Ridge Racer 3D

Ridge Racer 3D
Japanese	リッジレーサー3D
Developer	Namco Bandai Games, Xeen
Publisher	Namco Bandai Games
Release date	February 26, 2011 March 22, 2011 March 25, 2011
Genre	Racing
Game modes	Single-player, multiplayer
ESRB	E for Everyone
Platform	Nintendo 3DS
Media	Nintendo 3DS Game Card

Ridge Racer 3D (リッジレーサー3D) is a racing game video game for the Nintendo 3DS which is developed by Namco Bandai Games. First images of the game were leaked in early November 2010, and Namco confirmed that the video game was going to be released later on in 2011. However, it was later revealed to be a launch title, and was released in Japan on February 26, 2011 and in North America on March 22, 2011, five days prior to the launch of the Nintendo 3DS itself in that region. Ridge Racer 3D was also released in Europe on March 25. This titled marked the third time a mainline Ridge Racer entry would be released on a Nintendo console, and it's second time on a Nintendo handheld.

Gameplay

Reiko for the Win!

Ridge Racer 3D is an arcade racing game revolving around cars racing around high speed tracks while drifting. There are two main gameplay types: Single Player and Versus. Versus is a multi-player mode which allows you to play against other players via a wireless connection in Standard Race, One-Make Race and Team Battle by either hosting or joining a race using Nintendo 3DS local play.

Other minor gameplay types include: Records (allowing you to view your records achieved in Single Player and check your local rankings based on records acquired from friends or via StreetPass), AV player (allowing you watch replays of your races while listening to the music of your choice), Options, and Garage (allowing you to view and modify cars you have acquired).

Of all of the Ridge Racer games released since Ridge Racer (Playstation Portable), Ridge Racer 3D is the only one to have overhauled driving physics. Wall collisions result in wall grinding which can lead to more speed loss than before. That can be a problem in higher class vehicles especially in races that require as little mistakes as possible. Wall collisions at the start of a jump won't cancel any vertical momentum and will cause you to lose control of your machine. Machines may now also do "pushing" maneuvers when boosting into vehicles from behind, which may cause them to lose grip and slide into a drift. This can also be used as an advantage, as a skilled player may be able to keep the vehicle under control and instead receive a speed boost from being pushed.

This game also marks one of the only times the player is given the opportunity to race against Reiko Nagase. She acts as the game's final boss, appearing as the frontrunning A.I. driver in the final event, Grand Prix #48 'Ridge Racer Master', driving a purple Lucky & Wild Mad Bull.

Single Player Game Modes:

• Grand Prix: Compete in a series of races in order to win new cars and nitrous kits or to make them available for purchase.
• Quick Tour: Play in a series of races automatically generated from your preferences:
• Play Time: Race with the time limit of 3 to 30 mins, multiply by 3 mins.
• Course Type: Recommended, Drift or High Speed
• Race Category: Choose from four different categories to race on.
• Standard race: Select your car and track in order to race against 7 opponents.
• One-Make Race: Select your track and race against 7 opponents all using the same machine.
• Time Attack: Race around a track as fast as possible for 3 laps in order to achieve the fastest time or beat a ghost.
• Street Pass Duel: Race against the ghosts of other players acquired via StreetPass

Drifting

There are four types of drift in Ridge Racer 3D, they are as follows:

• Mild - Mild machines are easier than the other categories and are much quicker to recover from a drift but they cannot maintain longer drifts very well.
• Dynamic -Dynamic machines are good at maintaining long drifts and are much more capable of controlling more adventurous drifts, but they are harder to recover from drifts and are harder to control than the other categories.
• Standard - This drift type is a nice combination of both mild and dynamic drift types. They are good at both controlling longer drifts but also recovering from them.
• Special - This drift type bears no defining characteristics, but is rather used to designate Special Machines apart from Standard ones.

Courses

Ridge Racer 3D features a total of 15 courses. One course returns from the original Ridge Racer:

• Seaside Route 765

Two of these courses return from Ridge Racer Revolution:

• Sunset Drive
• EX Revolution Road

Two of these courses return from Rage Racer:

• Union Hill District
• Mythical Coast

One course returns from Ridge Racer (PSP):

• Downtown Rave City

Four of these courses return from Ridge Racer 6:

• Rave City Riverfront
• Seacrest District
• Surfside Resort
• Midtown Parkway

Two of these courses return from Ridge Racer 7:

• Mist Falls
• Shadow Caves

The remaining three are completely new courses:

• Redstone Thunder Road
• Oceanfront Cruise Way
• Silver Mountain Skyway

It is of note that the version of Seaside Route 765 in this game looks closer to the PSP incarnations than its latest remaster from RR7.

