I’m Kinglink and it’s been around a year since I did something. Maybe I should finally talk about it. But before we go into that, I want to take you back. Not a year, not 5 years, not even 15 years, but over 20 years and a touch before the most important part of this story. 

In 2001 I picked up a game, simply put it was really good. That game was known as Tokyo Xtreme Racer Zero. This was already a large franchise before this point, which was relatively popular. It had two major releases on the Dreamcast. Technically, this was the thirteenth title in the series, so I was a bit late, and yet it was the first that I and many other people found because it was the first on the PlayStation 2

Now, I love driving, but since I’ve been living in Southern California for the last decade, driving is a lot less like the game, and a lot more like this. It doesn’t matter, middle of the night, and of course there’s traffic. The good news is that this is the type of escapism that Tokyo Xtreme Racer is designed for.

It’s pretty easy to summarize this game: get in your car, drive around a highway at night, find other fast cars, flash your lights, and then leave them in the dust. It’s a relatively simple concept for a game, and yet one that is pretty addictive. There are 400 opponents in Tokyo Xtreme Racer Zero, and there’s a good sense of progression. 

I think the reason it’s so good is that it’s not exactly a racing game. You’re not doing time trials, you’re not racing the course or the clock. This is almost a fighting game because it’s one-on-one. The primary goal is to get the opponent’s health to 0 before they do the same to you, and you do damage by getting in front of the opponent, or hip-checking them when they try to pass. This is a different type of racing than almost every other game out there. It’s a racing-fighting game. Is there even another game in that genre? No, seriously, I want to know.

You can of course start in the ever-famous AE86, or many cars, but come on, it’s from Initial D. Ok admittedly you’ll only see this car for a while because, this is a hard car to start with, at least for me. 

There are a lot of interesting teams, beautiful cars, a heavy focus on upgrading, and even a need to tune your cars. All of that just makes this game pure fun. I got this game after Gran Turismo 3, even though it was released before it. While Gran Turismo got me interested in racing; I’ve found the battle aspect at the core of this franchise even more engaging. 

I know all the clips I’m using for this video are going to look the same, but trust me when I say each step of this game is fantastic, and that’s kind of what makes this all work. You start by taking down every opponent that feels challenging. When your opponent completely messes up, you feel like a god, and when you have a nice tight battle where you just barely beat them or they are on your tail for the entire race, you feel like you took down an epic battle. 

Most opponents in the game belong to a team, and when you take down all the racers of a team, you eventually face the Team Leader. These are a little harder, but they are a pretty good match for their teammates with a better intro. 

Beat enough teams, and then, oh boy, you’ve gotten the attention of one of the Devils, 13 unique racers, each out to rule the road, and you’re the only one who can eliminate each and every one of them. Plus, I think each Devil has its own unique AI. The Devils are epic battles; these are the encounters that push your ability to the limit. You’re going to have to have a well-tuned car, an almost perfect race, and maybe a little luck. Beat the Devils, you’ll earn the chance to challenge the Zodiac, a harder and more challenging group of racers to take down, beat those… oooh boy, you’re up against well… Actually, nothing. 

You see, the teams aren’t the only thing in these games. If you satisfy different requirements, you start taking on random cars, known as the wanderers. These drivers don’t belong to a specific team, but to beat the game they each need to be hunted down. Some challenges are just driving a certain type of car, having a certain mileage, or driving on a day divisible by 3. A few are well hidden. This wanderer was waiting for me to leave the exit of the Parking Area here. It can be anything. Trust me, I’ve spent a lot of time on this progression because this is the most important part of the information in this video. You’ll see why in a couple of minutes.

But then, after you’ve beaten all the teams, all the bosses, and all the wanderers, you have 399 opponents down? Well then, and only then you get to face the final boss, Unknown. Yeah, admittedly I did have to grab a save file for this. I have beaten the game multiple times, but this game takes close to 50 hours to beat. And I have two others I need to talk about.

The thing is, I spent a lot of time talking about Tokyo Xtreme Racer 0 for a good reason, that entire gameplay description is pretty much how this series goes. Now I just want to mention that in 2003 in Japan they made an offshoot called Tokyo Xtreme Racer Drift which focuses on drift racing or touge racing, probably butchered that, immediate apology if I did. Anyway, Tokyo Xtreme Racer Drift does all the same things: wanderers, bosses, progression, cars, upgrades, and just awesome driving. There’s some additions to the formula.  There’s also a sequel Tokyo Xtreme Racer Drift 2 which I recommend, and I’m actually playing here, but honestly doesn’t fit in this video, other than right here. 

