"Extreme" Disappointment
Before continuing, let me say that this game is 90% niche, meaning if the genre is not your sort of thing and you aren't familiar with what's going on you just won't "get it" at all. It's also entirely in Japanese, which kills the playability for all but the most hardcore of fans. This game is not at all meant to be realistic, meaning that even the oldest of old slow cars will be able to keep up with high-end Japanese sports cars. It's just how the games work.
Let me say that I've been an addict of the arcade stages for years and am I firm believer that they can be more dangerous (and more expensive) than a drug addiction. I didn't have very high expectations for this title, at all. Just... take the arcade version and put it on a PS3. For reasons entirely unknown to me, someone felt like taking out some of the tracks. Why would a console version of a game be made even more simplistic than the arcade game? Isn't it supposed to be the other way around? New content wasn't even needed, just keeping what existed would have been fine.
Some things do deserve some kudos though--the HD recreations of the already great duplications of the actual Japanese mountain passes look awesome. The story mode of the game (what story they can come up with) features some very unique "live manga" animations, where the anime characters move around and have expressions as they speak, but everything said appears in a manga "bubble" (anyone who has ever read a manga will understand this). It looks fresh and really catches the eye. The soundtrack is the series-known Eurobeat and fits as well as ever... Though just over 10 tracks is kind of disappointing when there have been upwards of 100 tracks featured in the anime and there being 150+ (literally) volumes of Super Eurobeat albums to pick songs from.
The gameplay, sadly, is just murder. As mentioned, tracks have disappeared. Car selections aren't at all expanded when more could certainly have been added. Upgrading cars even moderately requires endlessly repeating things. The difficulty is entirely manic. Even as an Initial D veteran I found myself losing the first races on the first track--something that should have been absolutely impossible. Why? The "sweet spot" of shifting the cars can be ridiculously small, sometimes within only a few hundred RPM. This is a carry-over from the arcade versions, but see below as to why this is extra challenging here. The steering angles are way off, and though there is a configuration option to loosen it up a little there still isn't anywhere near the kind of control I'd like to have. It's as though going straight and full-tilt drifting is controlled by an on/off switch instead of actual steering input.
Ah yes, and the most horrible thing of all. Using the Dualshock3, NO ANALOG THROTTLE CONTROL. Yes. This means your gas pedal is an on/off switch. This makes elements of a good drive impossible to do, such as keeping up speed in sweeping corners and a fast launched start entirely impossible. Combine an on/off drift switch with an on/off throttle switch and you basically have a car with only 4 chunky modes of moving forward. As you might expect on mountains with dozens of different and all unique corners, this doesn't result in much enjoyment while playing. On top of this, add the impossibly small shift windows while you can't corner with any stability and even the weakest of opponents will defeat you with ease.
Extreme disappointment, even compared to my low expectations and demands of nothing more than a copy of what existed in arcade versions. For people really wanting a fix on super-customization and mountain/touge racing, go to Tokyo Extreme Racer DRIFT2 on the PS2. It has more real roads to drive and more vehicles than are available here and allows extreme tuning detail of cars generally reserved for games like Gran Tourismo. It's also a much better simulation of car power and cornering limitations, so you won't run into the frustration of an unmodified 90 horsepower car defeating your 300+ hp tuned supercar.