Cars

Machines with a "*" next to their name denote that they debuted in this title, or in the case of Pac-Man and Petit500, featured unique variants exclusive to this title.

Regular

• Kamata Fiera
• Kamata RC410
• Terrazi Wild Gang
• Terrazi Starnose
• Danver HJ6000
• Danver Hi-Night*
• Age Prophetie
• Assoluto Fatalita
• Himmel E.O.
• Lucky & Wild Evolver*
• Lucky & Wild Wisdom*
• Lucky & Wild Eruption*

Unlockable

• Kamata Angelus
• Soldat Crinale
• Namco Pac-Man*
• Rally-X Car
• Age Solo Petit500*
• Lucky & Wild Mad Bull*

The Kamata RC410 makes a return to Ridge Racer 3D after having been introduced in Ridge Racer 7, as does the Danver Hijack (now named the "HJ6000", most likely due to an updated powertrain).

Despite the game coming out after Ridge Racer 6 and Ridge Racer 7, returning vehicles from previous games seem to use the designs from their PSP counterparts instead of the facelifted versions from 6 and 7. It is possible that the 3D models themselves were just reused directly from the PSP games, with possibly a few tweaks on some models.

While the majority of the Ridge Racer games used different tachometers on the HUD unique to the current machine, Ridge Racer 3D, the game just uses a generic unlabeled, unmarked tachometer. However, some Special Machines still feature unique gauge layouts.

StreetPass

In Ridge Racer 3D, the StreetPass feature can be used for 1-on-1 duels. These races are done in the form of Duel Ghosts, which are downloaded to the players' 3DS via StreetPass and then allowed to be used in-race.

Racing

Rules and regulations for races differ from one to another but are mostly similar in structure. The number of opponents in a race range from 1 to 7, with 7 being the standard for most races.

Before starting an event or race, players are offered support items which will cost the player points. These support items are:

• Nitrous Charge: Gives the player one to three charged nitrous gauges at the beginning of the race
• Auto Rocket-Start: Gives the player an automatic rocket start without having to rev the engine
• Over-Limit Start: Gives the player a rocket start even if they rev the engine past the machine's redline

When choosing a machine, players can also change its appearance and drift settings, which include:

• Nitrous Type: How your nitrous gauges are charged, used and set up.
• Body Design: This changes the decals and colour schemes on your machine.
• Finish: The type of paint your machine has.
• Body Colour: The colour of your machine's paint.

While Ridge Racer 7 allows players to modify their car's number, decal, rims, bodywork, and both primary and secondary paint colors, this is not possible in Ridge Racer 3D; only the primary color of the machine can be modified.

Music

Ridge Racer 3D features 30 selectable BGM tracks: 15 new songs made for the game, and 15 tracks from past Ridge Racer titles. These tracks are divided into six "discs" of five tracks each, with Discs 1 to 3 featuring the 15 new songs, and Discs 4 to 6 featuring the 15 classic songs. Each track is also assigned to each of the 30 available courses (15 normal, 15 reverse) as its default BGM track; the 15 new songs are all assigned to forward courses, and the 15 classic tracks to reverse courses.

No.	Title	Composer	Original Game	Course
Disc 1
1.	Psychokinesis	SamplingMasters MEGA	—	Rave City Riverfront
2.	Stream of Lights	Hiroshi Okubo	—	Shadow Caves
3.	Venomous	Rio Hamamoto	—	Seacrest District
4.	Heat Shadows	Rio Hamamoto	—	Mythical Coast
5.	Phantasize	Ryo Watanabe	—	Mist Falls
Disc 2
1.	NOx Warheads	SamplingMasters AYA	—	EX Revolution Road
2.	Rolling Glider	Keiichi Okabe	—	Surfside Resort
3.	Nitro Right Now	Taku Inoue	—	Downtown Rave City
4.	Burn Up The Road	Hiroshi Okubo	—	Seaside Route 765
5.	Angel Halo	Rio Hamamoto	—	Redstone Thunder Road
Disc 3
1.	Call of Apsara	SamplingMasters AYA	—	Silver Mountain Skyway
2.	My Crazy Chainsaw	SamplingMasters AYA	—	Union Hill District
3.	Aberration	LindaAI-CUE	—	Oceanfront Cruise Way
4.	Napalm Sled	SamplingMasters MEGA	—	Sunset Drive
5.	Dr. Mad's Gone	SamplingMasters MEGA	—	Midtown Parkway
Disc 4
1.	Ridge Racer	SamplingMasters MEGA	Ridge Racer	Seaside Route 765 R
2.	Drive U 2 Dancing Remix	SamplingMasters AYA	Ridge Racers	Sunset Drive R
3.	Euphoria	SamplingMasters AYA	Rave Racer	Downtown Rave City R
4.	Rotten7 Remix	SamplingMasters MEGA	Ridge Racers 2	Rave City Riverfront R
5.	M.T.T.B.	Hiroshi Okubo	Ridge Racer 7	Seacrest District R
Disc 5
1.	Orbital Rock	Hiroshi Okubo	Ridge Racer 7	Mist Falls R
2.	Rage Racer Remix	Hiroshi Okubo	Ridge Racers 2	Mythical Coast R
3.	DareDevil	Kohta Takahashi	Ridge Racer V	Shadow Caves R
4.	Move Me	Kohta Takahashi	Ridge Racer Type 4	Silver Mountain Skyway R
5.	Freak Out	Akitaka Tohyama	Ridge Racer 7	Union Hill District R
Disc 6
1.	Combustion	SamplingMasters MEGA	Ridge Racer 7	Redstone Thunder Road R
2.	Explorers	Hiroshi Okubo	Ridge Racer 6	Midtown Parkway R
3.	Ultra Cruise	Tetsukazu Nakanishi	Ridge Racer 6	EX Revolution Road R
4.	Trail of Light	J99	Ridge Racer 6	Surfside Resort R
5.	Radiance	sanodg	Ridge Racer 6	Oceanfront Cruise Way R

