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"Riiiiiidge Racer!"
— Then-Sony Computer Entertainment president (later president and CEO of its parent company) Kaz Hirai at E3 2006

Ridge Racer is a series of racing games created by Namco and initially released in arcades in 1993. They found greater popularity on the PlayStation, where the first Ridge Racer game was announced as a launch title, owing much of its success to its emphasis on fast-paced racing over super-realism. It's become a tradition for a new PlayStation console to have a new Ridge Racer game as a launch title, and the 3DS, DS and Xbox 360 were launched with one as well. So far, seven official games have been released, mostly on the PlayStation. An eighth game, dubbed Ridge Racer Unbounded, was released in 2012 and developed by Bugbear Entertainment (developers of the first two FlatOut games).

Ridge Racer takes place in its own fictional universe, dubbed "Ridge City", complete with its own fictional line of cars and in-game brands (many of which are named after other Namco games). Even the soundtrack is made in-house, atypically for racing games. Starting with the PlayStation Portable games, Ridge Racer began to focus on flashy, hyper-unrealistic drifting; braking is made obsolete as the game locks you to the track when drifting. Unbounded toned down the drifting in favor of large-scale destruction.

The mascot of the series is the fictional idol character Reiko Nagase, who occasionally cameos in Namco's other games.

  • Ridge Racer (1993 - worldwide; PS port 1994 - Japan, 1995 - USA/EU), for arcades and the PlayStation (launch title).
  • Ridge Racer 2 (1994 - worldwide) for arcades.
  • Ridge Racer Revolution (1995 - Japan, 1996 - USA/EU), for PlayStation. The console port of Ridge Racer 2.
  • Rave Racer (1995 - worldwide) for arcades.
  • Rage Racer (1996 - Japan, 1997 - USA/EU), for PlayStation; considered the third installment of the series and the first to be made solely for console.
  • R4: Ridge Racer Type 4 (1998 - Japan, 1999 - USA/EU), for PlayStation.
  • Ridge Racer 64 (2000), for Nintendo 64; features tracks from Ridge Racer and Ridge Racer 2 and its very own set of desert tracks exclusive to the N64. Unlike the other entries, it was developed by Nintendo Software Technology instead of Namco, and never officially released in Japan.
  • Ridge Racer V (2000), for PlayStation 2 (launch title).
  • Ridge Racer V: Arcade Battle (2001 - Japan) for arcades. Stripped-down arcade port of V.
  • R: Racing Evolution (2003 - Japan, 2004 USA/EU), for PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube and Xbox.
  • Ridge Racer DS (2004 - USA, 2005 - EU), for Nintendo DS; a port of Ridge Racer 64.
  • Critical Velocity (2005 - Japan), for PlayStation 2; plot-based action-adventure, Wide-Open Sandbox driving game. First Japan-exclusive Ridge Racer game.
  • Ridge Racer(s) (PSP) (2004 - Japan, 2005 - USA/EU), for PlayStation Portable; mixed new vehicles with tracks from the previous games.
  • Ridge Racer 6 (2005), for Xbox 360 (launch title).
  • Pac-Man World Rally (2006), for PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube, PlayStation Portable, and Microsoft Windows. A related Mascot Racer with its own page.
  • Ridge Racer(s) 2 (PSP) (2006), for PlayStation Portable.
  • Ridge Racer 7 (2006), for PlayStation 3 (launch title) - Allowed complete customization of vehicles from body kits to engine parts and paint jobs. One of the few PS3 games to run at 1080p and 60 FPSnote 
  • Pachislot Ridge Racer (2008), for PlayStation 2. A pachislot Role-Playing Game developed by Yamasa.note 
  • Ridge Racer Accelerated (2009), for iOS and Android devices; a reformulated port of Ridge Racers 2.
  • Ridge Racer 3D (2011), for Nintendo 3DS (launch title).
  • Ridge Racer (2012), for Play Station Vita (launch title).
