About Japanese/North America/PAL releases of the game

The first thing you need to know is that PAL (Europe mostly) is 50fps (50hz) while Japanese and NA (NTSC) are 60fps (60Hz) and so, the game will obviously be slower for the PAL release, even if the cars has better top speed. Because of that, don't use this version of the game if you want to be the fastest.

The main difference between the NA and Japanese releases is that when you press start during a dialogue on GP Mode, it will be skipped entirely for NA when on the Japanese release, it skips only for the next part of the dialogue (same thing as pressing X). Because of that, since skipping the dialogue is alot quicker on the NA release while the game is the same, the last one became an obvious choice for Any% GP Mode, while you can pick JP or NA for Time Attack.

Drift vs Grip/Car Stats/Manual Transmission Explanation

This game has 2 different styles of racing in the form of its cars. Drift and Grip.

There are 4 different makes of cars to choose from.
Assoluto and Lizard are Drift.
Terrazi and Age Solo are Grip.

For starters to drift, you either turn into a corner, let off the accelerator and brake, and your car will go into the slide and will make the tire screeching noise and go back to putting on the accelerator. Or, go into a corner, let off the accelerator and turn until the drift is started and put back the accelerator and turn the opposite direction. The car will almost slide in a straight line, then shoot the direction you are intending on going. The best way to setup a drift is to start it early, like a second earlier than the corner. This will make the car straight-line drift then shoot out of the corner. It sounds tough and looks awkward, but it works.

There are multiple stages of drifting, when you are in one. They all depend on how long you hold the direction of turning.
1st is right when your tires start screeching lightly, turn the opposite direction and you'll go back straight.
2nd is a bit after the first and you get a sharper exit and a longer proper slide.
3rd is a longer more rounder drift used to hairpins or tighter corners that are more than 90 degrees. Your car will most likely, in the drift, round the corner as well. It's tougher to exit the drift in this stage, so it's only recommended for corners like the final 2 in Phantomile that are very wide and long, as well as Heaven & Hell and Wonderhill's first right hairpin and uphill right after the mini tunnel, Brightest Nite's first left hairpin after the first jump and subsequent right hairpin into the tunnel.

Now that I got that out of the way, I'll explain the differences between the two styles.

Drift cars are looser when they are not drifting, so around small or short corners that don't need drifting, they will lose speed, but not much, though it's more than grip cars.
Grip cars maintain traction and stick to the road, around these kinds of corners they don't lose speed.
For example, in the first tunnel section of Helter Skelter a Solvalou/Assoluto setup goes around the corner at 108-109mph, while Solvalou/Terrazi will do 110-111mph.

Drift cars have a much more animated drift than Grip. Grip cars have a smaller "drift" that lets them taker corners tighter, but slower.
With the more animated drift, it may seem like you are going faster, because the speedometer says so, but you're not. The way drifts are in this game, you are sideways more and shoot out, but the corner is taken much more wide.
You win more races going forward, than sideways. I'm not saying stay away from drifting, but that's just the way it is.

Drift cars tend to have better acceleration. Grip cars have a tough time recovering from bonks and losses in speed, with the slower acceleration.
And drift cars have better top speeds, most of the time.

Here are the Top Speeds in km/h of the cars for comparison.

Assoluto (Drift)
                    D.R.T.  M.M.M.  P.R.C.  R.T.S.  
Heat 1
      Promessa   166     162     171     180
Heat 2
      Fatalita       203     194     203     212
Heat 3 
      Infinito       248     221     232     242
Heat 4
      Squalo        340     312     321     331


Lizard (Drift)
                   D.R.T.  M.M.M.  P.R.C.  R.T.S.
Heat 1
      Bonfire     164     162     169     178
Heat 2 
      Officer      200     184     200     203
Heat 3
      Ignition    246     219     230     239
Heat 4
      Reckless   335     308     319     328


Terrazi (Grip)
                   D.R.T.  M.M.M.  P.R.C.  R.T.S.
Heat 1
      Ambitious  166     159     171     180
Heat 2
      Wildboar   203     191     200     212
Heat 3
      Starlight    246     221     232     239
Heat 4
      Destroyer  337     310     319     331


Age Solo (Grip)
                      D.R.T.  M.M.M.  P.R.C.  R.T.S.
Heat 1
      Prophete     164     159     169     164
Heat 2
      Megere        200     189     198     200
Heat 3
      Licorne        244     219     230     244
Heat 4
      Supernova   335     310     321     328

Try different setups to see what is fastest. Though generally you should stray from using Team Mappy and Age Solo, because they are very slow.


