Ridge Ranker: Prologue

For the end of the year, I originally wanted to do another top 10 like I had done for 2017, but this year hasn't really been the gangbang of incredible games that the past few have been, at least for my tastes. Forza Horizon 4 has been an absolute joy and Konami's Pixel Puzzle Collection has eaten up a ton of my time (and I've yet to get to games I'll probably love like Yakuza Kiwami 2 and Hitman 2), but most of my 2018 has been spent digging into older stuff I've neglected in the past. Instead of ranking the year's best, I thought I'd do something a little different and cover a series I did a deep dive on this year, so I'm going to be counting down the best games in the Ridge Racer series and pointing out each soundtrack's best music along the way. Before I get into that, however, I have to set the stage a little bit.

"Wow, what a start!"

Ridge Racer was first released in the arcades in 1993, running on Namco's debuting System 22 hardware. Similar to its arcade rival, Daytona USA, it's a lap-based racing game with then-groundbreaking 3D visuals. RR distinguishes itself from its contemporaries, however, with its electronic soundtrack and signature style of drifting, which sees players whipping around corners in an almost on-rails fashion. The game would later be a PlayStation launch title, where it would gain enhancements like a choice in vehicle, an optional third-person camera, and the ability to race on the course in reverse. It also marks the debut of the series' "boss" cars, super-charged vehicles you can compete with in Time Trial mode, with a victory unlocking them for yourself to drive. And who could forget the loading screen minigame that let you play a wave of Galaxian for a chance at unlocking a new set of cars?

Ridge Racer 2?

Ridge Racer 2 was released in 1994, but it was hardly a sequel at all, and I don't just mean in the way people call games like Splatoon 2 and Super Smash Brothers Ultimate not sequels to be shitty. RR2 is essentially a revision of the original game, sporting a new soundtrack full of both original music and remixes, multiplayer link-up functionality, a rear view mirror function, and a more pronounced day-to-night cycle, further limiting the player's ability to see ahead of them during nighttime. Otherwise, this is pretty much Ridge Racer with a slightly fresher coat of paint. The original game wouldn't see any proper sequels until the following year.

Ridge Racer's first real follow-up was 1995's Rave Racer, the only game to be released using the strange "Rave" naming convention Namco was pushing at the time (Tekken was developed under the name Rave War, a title actually advertised in Ridge Racer itself). It improves the handling and visuals of the previous game and introduces two new tracks, with designs that are much more ambitious than that of Ridge Racer's course, whose tracks are also included here. A planned PC port was cancelled, leaving this one arcade-exclusive to this day, but the PlayStation would be given a separate sequel to Ridge Racer the same year.

You can't help but shake the feeling that the Ridge Racer Revolution is what Ridge Racer 2 was intended to be. Revolution features RR2's improvements and soundtrack (except with the in-game announcer's "RIIIIDGE RAAACER TWOOOOO" hilariously cut off in the menu music), but with a brand new course with three variations (Novice, Intermediate, and Expert difficulties each have a unique version of the course, whereas the original game only changed the course for Expert). The original RR course is in the game, too, but it's bizarrely exclusive to the game's multiplayer mode, which requires use of the PlayStation Link Cable. Besides the new course, Revolution offers additional improvements: the loading screen minigame is now based on Galaga 88's "Galactic Dancing" sequence, and there are some new bosses to race and unlock. Also included are a few hidden modes, including one where you play using chibi versions of the standard cars. This "Pretty Racer" mode served as the basis for 1996's Pocket Racer, which is a somewhat odd and compromised port of Revolution to the arcades (running on Namco's PlayStation-based System 11 hardware). Its cabinet's size clearly communicating the game's target audience of children, Pocket Racer simplifies the Ridge Racer formula so much that there isn't even a brake pedal. Instead of drifting, you're able to take incredibly tight turns in Pocket Racer by simply letting off the gas.

Rhythm Shift

Other than a fairly standard port of Ridge Racer V, Pocket Racer would be the last entry that arcades would see. From here on out, the series would fully eschew its arcade roots, building new Ridge Racer games exclusively for consoles, starting with 1996's Rage Racer. With a more grounded art style (furthered by in-game advertisements for real-life racing tire brand Yokohama) and a Grand Prix mode that allows players to customize and even upgrade vehicles as they progress, Rage Racer is decidedly a console game experience, a trend that would continue throughout the series.

With an initial release in late 1998, R4: Ridge Racer Type 4's additional development time compared to prior entries shows. With 8 tracks and over 300 different vehicles to drive, it was the most substantial Ridge Racer to date. R4's standout feature is its unique take on Rage Racer's Grand Prix, which follows the story of four different racing teams as their driver, the player, competes in the Real Racing Roots '99 tournament. This narrative focus combined with a smooth, cohesive aesthetic resulted in R4 being one of the most memorable entries in the series, being an easy shoo-in for Sony's PlayStation Classic system.