  • Ridge Racer Unbounded (2012), for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC (developed by Bugbear Entertainment)
  • Ridge Racer Driftopia (2013), a Free-to-Play game, based mostly on Unbounded; developed by Bugbear for PlayStation 3 and PC.
  • Drift Spirits (2013), for iOS and Android devices. Like R: Racing, it features real-life cars and primarily focused on tap-based drifting on touge and (later) highway streets.
  • Ridge Racer Slipstream (2013), for iOS and Android devices; developed to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the series.

Not to be confused with Cliff Racer. Now has an Awesome Music page.


This series provides examples of:

  • Action Girl: Rena Hayami in R Racing: Evolution. Gina Cavali is also this in the same game as well.
  • Announcer Chatter: Ridge Racer 64 had a terribly overenthusiastic announcer, Ridge Racer Type 4 had a calmer, much better announcer with a deep echo on his voice, and Ridge Racer V had a not-so-bad radio DJ. Rage Racer had Reiko.
    • Starting from Ridge Racer 6, there are multiple announcers: 6 lets you choose between a normal, ultra-hammy announcer; Heihachi Mishima and Reiko Nagase; 7 and 3D have both a normal male announcer and Reiko Nagase at the same time; Vita, instead, lets you choose between Reiko and the normal male announcer.
  • Artifact of Doom: The Soldat Crinale is considered to be one: according to its description in 7, it can cause heavy addiction at the first race with it already, and if not handled well, the results can be deadly. Scared?
  • Big Bad: Monstrous in Ridge Racer 6 and 7, and Devil Trailer in Pachislot Ridge Racer.
    • The Soldat Crinale, earlier on known as the 13th Racing, comes across as this in most of the series.
    • In R: Racing Evolution, Gina Cavali was this until her Heel–Face Turn. The GVI team is this after Gina and Eddie left.
  • Boss Game: Most entries in the series do so.
  • Boss Rush: Battle Royal mode in Ridge Racer V, where you are pitted against all four bosses in a single race, and you will use one of the boss cars.
  • Bragging Rights Reward: Clearing the GP in Rage Racer maxes out your eg. It's not particularly useful if you're not going for 1st on every Class, and all of it becomes obsolete in Extra GP where your eg and purchased cars don't carry over.
  • Broken Bird: Shinji Yazaki in Type 4 acts as a wannabe cool dude who only cares about your results, but slowly mellows over time and finally fesses up about how he accidentally killed Enki Gilbert's son during a race due to their rivalry, realizing how he's setting you up for it to happen again with his attitude.
  • Brutal Bonus Level: The MAX Tours in the North American version of Ridge Racers and in Ridge Racers 2, and the (only available on Hard difficulty) Ultimate GP in Ridge Racer V.
  • City of Adventure: Ridge City must be well off or it's citizens must be not too annoyed to allow many races that effectively closes off major arterial routes and even airports!!
  • Company Cross References: Namco is always sticking names of past games and characters left and right throughout the series. See Shout-Out below.
  • The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: In the early arcade-style games, the CPU racers are more "suggestions" in the game's design than they are fair competitors. They will always speed ahead of you at the start to the point that the pair at the head of the pack are almost invariably a mile ahead of everyone else, and then the racing is more down to perfecting your play like a time attack and overtaking them as a result rather than focusing strictly on the racing aspect. This is especially prevalent in defeating boss cars, who will consistently beat your starting vehicles in a straightaway and have obscene acceleration, but once you unlock them the stats often don't line up with that performance whatsoever. And of course, who can forget the Rubberband AI that utterly snap on anything above the beginning difficulties?
    • This only gets worse the further in the series you get; the AI were turned into actual racers you have to directly compete with, but introducing Nitrous into the later games resulted in AI that can pull out a boost whenever they pleased, regardless of the last time they boosted, and even flagrantly breaking "Reverse Nitro" race rules. And those boss races only became more blatant in how much they cheat, as the games very much push the "you have an inferior car" angle hard after a point.