There’s one pleasant change. With mountain racing as a focus, a lot of racers are decided by first past the finish line on tight courses, and there are even a couple of score attacks for the best drifting around corners. It is a pretty major change for a different type of driving, but honestly, it will feel similar, because it is. 

Now you might ask, what’s the purpose of bringing Drift up? The real reason is that Drift is an awesome game, it’s similar to Tokyo Xtreme Racer, and ok, I made a Retroachievements’ set for Drift 2. I probably won’t talk about this series again and I wanted to bring up Drift because it’s SO worth playing. If the original game reminds me of Initial D, well Drift ACTUALLY is Initial D, down to including really obvious references to the Initial D manga. Hey look at the badges are referencing the manga. Ok, enough of that, but check out Drift. If you want more mountain passes instead of the highway because that is an equally epic game, I might like that series more. 

Anyway, now we get to the main event, Tokyo Xtreme Racer Drift came out in Japan in 2003, let’s go forward to 2004 and an important mistake. After Tokyo Xtreme Racer Drift was released in Japan, an actual sequel to the main Tokyo Xtreme Racer franchise came out, called Tokyo Xtreme Racer 3. There is a TXR1 and TXR2 on Dreamcast, trust me they can count… Well, kind of.

I mean, we’re talking timelines and all here. There is some story to each title, but these are just racing games where you can just drive around as fast as possible and enjoy yourself. Don’t think too hard about it, just race. Especially with the poor translation of the story in Tokyo Xtreme Racer 3, but don’t think Race! Come on, RACE! You don’t have to think; you don’t have to think… 

OH damn it, I think someone stopped thinking, and that’s what caused this problem we’ve been circling.

Yeah, so this is the 15th title in the series, it’s at least the fifth Tokyo Xtreme Racer game that has been released in America, and the fourth actually titledl Tokyo Xtreme Racer released in America and probably translated by Crave Entertainment, so this should be easy by now. 

Unfortunately, it wasn’t, but the game is still great. This time there are 600 opponents, 50 percent more than Tokyo Xtreme Racer 0. You can go race every team, and take them all down just like in every single game in the franchise.

The bosses all appear and are a great progression. In fact, there’s not just one city, but three different locations, each with their own teams, bosses, and more. This was a gigantic step up and absolutely a blast to play. Everything that works, worked in this game… almost. 

Once you’ve beat all the bosses, you can probably guess there’s a final boss, and you can start chasing him down by beating all the wanderers. From the beginning of the game, you beat your first opponent, the tenth, the hundredth, two hundred, three hundred. The number keeps growing as you get more and more powerful. There goes four, five hundred. At that point, you’re probably just going to be focusing on the wanderers that are left. Five twenty-five. Five fifty. Five seventy-five, you can feel it. You’re going to beat every single one of them and rule the streets. 

Five ninety Five ninety five… it’s happening.. Five ninety seven… 

And that’s it. Five ninety seven. Well ok, there’s a rumor that if you have enough money, you can find one more. But you pretty much would need to save every dollar you can to face Exotic Butterfly, which requires 20 million dollars, quite a high number, and saving that much can mean you can’t buy other cars, or you just have to grind like crazy. But that’s fine, you scrimp and save, grind matches and eventually get Five ninety eight…

And again, you’re stuck, well if the final boss is 600, then you only have one wanderer left, and you’d be right. Except you can’t find him in this game, and if you can’t find him, you can’t beat him. No, there’s no deep and mysterious puzzle here. This game came out in 2004, you didn’t necessarily need the internet to beat the game, you just needed to do it. But that’s the problem. The Wanderer isn’t available. 

And this is 2004. If a game was extremely popular, you might have a second run where they can patch and improve the game, but honestly, this probably wasn’t that popular, or they chose not to patch it. Which is a shame. I mean, I love this game, but no second run, the 599th opponent is always missing. Maybe you’d think they’d notice that in the Japanese version and fix it for the American version? 