Ready for Launch

By the turn of the 21st century, the Ridge Racer series had made a full transition to becoming a home console standby. After the early 2000 release of Ridge Racer 64, a Western-exclusive Nintendo 64 take on the franchise developed by Nintendo themselves at their US-based Nintendo Software Technology studio, almost every main Ridge Racer game would be released coinciding with the launch of a new piece of gaming hardware.

Ridge Racer V debuted alongside the PlayStation 2 in 2000. While it didn't have much to offer in the way of new features, having a bit of a "back to basics" approach, it served as a solid showpiece for the new machine, being the first console release in the series to run at 60 frames per second (even if it came at the expense of introducing many people to the concept of "jaggies"). 2004 saw the release of two different handheld entries: the Nintendo DS launched with Ridge Racer DS, while the PSP's launch title the simply-named Ridge Racer.

While the DS outing is merely an enhanced port of Ridge Racer 64, Ridge Racer's PSP entry is sort of a greatest-hits. It features tracks and music from across the series' history, including both courses that were once exclusive to Rave Racer (even going as far as to make a new variation of both courses, as if to apologize for neglecting the tracks for so long). While the vast majority of the game's content is from prior entries, it's still notable for introducing the nitrous mechanic, which allows players to charge up a consumable boost of speed while drifting. You're given more nitrous for faster drifts, so there's now a strategic element to consider while driving, since timing boosts that end just before a large drift will lead to large amounts of nitrous. This mechanic would find its way into every Ridge Racer that followed. A follow-up, Ridge Racer 2, released in 2006, featuring all of the prior game's content, but filling in gaps to include every single course in the series' arcade and PSX history.

The seventh generation received two different launch titles, with Ridge Racer 6 and 7 appearing on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, respectively. RR6 introduces online multiplayer and a unique "World Xplorer" career mode, letting you progress through a whopping 235 races across 15 courses in a branching "Ridge Universe," unlocking new vehicles and features along the way. Ridge Racer 7 is almost an enhanced version of 6, adding 7 more tracks, a slipstream mechanic, and a robust customization system, allowing you to fit vehicles with performance-altering parts (although the World Xplorer mode would be replaced with a more traditional Grand Prix).

After a second round of portable launch titles (the 3DS' Ridge Racer 3D and yet another plain old Ridge Racer for the Vita), the series would go into a limbo that we're still in today. There are rumors of a possible Ridge Racer 8 for the Switch, but 2012's Ridge Racer Unbounded spin-off is the last game the series would see outside of a few questionable mobile titles.

The Cuts

Now, Ridge Racer is somewhat infamous for its cannibalizing, so as you might expect, it becomes a series that's complicated to qualitate almost immediately. A lot of the series' entries have distinct atmospheres or unique tracks and vehicles that make them stand out from later games that may recycle some of its content, but there are also iterations that come as close as a "sequel" can to making its predecessor outright obsolete, coming across as a director's cut or a game of the year edition. Some cases are so extreme that it would be pointless to have them on a list like this, so a couple of games will be left out of the rankings. Also absent are any games not developed by Namco like 64 and Unbounded, or spin-offs that don't really fit the Ridge Racer mold such as R: Racing Evolution and the various mobile games. That leaves us with the following games:

• Ridge Racer
• Rave Racer
• Ridge Racer Revolution
• Rage Racer
• R4: Ridge Racer Type 4
• Ridge Racer V
• Ridge Racer 6
• Ridge Racer 7
• Ridge Racer 2 (PSP)
• Ridge Racer 3D

The Vita Ridge Racer technically fits the criteria for this list, being developed by the Namco/Sony joint venture Cellius, but I can sum up why it'd be dead fucking last in one sentence: It's a pitiful skeleton of a game that has three old tracks, five old vehicles (well, one's new), and absolutely nothing of note to offer besides some Daytona USA-themed DLC. I'd rather have at least some semblance of intrigue as to what the bottom of the list is than predictably hand the ranking to a game that's listed on Wikipedia's article on famously bad games, and besides, don't you think a list of ten games just flows better?

But enough preamble. I'll be putting up the first Ridge Ranking shortly, with the rest to follow.

1. Ridge Racer 7
2. Ridge Racer 2 (PSP)
3. R4: Ridge Racer Type 4
4. Rave Racer
5. Ridge Racer Revolution
6. Ridge Racer
7. Ridge Racer 6
8. Ridge Racer 3D
9. Ridge Racer V
10. Rage Racer