    • Also the perfect case of just how much the computer cheats is in car collisions. If you tap an opponent while trying to pass them, you can expect to lose a great deal of your speed you've worked so hard to build up, while they're either non-plussed or briefly go faster just to punish you more for the mistake they may have caused to begin with. And if a boss car decides to drive through you, they'll utterly cripple your speed and proceed to do that very thing, all but costing you the race.
  • Cool Car: In R4, your cars become cooler and more badass depending on how well you finish during the storyline races.
    • The series in general has nothing but cool cars. The fictional brands include Kamata (Japanese, similar to Nissan and Toyota), Danver (American, similar to Chevrolet and Dodge), Soldat (French-Italian, similar to Lamborghini and Pagani), Assoluto (Italian, similar to Ferrari), Age (French, similar to Renault and Citroën), Lucky & Wild (Canadian, similar to Ford and Chrysler), Terrazi (Japanese, similar to Honda), Himmel (German, similar to Porsche) and Gnade (German, similar to BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi).
    • The Special cars in all games. Some of them are pimped out hot-rods, others are little speedsters, others are Formula One car look-a-likes, others are antigravity racers that would look like if it was lifted from an F-Zero game, others are tremendously weird, others are rocket cars, but, let's just say it, these cars are absolutely epic. There are also the Kamata Angelus, the Angel car, which is very fast and easy to handle, posing a big threat even to the more experienced players, and the (badass) Soldat Crinale, the Devil car, which is the fastest car in the game, but handles like the road's made of ice.
  • Cosmetic Award: The MAX Tours in the two Ridge Racers games offer nothing functional for completing them.
    "There are no prizes. Race for your honor!"
  • Crossover:
  • Cute Bruiser: The Age Ecureuil, a tiny little car that is considerably smaller than every other car in the games it appears in and only has one gear. However, it has a blistering top speed (although the lowest of the four "boss" cars in R4), insane acceleration, and ridiculously sharp cornering and handling.
  • Darker and Edgier: Rage Racer, Critical Velocity and Unbounded are this compared to the other games in the franchise.
  • Defeat Equals Friendship: In R: Racing Evolution, after several losses Gina Cavalli realizes how she misjudged Rena, and by the end of the game the two have joined together on the same racing team, and have a friendly rivalry.
  • Defeat Means Playable: All of the boss cars are unlocked this way, via a one-on-one race.
  • Defrosting Ice King: In R4, Shinji Yazaki of Pac Racing Club and Enki Glibert of Racing Team Solvalou paint quite the first impression on you by not only being harsh on you, but not even giving a shit if you win first because you didn't win in the way they want you to. They warm up to you over time, however; Yazaki notes later that you can screw up a race and he'll still believe in you, and Gilbert starts to grow concerned for you and begs you to just survive the final race, victory or nonote , because he doesn't want a repeat of the racing accident that claimed his son's life.
  • Difficult, but Awesome: A lot of the special machines, particularly in Ridge Racers 6 and 7 when there were numerous ones of them, qualify. Oh, sure, cars like the Kamata Angelus/Angel are good at everything, but there are some quirky special machines out there, each with their own perks, including:
    • The long-running — and implied Big BadSoldat Crinale/Devil, which turns as if the car is constantly driving on ice, but consistently boasts one of the highest top speeds in the game.
    • The Ridge Racer 6/7 Terrazi Terrajin, a rocket car with only two gears which can get ridiculous rocket starts precisely for that reason.
    • The Ridge Racer Type 4 Age Ecureuil,a single gear little bugger which looks like a BMW Isetta and corners so absurdly tight at top speed that it can be hard to avoid smacking into the walls when learning to drive it.
    • Type 4's Assoluto Vulcano and Ridge Racers 6 and 7's Pronzione, which can hover around corners at absurd speeds and somehow still need a transmission with separate drive gears.
    • Some of the nitrous types in 7 breathe this trope. Example given, the General Resource Reverse Charge nitrous, which only charges when the boost is active during a drift. Use it wrong, and the rest of it is gone for the duration of the race, but use it right, and you can have endless level 3 nitrous boosts.
