Gran Turismo 1 walked so others can drive.


Compared to many of the popular racing games that existed before its time, such as Ridge Racer and Super Mario Kart, Gran Turismo would be one of the first games that offered a more realistic take on driving. Arcade-style drifting, speed boosts, and softer crashes were eschewed in favour of learning proper racing lines and managing your tires. Like the rest of the games in the series, this game's focus emulating real-world racing; whilst still retaining the easy-to-pick-up playability that the aforementioned Mario Kart series had.

There are about 140 cars in Gran Turismo 1; an obscenely large amount compared to the likes of other racers at the time like the Need For Speed games. As expected from a Japanese developer, the majority of the manufacturers originate from Japan, with many of the well-known brands like Mitsubishi, Toyota and Nissan being appearing in GT1 as well. Unlike future entries in the Gran Turismo series, there are very few "foreign" manufacturers; with only two British manufacturers (Aston Martin and TVR) and three American manufacturers (Chevrolet, Chrysler/Dodge (depending on the region you're playing it in) and, in the US version, Acura). The absence of many manufacturers such as Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen and Ford may be startling to players who have played any of the other games in the franchise - especially to players who may only know German, French or Italian.


There are two main modes of play in GT1. Arcade Mode is very simple to explain; you pick a car and track and race against others. Winning more races unlocks more cars and more tracks, going from smaller, easier tracks like High Speed Ring, a track mostly filled with gentle turns, to more complex tracks like the infamous Special Stage Route 11, a highly technical track in the city set at night, with many 90 degree turns. All well and good, but where the game truly shines, however, is in the other mode; Simulation Mode.


In Simulation Mode, players start off with a mere 10,000 dollars, with not a car to their name. With all of the shiny new cars being outside of the player's budget, most players will have to brave the deadly frontiers known as the Used Car Dealership. Instead of players being able to start off with all the shiny NSX's and Skylines they could dream of (or play in Arcade Mode), players are instead forced to settile for old, unattractive cars from the 80s and early 90s, progressively getting newer, flashier, faster cars in the process.

After getting used to their car in Spot Races, to progress any further, players will have to obtain a racing license to be able to race in any of the other events. There are three different tiers of racing licenses - a B License, A License, and an IA License; with each license having 8 tests attached to it. Each separate license is more difficult than the last - B Licenses teaches the players simple driving techniques like cornering and braking, A License teaches the players advanced driving skills such as taking multiple corners, and IA License has the player complete multiple 1-lap time trials across the GT1 tracks.

Each license test has three different levels of completion - a Gold, Silver and Bronze medal, depending on how fast a player completes a particular license test. Gold is the best, while bronze just means you passed (barely sometimes) Unlike in later games, only the time requirement of getting Bronze is listed, making getting Gold Medal runs particularly difficult and annoying. By completing all 8 tests of a particular license successfully, the player will obtain that particular license, not only unlocking the next license for players to attempt to succeed, but also opens up new events for the players to race in. Just getting bronze on each test is good enough to obtain a license, however, if a player gets all golds on a particular license, they obtain a high-powered free car to use. These can be used to breeze through many of the lower-tier races in the game due to the prize cars having high power, whilst saving money that can be used to upgrade or buy cars later on, though obtaining all gold medals on a license can be extremely tough to do.


Outside of 2-lap time trials and no-license spot races, there are two categories of events a player can enter - the GT League and the Special Events. With the exception of the three Endurance Races, each event consists of multiple races at different tracks, with racers obtaining more points the better their finishing position is. Like many real-world race events like the F1 and NASCAR, the driver with the most points after all the races in an event have been completed wins. Fucking up on a corner and coming in third in one race won't matter in the grand scheme of things as long as you win the rest of the races. With the exception of the GT World Cup, finishing first in each event obtains the player a new car for free; these can be used in future races, or sold for money for additional cars and/or upgrades. Each prize car is either a new car you cannot buy normally from a dealership, or a car you could buy with a unique paint-job applied to it. Each individual race offers a monetary prize reward as well for all positions. The higher the position, the higher the money - there is an incentive to finishing first in every race as you get more money, though finishing last still gives you some money as well in case the cars you have are all slow as shit.

In GT League, players race in four different events; the Sunday Cup, Clubman Cup, GT Cup and GT World Cup. As players progress through each of the four cups, the tracks get more complex and the opponents get faster; whereas the Sunday Cup has the player race against low-powered cars like Honda Civics, the GT World Cup requires players to get into a race car to stand a chance against their opponent's own race cars.

