Was only planning on playing a bit of Touge 3, but I couldn’t put it down and ended up playing through to the credits. It’s really good, Cave adapted well to the PS2 hardware despite the same development period between it and the last PlayStation games.
What makes Touge 3 worth checking out is its new handling model and focused single player. The developers present you with a map of famous Touge/mountain pass locations across Japan, pick an event type, and away you go.
Event types are limited at first to just ‘Race’ and ‘King Battle’, but clear enough to unlock more of them, the odd new car, and new locations, all of which will demand more from you. There’s four event types in total:
Race: The easiest event type. Face off against two middling AI opponents
Battle: your one on one King Battle, against a more challenging opponent.
Drift event: These have to be unlocked - score enough drift points while not colliding with anything. These are tough! And often have restrictions on car class.
What’s good is the game assigns different AI opponents based on the car class you pick, so it often provides a good challenge, though some car types are obviously going to be advantageous depending on the course.
The new handling has a lot more nuance to it, which allows the designers to demand more from you. I got used to fudging King Battle races, relying on the barriers of the road to do some of the heavy lifting in order to catch up with opponents. But as soon as you unlock Drift Events the game gets turned on its head - just brushing the side of the course will hand you a fail. You’re then forced to really learn the game: The course layouts, the controls, the best ways to drift, and the handling of more than one car type, since Drift Events lock you to specific car choices per location.
I was worried the focus on more realistic handling and course recreations would hinder the game, but Cave saw it as an opportunity to do something different and they succeeded. Like Touge Max G, this comfortably beats all three Initial D games I’ve played and is an essential Touge-focused racer.
Went back to Touge Max G after getting my PVM and seeing @dubc’s copy arrive…and then the following day I overwrote my save with nothing because after booting the game I changed some volume settings, and then saved. Forgot this isn’t a game that automatically loads save files! Oops.
It’ll be a good excuse to go through it again one day, I’m sure, but I really wanted to clear those Hard gymkhana stages and the top rank of king battle races…
I played some of story mode…and have no idea what’s going on lol. It almost seems like it was developed as an Initial D game but couldn’t get the license.
I have most of them, including this one. But I bought and played them all about 10 years ago so I’d need to refresh my memory as they all blend into one big blob.
That’s good to know. I still have Genki’s Racing Battle C1 Grand Prix to properly try so I’m in no rush. If you ever find time to revisit the games do report back though!
PandaMonium’s video on Touge Max certainly made me reconsider my disappointment with the earlier games in Cave’s racing series:
Game is seriously impressive for an early Saturn title, with a draw distance that seemingly doesn’t end.
Was discussing this with @matt the other month, and he was spot on when he said PandaMonium’s journey with the game is very reminiscent of getting to grips with Digital Glider Airman on PS1.
It’s just a shame the physics are very clearly tuned around the Saturn wheel. Dug out my console and the game and I just couldn’t get the handling to work. While there are car tuning recommendations that improve the game’s handling with a D-Pad, these cannot be accessed in the main single player mode in stages that aren’t cleared under default settings.
