drift'''s opening cutscene reveals the game, and by extension the entire series, takes place in 20XX.

Context VideoGame / TokyoXtremeRacer