In Special Events, players often race in events where there are limitations on what cars can be picked, ranging from what drivetrain a car has, to what country a car is from, with one of the most difficult events in the series requiring players to drive fully stock cars. Special Events also plays home to three different endurance races - races that can last up to two hours, for all gamers that had bladders of steel and/or a savestate function. Endurance races not only last very long, but also feature "tire wear", requiring players to pit in multiple times per race, lest they deal with their car becoming slowly undrivable over time.


One feature GT1 innovated was the ability to provide upgrades to cars. Car upgrades generally required some thought put into them - upgrading your car by putting the fastest turbo inside it would often leave the car undrivable in many of the races. Upgrades ranged from easy for anyone to add - such as better tires and larger turbos, to stuff catered to the hardcore racers - like being able to manually adjust each individual gear ratio's of a car. In addition, this was one of the few games, alongside GT2 (and, to a significantly lesser extent, GT5), to enable players to give their cars flashy paint jobs that often emulated many real world racing cars of the time (such as the Subaru Impreza Rally Car and the legendary TOM's Castrol Supra GT that was the cover car of GT3).


All of these features are very commonplace now in the racing genre - from progressively buying better and better cars to upgrading existing cars to giving cars flashy paint-jobs, but Gran Turismo 1 was arguably the first to incorporate what would now become very commonplace features there. For this, it's a very impressive game, and certainly worth a look at. However, the actual game itself has largely been done better since then, and there's largely very few reasons to play GT1 by itself now (primarily for the original Special Stage Route 11 layout). If you're looking for a PS1 racing game, I'd be more prone to recommend a few different games over this, like Gran Turismo 2.

as a gt megafan i had fun with gt1, but there's really not much reason to go back to this one over gt2 unless youre like me and you just really want to complete every game in the series. gt2 has way more cars, way more tracks, way more events with more variety in the entry lists and far less track repetition (no reverse tracks!), WAY better soundtrack imo (both in the menus and in-race), etc. i have tremendous respect for this game and what it accomplished in 1997, it's a true technological wonder. but that pioneering status can only carry it so far in 2022. 5 stars, but unlike gt2 i dont see myself ever playing through this one again.

An astonishing achievement and clear labor of love given the level of detail and simulation - way ahead of its time. There are over 100 authentically recreated real world cars! I'm not really a racing game guy - that has to have been unheard of for a '90s console game, right?

The manual is essentially a physics textbook, which is hilarious, but for all the complexity of the rigorously realistic design, the actual racing is kind of easy and exploitable. The two in-depth single-player modes are great, and the scale of the marquee simulation mode is staggering, resembling much more modern games in its open-endedness and customizability. Lot going on here!

I have to imagine that people were floored by this when it came out. Set aside the phenomenal graphics on PS1, the vibe is so choice. I'm only just playing it for the first time now but that opening cutscene was giving me chills.

Surpreendente para a época

1997 e um jogo que te dá mais de 100 carros com inúmeras formas de tunning de performance e que possui mais de 10 pistas não tem como ser ruim, isso é um fato. Na época, não tinha nada que chegasse perto de Gran Turismo, até mesmo pq a proposta mais simulador, só tinha de fato sob o "capô" do exclusivo do Playstation. Need for Speed, Test Drive, Ridge Racer, todos esses e muitos outros eram mais arcade e simples.

Entretanto, o primeiro Gran Turismo, que abriu as portas para essa franquia ser o que é hoje, é um jogo apenas legal hoje em dia. Com toda certeza desse mundo é um game que vale a pena ser experimentado. O fato de você ter que desbloquear seu caminho através dos testes de direção era uma parada bem legal, mas que hoje em dia, pra mim, é cansativo.

Tunar os carros é muito simples, mas se você não souber configurar o que você acabou de instalar, você terá alguns carros bem desbalanceados que, em determinadas curvas, podem rodar com muita facilidade.

Atrelado a isso da dirigibilidade, alguns carros, mesmo sem nenhum upgrade, possuem uma direção bem estranha e chatinha de pegar o jeito.

De resto, o jogo acerta em bastante coisa. Não é vazio, pois apresenta tipos de corrida diferentes para carros de determinados países e por aí vai. Inclusive isso é uma coisa que instigaria você a ter outro carro daquele pais ou daquela especificação para testar, já que você pode ter muitos carros na garagem, mas como eu disse antes, muitas coisas não me pegaram tanto hoje em dia, fiz os testes de direção, competi nas ligas (com muito save state na corrida de 60 voltas da Gran Valley) e tive alguns bons problemas com a dirigibilidade que me fizeram querer terminar com muito mais rapidez.