      • The real trick to using Reverse Charge (which makes up an entire race type in 6) is to only use nitrous if you're confident you can drift a turn at max speed. It's a tradeoff: you cannot charge nitrous if you're not drifting above your top speed but it's like having an enhanced ultimate charge effect where your tanks refill at a ridiculous rate. Using nitrous coming into a turn below your top speed is almost a sure thing that you'll end up burning more than you earn.
  • Divergent Character Evolution: Minus preserving the Palette Swap status of cars that are clearly meant to be ones of each other (IE: RT Pink/Blue Mappy), the Ridge Racer 1/Revolution cars in 64 were given new, distinct models from each other, to the point where only F/A Racing resembles its PS1 counterpart.
  • Dynamic Loading: The PS1 port of Ridge Racer and Ridge Racer Revolution have Dynamic Loading Mini Games, the former being a shortened Galaxian stage, and the latter being one of the "Galactic Dancin'" Challenging Stages from Galaga '88. This led Namco to patent mini-games during loading times.
    • Ridge Racers has Rally-X during the initial load screen (though this can be disabled via a menu); scoring 50,000 points or higher and completing PRO Tour 18 unlocks the Rally-X secret car mentioned under Guest Fighter. Similarly, Ridge Racer 6 has Pac-Man, while 7 has Xevious.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness: The earlier games have stricter penalties for collisions; collisions with another car while drifting in particular slows the player to parking lot speeds. The original game, 2, and Revolution in particular each only have one course with a variant that puts the player on a longer route, but still takes them through much of the original course.
  • Easter Egg:
    • Since the entirety of the PS1 version of Ridge Racer can be loaded into RAM, it is possible to pop out the disc during gameplay and insert a music CD in its place to play your own music over the game.
    • R4 has one if you win five races with PRC, a sweet fax praising your success from none other than Reiko, saying that while she has to be impartial in public, in private, as it's her home country team, PRC are her favourites.
  • Easy-Mode Mockery: In Rage Racer, new cars from Grade 4 onwards do not have automatic transmission, forcing you to use manual. This does not apply to Grade 4 cars that are upgrades of lower-grade cars.
  • Expy: Assoluto Squaldon in Rage Racer, to Soldat Crinale in the main series.
  • Fake Longevity:
    • Collecting all 320 cars in R4 is a straight pain in the ass, as you get a brand new car in Grand Prix Mode based on the team, maker, which car you raced with in a given leg and which positions you finished in in that leg of the Grand Prix. The worst part is that many of the cars have statistically minor differences from each other, but count as different cars anyway. You also need to collect every single car in the game to unlock Pac-Man.
    • After completing Classes 1 through 5 of Rage Racer, your reward, aside from being awarded 99,999,999 eg, is the Extra GP, which is...all five prior classes all over again, only with the tracks in reverse. Completing the Extra GP is required to unlock Class 6. Oh, and all that eg you earned for completing the standard GP? It doesn't carry over to Extra GP. Time to start with the Gnade Esperanza all over again!
  • Fanservice: The hidden menu look in the PS Vita version has quite the sexy Reiko Nagase in the background, wearing a skimpy latex racing suit based on the Soldat Crinale. The normal menu isn't safe from this either.
  • Final Boss: The Soldat Crinale/13th Racing in the original, Critical Velocity, 7 and Unbounded; the Kamata Angelus/White Angel in Revolution; the Assoluto Squaldonnote  in Rage Racer; the four hidden cars in Type 4 and V; the Screamin' Eagle and its hidden counterpart Crazy Canuck in 64; the Monstrous in 6; the Rally-X player car in 3D; and again the Kamata Angelus, now known as the Zihua Archangel, in Vita.
    • In Drift Spirits, the Emperor (real name Sagara Shou) drives a Nissan GT-R. The night-race arc has "God's Hand" Hyuga in his custom first-generation Nissan Fairlady Z.
  • Flying Car: The Assoluto Vulcano in R4. "Car" is a bit of a stretch at this point, as it's basically a flying tank-ish thing that happens to vaguely resemble a car.
