Decent racing game if all you wanna do is drift a bit, since it's piss easy and broken, giving you an insane speed boost. However you can stay ahead of your opponent right away since somehow Takumi gets the lead at the start of almost every race lmao, i wish it had a bit of more strategy and catching up to your opponents like the series. also the order of the races are pretty random, they don't follow the manga or series at all.

The most dissapointing thing was the soundtrack, not that I was expecting some high quality production eurobeat on the ps1 or something, but it's just really dull and not catchy at all. Other than that, the driving is kinda satisfying but you don't have to put much thought into it since it doesn't have any physics and messing up mostly goes unpunished.

Out of all Initial D games I've tried, I felt this one had the deepest understanding of its source material when it came to the actual racing. At first it felt like skidding around on ice but I came to understand the strong emphasis this game puts on drifting above all else. After all Takumi's AE86 was never a speed demon, relying more on drifting technique to get by. Compared to its (honestly laughable) predecessor on Saturn, there's a nice sense of speed and the handling is miles better, however loose it might seem in the beginning. Attacking corners is really fun, you'll definitely feel impressed at the drifts you can manage to pull off once you get the hang of it.

The story mode takes from the manga, roughly covering its main events and delivering them in deliciously janky 3D cutscenes. Despite being pretty funny looking I have to applaud the effort into adapting Shuichi Shigeno's charming artstyle. The soundtrack's cool too, not the iconic heart-pumping Eurobeat of the show but it's not bad either. Overall just a neat game I can easily recommend to any Initial D enjoyer, with decent replay value for increasing difficulty and new cars.