Hashiriya - Ookami-Tachi no Densetsu (Playstation)

 There's a certain look that I really like in racing games, and unfortunately it's very much a product of its time. Grainy textures, low poly models, driving around empty roads in the dead of night, all that stuff. It's mostly seen in drift racing games inspired by the manga Initial D and the 90s Option VHS magazine that people used to post lots of gifs from on Tumblr many years ago. Hashiriya is not only one of the best-looking of these games I've ever seen, but it's also definitely taking a lot of inspiration from those two sources.

 

The main single player mode has you picking from a bunch of characters, each with their own cars, and each a member of a different faction. They all also each have their own storylines, told in lengthy dialogue scenes between races. It'd be nice if someone translated these someday. There's no decision making or anything in these scenes, and you can definitely 100% play the game without being able to read them, but these scenes are unskippable, so it'd at least be nice to be able to understand what's happening in them. But yeah, you pick a character, and you have to win a bunch of races as them to get through the story. It doesn't seem like you unlock anything for doing so, though. Which is fine, I guess.

 

There's also a time trial mode, and a mode where you can set up single races how you like. Especially nice in this mode is that you can choose the time of day, so tracks that are always night time in story mode can be played in the daylight, and vice versa. It'd be even better if there were weather options, too. All of these features and nice graphics and such would be worthless, though, if the game didn't feel good to play. Luckily, it does! It's not quite Ridge Racer or Daytona USA, but it's still nice, it doesn't feel like you're constantly crashing the car, nor do you feel like you have to crawl around the tracks to be able to take corners adequately.

 

It was a big relief for me, as when the translation patch for Racing Lagoon came out a while ago, I was kind of disappointed to find that I didn't enjoy how the racing felt in that game at all. Of course, that game looks amazing and it's by Squaresoft, so naturally my expectations were high. So a story-heavy racing game with really great-looking graphics that also plays well was a great find for me, especially since, like I said, being unable to read the story doesn't block you from being able to play through the game.

 

This is definitely a game worth playing. It's fun, looks great, and has a really nice atmosphere. It only has a few tracks, which is a little disappointing, but it's also actually pretty standard for racing games of the time. The massive array of tracks in Ridge Racer Type 4 is definitely the exception rather than the rule. But if you like this kind of racing game, then this is a very good example of it. It's a little surprising it isn't more well-known outside of Japan, to be honest. I would've thought the graphics alone would have gotten it some attention.