So let’s go back to the first wanderer we talked about. Remember how we needed an astronomical amount of money to get Exotic Butterfly to appear? Well, that’s the thing, in the Japanese version of the game, which has all 600 opponents, you needed a similar amount of money, but it was reasonable. Problem is that in the Japanese version it is in Yen, and in the American version it’s in Dollars, which when you add the period, divides the amount by 100, and that’s why the really high number was so high. It was 100 times what it was supposed to be. 

So what about our missing opponent? In the Japanese version, you unlock them at one hundred million Yen. That’s only five times as much as the last Wanderer, so we’ll just have to earn even more. 

And now after that win, I shall have earned 100 million dollars… Damn it. Yeah, in the American version there’s a cap on the money, that cap is 10 dollars short. And thus the problem.

Most of you probably know what just happened, but in case you haven’t, 1 dollar is roughly equivalent to 100 yen. The easiest way that almost everyone uses is to convert the money between the two, just move the decimal place over by two. It’s simple, and that’s what they did…

But they forgot to move it over for everyone, sort of. This was 2004. As much as I love this title, I and everyone else who bought this, bought a broken game. And it has a reputation as a broken game for the last 2 0 years, well at least it was in 2023. But I got this weird idea to work on achievements for the game for RetroAchievements. Yeah shameless self promotion again, but trust me on this one, it’s actually important.

So I had done the achievements for Tokyo Xtreme Racer 0 and they were simple, fun, and enjoyable. It’s a splendid set you should try. But the question is would anyone ever tackle Tokyo Xtreme Racer 3? It was a broken game after all, and literally that’s the question that was asked.

I forget exactly why, but I decided to see how similar Tokyo Xtreme Racer 3’s memory was to 0 and it was pretty similar, but that bug bothered me. It should be easy to find, right? 

Just a warning: we’re going into the nerdy stuff here. I’ll try to keep it short and relatively high level but it is programming time. If you don’t care, jump to the time on screen. We’ll get back to the gameplay, and actually the future of the series.

So when talking about memory for games, there’s really two major things that happen. The game will write information to an address, and then read that memory later on so when it needs to do an operation such as buy a car, it can load that memory, make sure there’s enough money to afford the car, subtract the cost of the car, and then write that memory back to RAM. 

Now listen, there are a lot of caveats to this, you can have that memory in cache so you don’t need to read directly from Ram, there’s ZRAM, there are values that may never get written to the RAM, We’re going to ignore all of that for now because those things don’t happen here and this is the simplified version of this tale. You’ll see me recreating part of the process.

Anyway, we have one more feature we need to introduce. And that is our hero in this story. On PCSX2 there’s a debugger, and this is what actually made the difference. So debuggers will show you assembly for games. A debugger will allow you to place a breakpoint, but this debugger actually has a better feature, where it allows you to look at the memory and place a breakpoint on the memory address.

So from what we know before, this is the RAM address of the cash, yeah I grabbed this from my notes on Retroachievements. All we need to do is put a breakpoint on that and see what happens when we load into the game. It gets hit, but that’s about it. Now I’m going to heavily simplify the entire process, but there’s one interesting twist. The memory address for the cash in the main menu is transferred into a unique memory address when you’re in the game. You can find this by watching it change each time you beat an opponent, and the location we are looking at is the in-game location. 

As we load into the game, the front end’s cash is written to the new address, then the game reads from that same address twice. Twice. Like the number of wanderers who would need to look at our cash.

So the assumption is we’re thinking about the map and drivers and deciding if an opponent should appear. That decision is probably made as you load into a level where this read occurs.. This is actually the only time this value is read on loading.

Again, this was not that fast to fully understand. I’m going to skip a bit. But let’s do this with our 200,000 dollars, which should be the correct amount for Exotic Butterfly. So we’ll load back in, and because this memory is read here and then below, we see a complicated bit of math. Just quickly to explain this, we could spend an hour-long lecture on these lines alone, but, a specific value is loaded into the V0 register, multiplied agains the money in the V1 Register, that puts those values into HIgh and Low.  Later the value in High is loaded back to V0.  Heavily abridged, but that’s what happened.

With the value in V0, there is an SLR instruction that is going to be our most important. That is a bit shift, to the Right.

The important thing is Division is not good on processors, it’s slow, like 24 times as slow as most math and most processors like integers not floats. Also, while the PS2 does have a floating point processor, it is still slow using that. Instead, in this case, it uses a multiplication, and then a bit shift, which in this case becomes a specialized version of division.

