Initial D: Street Stage is a great portable racing game with little downsides.
User Rating: 9 | Initial D: Street Stage PSP
I've been a big fan of Initial D for a few years and I like the Arcade Stages and some of the console versions. Street Stage is based on Arcade Stage 3 (Version 3 over here) and it's what you'd expect. Choosing a car from makes such as Mazda, Subaru, Toyota, etc. and racing in those mountain passes against the Initial D characters we all know and love. What I liked about Special Stage is that there was a story mode. I was expecting this game to have one but instead, it's just the "Fastest Street Racing Legend" quest. Bunta Challenge is there too but you have to unlock it. Some of the songs are from Version 3 and others are from Eurobeat albums related to Initial D. One thing I didn't like was that there was no tuning points like you see in Special Stage and the arcade games. It was replaced with cards so it can be difficult to customize and/or tune your car's performance. After you win a race, you choose from 3 face-down cards and one of them may be a manga mugshot, another may be a tune card, and others may be new features to unlock in the Project D homepage. Initial D is a game that isn't about speed but about skill. It's all about how good you can race through those narrow and very cornery mountain passes. Another cool thing about this game is that the characters still talk during the race. I can honestly say that Street Stage is all I've been playing lately and I just love this game. I still wanting a PS3 for Extreme Stage.
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