  • Four Is Death: R4 and V have exactly four boss cars.note 
  • Gaiden Game: R: Racing Evolution. It's actually very close to Toca Race Driver/Pro Race Driver (a spiritual predecessor to GRID), with real cars, real tracks and a story mode with cutscenes.
    • If you are looking a real Ridge Racer Gaiden Game, try Critical Velocity.
    • To some extent, Unbounded.
    • Drift Spirits in the mobile front: Unlike most Ridge Racer mobile titles, it focuses on tap-based drifting through touge streets, with real cars to boot; Ridge Racer cars were added during a 2016 crossover event.
  • Genre Shift: R4 is considerably more down-to-earth than the usual arcadey Ridge Racer games, before and after. It lacks the iconic Kamata Angelus and Soldat Crinale.
    • R: Racing Evolution not only was more down-to-earth, but averts Featureless Protagonist, being more story-driven, and features real cars.
  • Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: Monstrous. Since this machine has no maker stated, it makes this machine even more mysterious. Racers have to wonder if where did this machine come from. Even Kamata Angelus and Soldat Crinale users don't know about it.
    • The maker Zihua from Vita does count as this, but it's not completely out of nowhere.
  • Guest Fighter: The player car from Rally-X in Ridge Racers. Starts off the line with rather slow acceleration, but soon reaches a very high top speed, even outrunning series mainstay supercars like the Angelus and Crinale. And it has the longest and most powerful Nitrous Boost in the gamenote .
    • The Vita game features the Hornet Stock Car from Daytona USA as DLC. Yes, a car from a completely different series gets an appearance in this game as DLC, as well as its own track. This is also the first time that a car from a series not owned by Namco appears in the Ridge Racer series.
      • Didn't we mention that Ridge Racer and Daytona USA had a Fandom Rivalry back in the days?
  • Hood Ornament Hottie: Starting with Rage Racer, where Reiko Nagase became an unofficial mascot for the series.
  • In Name Only: Unbounded started development as a new IP before Bandai Namco decided that the game should be retooled into a Ridge Racer reboot/spinoff.
  • Insistent Terminology: Some entries in the series refuses to call cars "cars", using "machines" instead, as some of the unlockable vehicles aren't actually cars (not even concept cars).
  • Internal Homage: Every course in Ridge Racers.
  • Irony: Reiko was first featured in Rage Racer. Her voice and looks portray her as anything but angry, and as the series went on she only got sweeter.
  • Just Toying with Them: In the first two PS1 games, the boss cars will race the first lap at maximum speed, usually passing the player after the smallest of mistakes. After completing the first lap, the boss will stop and wait on its starting position until the player passes it again, giving the player another chance to stay ahead.
  • Last Lousy Point: The 321st car in R4, which is unlocked by collecting all 320 other cars in the game. Note that the vast majority of cars are awarded for performances other than "finish first in every face", so you have to repeatedly Do Well, But Not Perfect to unlock every single car. It's Pac-Man. Literally Pac-Man on wheels, it has solid stats all around, glows in dark areas, and plays its own theme music, "Eat 'Em Up!", over everything else by default.
  • Lethal Joke Character: Deliberately used on some cars throughout series.
  • Like a Son to Me: Playing R4's GP Mode under Racing Team Solvalou has your leader Enki Gilbert warming up to you over time and telling you that you remind him of his late son, who died in a racing accident. This isn't exactly a good thing for him, as while he stops demanding perfection from you and treating you with no respect even for a first-place finish, he also starts getting very concerned for your safety and begs you to just finish the final race even if it means coming in lastnote , because he doesn't want you to fall to the same fate his that son did.
  • Marathon Level: Many racetracks in the series are 6 or 7 kilometers long, however, the game's exaggerated drifting physics let you tackle the circuits in times that are impossible in Real Life.
    • A straighter example is the 99 Trial in V, which consists of 99 laps of Sunny Beach/Seaside Route 765 in Extra class. It takes about an hour and a half to complete, all for simply a trophy.
  • Mission-Pack Sequel: Ridge Racers 2 is the same thing as Ridge Racers with a few new courses, modes, and music tracks. Even the menu interface is perfectly identical to the original.