Notable in this music selection is the use of the Ridge Racers Direct Audio version of Drive U 2 Dancing Remix (which features a female vocalist) instead of the in-game version (which does not).

Ridge Racer 3D Direct Audio

On 9 May 2011, the Ridge Racer 3D Direct Audio album was released under SuperSweep Records. It features the 15 new BGM tracks in the game; as well as the opening, select menu, starting grid, and ending themes.

No.	Title	Composer
1.	Do You Wanna Ride? (Opening)	Hiroshi Okubo
2.	Open Up Your Window (Select Menu)	Taku Inoue
3.	Starting Grid	Hiroshi Okubo
4.	Psychokinesis	SamplingMasters MEGA
5.	Stream of Lights	Hiroshi Okubo
6.	Venomous	Rio Hamamoto
7.	Heat Shadows	Rio Hamamoto
8.	Phantasize	Ryo Watanabe
9.	NOx Warheads	SamplingMasters AYA
10.	Rolling Glider	Keiichi Okabe
11.	Nitro Right Now	Taku Inoue
12.	Burn Up The Road	Hiroshi Okubo
13.	Angel Halo	Rio Hamamoto
14.	Call of Apsara	SamplingMasters AYA
15.	My Crazy Chainsaw	SamplingMasters AYA
16.	Aberration	LindaAI-CUE
17.	Napalm Sled	SamplingMasters MEGA
18.	Dr. Mad's Gone	SamplingMasters MEGA
19.	Tonight (Ending Credit)	Taku Inoue

Ridge Racer 3D Direct Audio Extra Disc

Some purchases of the Ridge Racer 3D Direct Audio album featured an extra disc, which contained a 32-minute non-stop megamix featuring 10 songs from the game mixed by Takahiro Eguchi.

No.	Title	Composer
1.	Nitro Right Now	Taku Inoue
2.	Phantasize	Ryo Watanabe
3.	NOx Warheads	SamplingMasters AYA
4.	Aberration	LindaAI-CUE
5.	Napalm Sled	SamplingMasters MEGA
6.	Psychokinesis	SamplingMasters MEGA
7.	Stream of Lights	Hiroshi Okubo
8.	Rolling Glider	Keiichi Okabe
9.	My Crazy Chainsaw	SamplingMasters AYA
10.	Dr. Mad's Gone	SamplingMasters MEGA

Trivia

• The physics overhaul in this game was basically rolled back by the time the next game arrived, Ridge Racer (PlayStation Vita), using similar physics in Ridge Racer 7. Considering the time frame of release for both games, this game and Ridge Racer Vita could have been worked on simultaneously in separate teams, with the Vita team either missing the memo that there are new physics, or they just opted to stick with Ridge Racer 7 physics.
• Ridge Racer 3D is the only game in the series where cars can be driven in reverse.
• Upon closer inspection, only a few machines have a modeled and textured interior when viewing them in the Garage. All other cars only have standard blacked-out interiors with little to no detail.
• Ridge Racer 3D is the only game in the series that features a zoomed-in minimap that is capable of showing the positions of all cars in a race.
  • It is also the first game to display road widths on the minimap, compared to the constant-width minimaps in earlier games.
  • The zoomed-in minimaps additionally show the roads of overlapping courses relative to each other. However, the game incorrectly assumes that overlapping courses always share the same starting points; as such, the only courses that are actually correctly displayed on the minimap are Union Hill District / Mythical Coast and Sunset Drive / EX Revolution Road.