''Tokyo Xtreme Racer: Drift'' (known as ''Kaidō Battle: Nikko, Haruna, Rokko, Hakone'' in Japan) is the third racing game published by

Crave Entertainment Crave Entertainment was an American video game publisher founded in 1997 by Nima Taghavi. Its headquarters was in Newport Beach, California. It was acquired by Handleman Company in 2005 in a deal valued up to $95,000,000 but was then sold to Fil ...

for the

PlayStation 2 The PlayStation 2 (PS2) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on 4 March 2000, in North America on 26 October 2000, in Europe on 24 November 2000, and in Australia on 3 ...

. It is the fourth main installment in '' Shutokō Battle'' series. The game allows racing at both day and night. Daytime offers the opportunity to enter competitions and gain money, while night time is where the player can race against rivals to gain respect.

Sammy Corporation is a Japanese developer and retailer of pachinko and pachislot machines, headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo. Its South Korean office, Sammy Amusement Service, is headquartered in Seoul, South Korea. Sammy is a subsidiary of the entertainment cong ...

was originally going to publish the US version of the game as ''Drift Racer: Kaido Battle'', but was delayed until

released it in 2006.

Gameplay

Story

The player controls Hiroki Koukami, a wanderer driver. He is able to defeat every rival and challenges every Slashers from Hakone, Haruna, Nikko, Omote Rokko and Irohazaka. After he beats Speed King, Iroha's Uphill's Slasher, he challenges Hamagaki, aka Kaido President, who drives a yellow Pantera GTS (black Acura NSX-R in US Version) and holds the title of "Emotional King". As he defeats him, he takes his title, become the new Emotional King, while Hamagaki lost it and becomes a merely Trickster. The game was set between

Zero 0 (zero) is a number representing an empty quantity. In place-value notation Positional notation (or place-value notation, or positional numeral system) usually denotes the extension to any base of the Hindu–Arabic numeral system (or ...

and 3, according to the Japanese series timeline.

Cars

The game, like any in the series, included the Japanese and imported foreign cars. The foreign cars included Alfa Romeo, Mini, Lotus, DeTomaso, and Volkswagen, depending on versions. Honda was licensed in this game but not available in ''

Tokyo Xtreme Racer 3 ''Tokyo Xtreme Racer 3'' (known in Japan as ''Shutokou Battle 01'') is a racing game for the PlayStation 2 and the follow-up to the 2001 game ''Tokyo Xtreme Racer: Zero''. The game was also released in North America, and unlike the series' previo ...

'', due to the licensing issues. Ford, Lotus and DeTomaso were removed in the 2006 US release, and Alfa Romeo and Audi from ''Kaido Battle 2: Chain Reaction'' were added in, even though ''Kaido Battle 2'' never had a North American release.

Mountain courses

The five mountain courses were featured in this game: *Hakone *Haruna *Iroha B (Nikko) *Front Rokko/Omote Rokko *Iroha A (Irohazaka)

Reception

The game was met with mixed reception upon release, as

GameRankings GameRankings was a video gaming review aggregator that was founded in 1999 and owned by CBS Interactive. It indexed over 315,000 articles relating to more than 14,500 video games. GameRankings was discontinued in December 2019, with its staff bei ...

gave it a score of 62%, while

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

gave it 59 out of 100.

References

External links

* {{Tokyo Xtreme Racer series 2003 video games Tokyo Xtreme Racer Crave Entertainment games Genki (company) games PlayStation 2 games PlayStation 2-only games Multiplayer and single-player video games Video games developed in Japan