I won’t say that Tokyo Xtreme Racer was a nostalgic part of my childhood, because I’ll be honest and say that I had never played any game in the franchise before tackling this brand new iteration, but I have always known about it. Way back in the days of the Dreamcast, when pretty much every single game released for it felt decades ahead of my beloved Nintendo 64 in terms of visuals and scope, Tokyo Xtreme Racer was one of the most interesting early titles, with its unique gameplay loop based around exploring Tokyo’s real-life Shuto Expressway at ease, and hunting down racers to challenge in real-time, one-on-one bouts.

Many titles for the PS2 and PSP would follow afterwards, but the franchise would fall dormant for many years, up until a suprise announcement by its still-extant developer, Genki, later last year. A brand new Tokyo Xtreme Racer entry was initially released on Steam, with a brand new PS5 port now finally available. A game that felt like revisiting the good old days of mid-tier PS2 gaming, and that is not a point of criticism.

You can challenge people to a race, humiliate them, and they’ll even thank you for the opportunity.

The gameplay loop in Tokyo Xtreme Racer, be it this modern game or the Dreamcast classic, goes as follows: you are part of a community of illegal street racers cruising down the aforementioned real-life Shuto Expressway in a somewhat free-roaming manner. You are free to cruise as much as you want, until you decide to challenge someone to a race. It can either be a randomly generated casual driver or a rival you actually have to defeat in order to progress with the story.

Every single racer you beat in a distance competition, as well as each trick you perform (near-misses, drifts, clean corners), grants you money and points. Money lets you upgrade your car with new parts; it also allows you to buy new ones, to literally nobody’s surprise. The “points” in question act more like experience points to be invested in a skill tree. In it, you can unlock stuff like more “health” for your car (you defeat cars by draining their health, you do so by increasing your distance when racing them), money acquisition multipliers, new cars to added to dealerships, and so on. Spending these points also levels you up, allowing you to unlock even more branches of the skill tree, and allowing you to progress with the game’s story.

It feels like a PS2 game in scope and vibes… and that is not entirely a bad thing, mind you.

Well, the story isn’t great, and I skipped most of it, but I guess I have to appreciate the fact it even exists in the first place. It’s just a bunch of shadowy silhouettes uttering a barrage of exposition at you, in a way that is simply not very engaging. In truth, Tokyo Xtreme Racer feels a lot like an arcade game, or a mid-budget PS2 title in its presentation and vibes, that I wasn’t paying attention to the story revolving around gangs and groups of racers endlessly meandering through the Shuto Expressway. I was just willing to drive down the motorway, beat racers, earn money, improve my garage, and repeat the process over and over again.

And the races themselves are… good. Again, I had to somewhat ignore the physics seen in modern racing games, and immerse myself as if I were back in 2002, playing something out of the Simple 2000 series or something. Simplified physics, decent acceleration mechanics (with actual controller haptic feedback), drifting is easy to pull off. Though not impressive, I don’t have many qualms with the controls. It fits with the game’s overall arcade-like vibe. I wasn’t a big fan of the UI, however, as the amount of menus is ludicrous, and everything is handled in a mouse-like way akin to the terrible UI popularized by Gran Turismo.

Any game that lets me buy and drive kei cars is an immediate classic in my books.

Mind you, when I say that Tokyo Xtreme Racer feels like something from 20 years ago in its vibes, I don’t mean it looks lazy, or dated. Sure, there’s nothing here that couldn’t have been done on a PS4, but it looks decent enough, and the lighting effects perfectly recreate the chaos that is the Tokyo night sky. Furthermore, the framerate is absolutely pristine. It’s just not going for excessive realism, and considering its structure, that is something I can somewhat overlook. The music is also pretty good, but I need to inform players that one of the first things they need to do upon booting Tokyo Xtreme Racer up for the first time is going straight into the options menu and readjusting the sound mixing. The music is extraordinarily loud, to a nearly obnoxious degree. Just turn it down a notch, and everything will be fixed.

Customizing your car is very expensive. To the point that a rear spoiler costs more than two entire engine upgrades.

Saying that Tokyo Xtreme Racer feels like I’m playing a niche, mid-tier title from the PS2 era is not a point of criticism in this case. Even if it’s not aiming for the same kind of realism and impressive scopes seen in more recent racing gaming franchises, I can easily say there is nothing else like it out in the market. It perfectly oozes the easygoing vibes from that era of consoles without the graphical or resolution limitations from the period. I doubt it will become anyone’s new favorite racing game, but I had a blast with it, and hope mid-tier racers like this one start showing up in modern consoles more often from now on.

Tokyo Xtreme Racer (the new one) is available now on PS5 and PC.

Reviewed on PS5.

A copy of Tokyo Xtreme Racer was provided by the publisher.