  • My Rules Are Not Your Rules: In "No Nitrous" races in 6, you'll see CPU racers firing off nitrous when you can't earn any. Would hit The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard if not for the fact that even without nitrous your car remains competitive.
  • Nice Guy: Robert Chrisman, your immediate superior in Dig Racing Team in R4, is the kindest of the four coaches in the game, never throwing shade at you even if you don't come in first. Unfortunately, every time you have a non-1st win, he also tells you that his boss isn't terribly pleased with what happened, but nonetheless he's very cool-headed about it.
  • Nintendo Hard: Winning races in this series requires tightly drifting your corners, avoiding those walls and car collisions, and making sure your speed never takes a harsh drop while dealing with Rubberband AI. With the arcade mentality of the classic titles, this means you have to race almost perfectly past Novice difficulty or you'll never hit first. Once the games became more racing-oriented, you can bet the AI inevitably ramp up by abusing infinite nitrous and more aggressive play. And the boss cars? They will go so fast and cheat so hard that they easily surpass anything you could hope to accomplish, serving as ultimate challenges of your track and vehicle mastery so far.
  • Nitro Boost:
    • Introduced in the PSP games, where you earn nitrous by drifting, and you can have up to 3 tanks at once. Starting from Ridge Racer 6 was the ability to use multiple tanks at once, to a maximum of 3. The more tanks you use, the longer and more powerful is the boost.
    • Unbounded also has Nitrous, but in two forms, you only get one bar, and straight-on jumps now also charge them (in previous games, you had to be drifting just before the jump for charging to take place). The first is the plain old Boost bar, available in the Shindo Racing events. The second is the Power bar, which is seen in every other game mode, where it's used not only to boost speed, but to destroy parts of the environment or take down other vehicles.
    • Drift Spirits works differently in which you're preloaded with three nitro boosts per race, and each race use the nitrous inventory from the player's account.
  • Nostalgia Level: Ridge Racers and its sequel on the PSP, full stop.
  • NTSC-U Bonus: The US version of Ridge Racers adds the Max Tours, the hardest tours in the entire game.
  • Oddball in the Series: R: Racing Evolution, Critical Velocity and Unbounded.
    • R: Racing Evolution is a "simcade" racer with none of the nonsense drifting of the main series and features licensed vehicles and real-world courses. It is still considered part of the Ridge Racer family, however.
    • Critical Velocity is a plot-based Wide-Open Sandbox heavily centered around pursuits and getaways, similar to the Driver series.
    • Unbounded eschews the elegance and professionalism of Ridge Racer and goes with a gritty, destruction-focused affair a la FlatOut. Drifting is also much less liberal in Unbounded, which is a huge shift from the core series.
  • Our Angels Are Different: The Kamata Angelus. A divine-looking FIA GT Series racer look-a-like, it is the four-wheel embodiment of an angel, as it is fast, easy to handle and with the utter absence of weaknesses. No wonder it's often the hardest car to defeat.
  • Our Demons Are Different: The Soldat Crinale. A badass-looking matte black Le Mans Prototype with a frightfully tremendous top speed, but it is very punishing to drive. Those who are able to control it, however, can easily make the competitors eat the dust.
  • Overly Generous Time Limit: Some of the console-exclusive games have a 10-minute time limit even though the average player is unlikely to take even 5 minutes to complete the race. Ridge Racers and Ridge Racers 2 on PSP each start a 5-minute countdown once the first-place opponent crosses the finish line, which is just as generous.
  • Palette Swap: Used by the majority of cars in the PS1 games. However, these palette swaps also have some performance variations, from subtle to really blatant.
  • Pimped-Out Car: The Extra and Duel cars in V, the Class 4/5/6 cars in the PSP releases and the Class 3/4 cars in 6. However, in 7, this trope is taken up to eleven: There are over 375k possible combinations of modifying each of your vehicles visually with front and rear bumpers, hoods, wings, liveries, rims, and much more, and over 2k possible tuning combinations for engines, tires, suspensions and Nitrous. These are numbers that can challenge even games such as Gran Turismo and Forza!