But we do have a bit shift to the right by D, which is actually the Hex of 13 (Unlucky thirteen). That’s technically a division of 8192. Again, getting technical, but this is the major change. Instead of dividing this value by 8192, we want to reduce that by 128. Which is 2 to the 7th power. The reason for that value is that it’s the closest power of 2 that is over 100, which was our target when we talked about the Yen conversion. So we do some simple math, 13 minus 7 is 6, our new value.

Now, we also modify the value that was bashed into V0 at the beginning, and honestly, I don’t remember why I chose the number, but you will see, it’s working as expected. We’ll leave that there for someone else to puzzle out, because. It’s been 12 months. I did have a reason, though. Probably some crazy algebraic math that I didn’t save and can’t reproduce, that’s worrying but… ehh it’s close.

So while I’ve been blathering on, you’ve seen 200,000 used with the original formula, and the new formula. The new formula leaves that value about 100 times higher, which is EXACTLY what we needed. So let’s try this out again when we have 1 million dollars. We’ll jump into the game and see who pops up. 

That’s Whirlwind Fanfare, and that’s actually what we’ve been trying to get. This is the moment it was all for. I had mastery of the debugger and fixed the game. So now all you have to do is take all the same steps to fix your game. 

However, that’s not a suitable solution. 

I made a patch to PCSX2, and built a xDelta patch as well for the game, I’ll avoid taking you through that path

If you’re looking for the patch though, there are two ways to grab it. You’ve seen me looking at a file in GitHub. That’s part of the PCSX 2 patches, which any player on PCSX2 can use. It’s a fast and easy way to fix your game, load up your legal copy of Tokyo Xtreme Racer 3, and then just enable the patch you want, a single click, restart the game, and you have fixed the bug. 

The other option is I uploaded the patch to Romhacking just to look cool, and upload the patch to RAPAtches so it can be linked on Retroachievements, and that’s done. Now anyone can download that patch and apply it. Better yet, you can apply it and burn the ISO to a DVD and play it on a legit PS2 if it reads burnt DVDs. At least I assume so. That’s one step farther than I’ve tried, but that’s exactly what that patch is meant to do.

And that means for the first time in 20 years, Tokyo Xtreme Racer 3 can be completed with no need for a cheat device, and honestly that’s pretty cool. It does require either emulation, or a modified PS2 to read the game, but that’s pretty major.

But I want to end this section about Tokyo Xtreme Racer 3 on a positive note. So Tokyo Xtreme Racer 3 and really the entire series plays very similarly. But let’s talk about one major difference that Tokyo Xtreme Racer 3 has. That’s the ability to do a multi car challenge. Even our old friend Rolling Guy is no longer a weakling but even calls in his Number 2 (hehe poo joke) and you’re racing two opponents at once. 

And that’s where I was going to leave it. Last year I made this change, I kept saying I wanted to talk a bit about this, and honestly I don’t know if I truly got the right mix of depth in the actual issue, and interesting facts about the game, I actually cut the technical description down a lot,but I really wanted to share a little of the nerdier side of this issue, but this was the end of this story. 

WAS. You see, last year I uploaded the patch, uploaded the achievement set, and said goodbye to this series.  However a couple months later there was a bit of news. Tokyo Xtreme Racer is coming back. At least it was coming back… This video is actually being released on a very specific day, January 23rd, 2025 and that day is important because … Tokyo Xtreme Racer has returned. And yes, this is me playing the new Tokyo Xtreme Racer. 

First, an EXTREME level of thanks to Genki, I actually got a press box for this. I don’t know if I truly deserve that, but thank you for recognizing me. It means the world. And in case anyone is worried, that’s the only thing that has been exchanged, as well a promise not to show anything until the release day.  Yeah, I broke my rule for asking for press copies, but I hope you can understand why.

Now I will mention this is early access, and admittedly it does feel like quite early, but this is the most excited I’ve been for a game in a very long time. Also, I’ll throw out, this is running on my old 2070 and the performance is excellent from what I’ve seen, and that’s not something I was expecting.

I’ve spent a lot of time playing this, and racing. You have to choose a car, from three, OF COURSE I chose the AE86, if there’s nothing else you’ve learned from this video, you know I love Initial D. 

The game itself has 216 opponents so far, I’m hoping we’ll see a lot more. I’ve heard nothing about the roadmap or future, but I have my fingers crossed, hoping to see Osaka or Nagoya still, but even if this is what we will have… I’m having a blast with this. 