  • Pre-Order Bonus: Pre-ordering Unbounded would give players a few cars from previous Ridge Racer games, including the Kamata RC410 from 7, and the original incarnation of the Assoluto Bisonte from 64.
  • Purposefully Overpowered: The Kamata Angelus has both incredible top speeds and razor-sharp handling (compared to the Crinale, which only can claim great speeds).
  • Race Queen: Reiko Nagase does have a job as a card holder for the races and doesn't just drape herself over a car.
  • Real Song Theme Tune: V had "Fogbound" by Japanese electro rock band Boom Boom Satellites as its theme song. You can hear it here.
    • Unbounded had a lot of real life songs, which is kind of weird for this series. The soundtrack has various songs by drum n bass, house and dubstep personalities such as RuN RiOT, The Crystal Method, and even Skrillex; however, Bugbear didn't forget the amazing Namco music team, and had some new songs made for the game and even songs from older Ridge Racer games, especially from 6 and 7. In fact, the track that was used the most in trailers for this game was "Road Mauler" from 6, which is an amazing industrial metal tune, and is really fitting for Unbounded. You can hear it here.
    • 7 had together with the amazing music by the Namco music team, a nice amount of real life songs of artists signed in the Japanese electronic music label King Street Sounds.
  • Recurring Boss: Soldat Crinale and Kamata Angelus throughout the series. You can also expect Reiko to show up at times in a Assoluto Fatalita (Originally a Porsche 911 GT1 Expy before going for a Lamborghini Murcielago-inspired look as in Ridge Racers).
  • Rubber-Band A.I.
    • Taken to the nth degree in the above-mentioned Max Tours from the US version of Ridge Racers. You only race against 3 CPU players rather than the standard 11... And they're the hardest CPU's you'll ever face.
    • 7 gives you and the AI a much more literal version of the trope in the form of slip streaming.
  • Rule of Fun: The series' main claim to fame is its absurd drifting physics (which just requires you let off the accelerator for a second then swing into a turn as your car slides like it's on ice skates). You can drift for several seconds without losing any velocity and pulling out is as easy as just straightening the front end out. It makes no sense but it feels really good. You can even pull an inverted drift through a turn (that is drifting in the opposite direction of the curve) and still slide through without any detrimental effects.
  • Scenery Gorn: In Unbounded: after destroying many scenery objects or in the Ghost Bay scenery, which is the final world of the game.
  • Scenery Porn: Sure, it might be an arcade game which puts its emphasis on gameplay rather than realism and graphics, but goodness gracious, the tracks are absolutely gorgeous. This is especially the case with V, 6 and 7.
  • Second Place Is for Losers: In R4, your team representatives treat anything short of a first-place finish as completely unacceptable, even if you qualify for the next race.
    • Sophie is a Spoiled Brat (though her Arranged Marriage that she doesn't want is mostly to blame for that), Shinji an all round Jerkass, Enki to his credit takes the Dare to Be Badass approach to get you to try to improve. Robert averts this, though DRT's owner plays it straight.
  • Shark Tunnel: Used in Oceanfront Cruise Way in 3D and Vita.
  • Shout-Out: Everything Namco has ever done, period. Pac-Man is a racing team, Dig Dug makes car parts, Soulcalibur characters make wheel mods, Phantomile is a track in Type 4, Ridge State has a Xevious tournament, a Craymel-powered engine for the Kamata Angelus...
    • Starting with Ridge Racer 64, Ridge City is located somewhere in Strangereal, with Neucom and General Resource's logos dotting the scenery here and there.
    • The Terrazi Destroyer, a car in R4 you can obtain by winning every race - to the last one - in a Terrazi, suspiciously resemble Retsu Seiba's Hurricane Sonic, complete with exhaust pipes that looks like a Mini 4WD interlock that keeps a Mini 4WD body and chassis in one.