Admittedly, there’s some stuff that had me worried when I first booted up the game. You might see levels in the footage, yeah. But that’s really just information that fans would learn about challenging opponents that are too hard for them. There are little more open world aspects of discovering the entrances and exits as well, but after a couple of hours, that’s complete.

I’m not going to say anything about the story, but there is more characterization, including in-game hints on how to meet different wanderers. Hope they don’t mix up the currency again. Also, I’m working on grinding a bit because I bought the wrong second car. Oops. 

Contact is more punishing in this game, I have spun out three times, basically my aggressive driving has to be toned down a bit, which is ok. And we talked about the fighting game mechanics earlier, they’re still here, you get bonuses for different attacks, at least first attack, or reversals, and there’s a little more middle ground so you need a little more distance to start damaging the opponent, which I think works well, like I prefer it to the constant chip damage when you’re close, plus if you’re right on someone’s tail and waiting to pass, you shouldn’t be accruing damage.

this is a touch rougher than you might hope, if you haven’t noticed there are a few text issues, untranslated options, and issues with the font that’s being used, especially apostrophes look wrong, because they have a space after them.  Overall extremely minor things, I had one crash, but was not able to reproduce, and the game auto save.   OH auto save.  That’s something the series has ALWAYS needed.

Like I said, the performance is really good even on older hardware, and the gameplay is just as pure and refined as it was decades ago. There are a lot of games that feel like they are making releases that aren’t fully needed or made worse, and this isn’t one of them. For the longest time I adored these PS2 games, and the 360 version called Import Tuner Challenge, and while this game is similar, just like every single game in this franchise, there are clear improvements, new enemies, new cars, and more. There’s a different progression system where you have to earn battle points to upgrade pieces, but it all works in a similar manner, and that’s made me happy. 

And again, this is early access, so things will change. Perhaps we will see the dark patterns appear with microtransactions or FOMO, or even just bad gameplay, but what actually is in this game, is the distill vintage of a game that has been fermenting for 18 years in a cask in some cellar in Japan, rather than a swill beer that is trotted out every year.

Though, Tokyo Xtreme Racer is exactly what I was hoping it would deliver. A graphically enhanced game that still remembers how to be a Tokyo Xtreme Racer game. 

It’s crazy, I’m driving the same roads I drove 20 years ago. There are old enemies that I haven’t seen in decades. There’s both new and old bosses, ready to take me on, and all I can say is I’m thrilled to be back. I’m back on the C1, and I’m here to plant my flag once more as the King of the Road. Beware.

Sorry to get so nostalgic here, but if you still haven’t got it yet though, I love this series, and I had no idea I’d be playing another one of them. After 18 years of waiting I had given up. This is incredible, and when they said 2025. They meant January? Who does that? Amazing.

Yet, I do have to bring us back to the hard reality. I’m always hesitant when it comes to Early Access, but I do think this title has delivered. Obviously I’ve got this for free as part of the press kit, so there’s a tiny bias, but I am going to be buying two copies and giving them away, haven’t decided how exactly but I’ll figure that out. I’ll hang on to one of those copies for a week and give it away on my discord somewhere.  Details for that in the description, or at the end of the video.

Anyway, here’s to Tokyo Xtreme Racer 2025. Something I wouldn’t have believed just a single year ago. Life’s incredible. Though speaking of that, I do have an idea for a new series of videos. We’ll be talking next time about a game that was released in America in 2003. It’s another of my absolute favorites, and another of a series that has gone dormant, a series that might get me in trouble with copyrights.  But rather than fixing that game, that game was perfect for the first time. I’ll leave the actual reveal for next time. 

If you’ve enjoyed this, umm? Probably watch the Behind the Code series of Displaced Gamers. I doubt I’ll do a deep dive into the code in the future, and just spend more time being nostalgic about games you should check out from 20 years or more ago. Which… yeah, the PS2 is 20 years old. I’m still not ok with that. 

But if you do want more from me, subscribe and I’ll try to bring more videos for 2025. Also, since it’s the year’s end, and even though I’m not doing Humble Choice and more, the best bundle of 2024 was May, it had Yakuza Like a Dragon and Hi Fi Rush, probably two of the best games that Humble will EVER have. So yeah, that one was special.

See you next time.