    • In RRV, the medal you receive upon beating the Crinale reads "Lasciate ogni speranza, voi che entrate."note 
    • 64, the one entry that was not developed by Namco, has some shout-outs in the form of cars, namely the DigiPen Racing (named after the game design school in Redmond that has a history of its alumni working on NST), the Atomic Purple (which was one of the "Extreme Colors" models of the Nintendo 64 released in 2000) and the 00-Agent.
  • Spiritual Successor: 6 could be regarded as one to Revolution and the PSP installments; 7, instead, is definitely regarded as one to Rage Racer, as both games share customization mechanics and a credits system, plus the career modes in both games are very similar to each other.
    • Unbounded is this to Critical Velocity, but inversely, the latter was Japan-exclusive while the former was not released in Japan.
    • Slipstream is this to Accelerated, as both are made for iOS and Android devices.
    • The arcade installments would be followed by Mario Kart's Arcade GP sub-series, with Pac-Man and the Ghosts as Guest Fighters.
  • Theme Naming: Used twofold for the GP cups in Rage Racer. On top of all being in French, the Normal GP cups are named after increasingly strong winds: Calme ("Calm"), Brise ("Breeze"), Rafale ("Gust"), Mistral and Tempete ('Storm"). The Extra GP cups are instead named after emotions rising in anger: Aisance ("Ease"), Agitation, Irritation, Colere ("Anger"), and Rage, before culminating in Diable ("Devil").
  • The '90s: The campaign of Type 4 has the player participate in the Real Racing Roots '99 Grand Prix, having the player make their way through various races set throughout various months in 1999. To cap the season off, the final race is set for December 31st with 15 minutes to go before the Turn of the Millennium kicks in for real.
  • Throwing the Fight: A variation, In Type 4; you periodically get car upgrades throughout the season, the quality of which depends on how well you're doing, so in order to complete the garage, particularly for MMM (basically, easy mode) you'll need to get the cars that necessitate driving well below the abilities of even a journeyman player, often resulting in having to stop yourself overtaking much slower cars just so you can finish in the position you need to unlock the car you want. And you need to unlock all of them for the final car unlock and the bonus BGM track.
    • Played straight in R: Racing Evolution as the main story conflict being the shadowy organization involved in Rena's racing team fixes matches due to involvement with gambling syndicates.
  • Title Scream: RIIIIIIDDDGE RAACEEEEERRRRR!!!!
  • True Final Boss: It is revealed that the Devil Trailer in Pachislot Ridge Racer is behind the Soldat Crinale of the entire series. And the player must destroy it in order to complete the battle.
  • Unstable Equilibrium: In R4's GP Mode, do well in each race and you'll get the top-of-the-line cars that will help you secure even more first-place finishes. Do poorly, and you'll get bad upgrades that make winning the next races horrendously difficult, on top of being trash-talked by your team.
  • Updated Re-release: Ridge Racer Turbo was a prototype 60-frames-per-second version of the original that was released as a bonus disc with Ridge Racer Type 4.
  • Video-Game Lives:
    • Rage Racer gives you seven lives per GP. Retiring a race or failing to place third or higher takes away one life. Lose all your lives and you'll lose all of the medals you've earned for the current GP, although you'll retain all of your other progress.
    • R4 allows you to fail up to three times per heat; the fourth time results in a Game Over and you will have to restart the entire heat.
  • What the Hell, Player?: In R4, your crew will berate you in the first two heats if you don't finish in 1st, as well as give you inferior new cars instead of better ones. Dig Racing Team is somewhat of an exception; your crew is particularly nice to you, but the owner (who is never shown on-screen) has a differing opinions of you.
    • The announcer never forgets to tell you if you're going to the wrong way. Crashing into barriers may also trigger a comment.
  • The World Is Just Awesome: According to the intro, 7 is set in a fictional nation called Ridge State, in which street racing is oh-so popular. As a brief sidenote, despite the games being predominantly set in a fictional location, Ridge State is implied to still exist within our real world (contrast with Ace Combat, which is set in its own Fictional Earth); the car manufacturers are based in actual countries, and the courses in Type 4 are set in Japanese (Fukuoka and Yokohama) and American (New York and Los Angeles) cities.

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