If anyone has seen my latest run, you are probably wondering how I got the extreme start to every race.
I did a little research and some on some cheat sites that if you step through the gear in manual transmission before you start a race and end with 4th gear when it hits go, you go very fast. It's not easy to do and I've only done it consistently with the RTS/Terrazi setup.
The way it works is when you get a perfect start to a race, holding the accelerator a bit after the announcer says "2" for Heat 1 cars and right before the announcer says "1" for Heat 2 and above, you get a short burst of, what I'll call, nitro. It's not for long, mostly enough to get you to around 90% of your top speed, normally.
Easy way to look at it, is, you get the normal perfect start, but starting in 4th gear. You can't start in 5th or 6th.
That's when you start in 1st gear. When you start in 4th, you get that burst and your car starts in that gear. Normally when you start in any gear that's not 1st, it takes a long time to get revved up. The burst acts as that rev. It extends your power for that time and you get to the max speed for that gear almost instantly. For Heat 1 cars, that's max speed right out of the gate. Other heats, it's max speed for that gear.

To do this, hold the accelerator until the race starts, because you always need to be revving to get it.
I'm going to describe how to with each Heat, because they are different, aside from 3/4.

Heat 1:
These cars top out at close to 7000rpm. You need to rev to almost there. You can kinda hear your car top out with its high pitch.
When you get to there, shift up [R2]. You'll be in the 5500 range now. Rev to the 6300ish point, or right before the announcer says "1" and shift up [R2].
So, you're in 3rd just as the "1" goes down. A little before "GO" shift into 4th, and hopefully, you're off.
It's hard to describe, because it's also hard to get consistent at.
The best part about this start, other than max speed in 2 seconds, is the 6th place car doesn't get it's super boost until after you pass it, so you can throw yourself in front of it and it'll get it's boost behind you and push you, making you go faster than the game normally allows you to go.

Heat 2:
These top out at around 8000rpm, near the redline. (Never figured out why the tacometer doesn't change for different class cars)
Start the same as normal, rev to about 7800rpm or the redline, shift.
Rev and shift before the "1".
And shift before the "GO".

Heat 3/4:
3 tops out at 9000rpm, so the same formula, just get to the points. 8800, right before "1" and right before "GO".
4 tops out at 10000rpm, but do the same as Heat 3, and it'll work. 

The reason I say shift before "GO" is that if you shift earlier, your revs will drop to the point that you won't get the perfect start and stall out.

This technique saves quite a bit of time, and generally makes the game easier, because you get to different points in the race ahead of your opponents, so most of the time they aren't in the way. You might encounter more issues with the opposing cars, but this is definitely the fastest way to start.

Fast menus

Something i discovered a while ago but forgot to add here.

While in the manufacturer, team, or transmission screens, you can select the option next to the one you have highlighted without moving the selection (Which takes a little bit of time) by hitting both the d-pad and start on the exact same frame.
Doing this selects the option next to the one highlighted without playing the short animation of moving the selection.
This does also work on the save screen, but as far as i know, doesn't save any time, so it's safer select to not save normally.

This would probably be incredibly hard to pull off on a DualShock, or any similar controller because of the distance between the buttons, but on NeGcon it's fairly easy.

The way i found it to be the most consistant for me is to hold my index and middle finger fully locked in sort of a claw position, and use my wrist to tap on both d-pad right and start (on manufacturer/team select) and d-pad down and start on the transmission select with a steady rythm. Tapping too fast usually results in failing to hit both buttons on the same frame.

In total, doing this will save about a second or two in any% runs and failing is not a big deal as all the quick menus you will be doing are before the first race

*Edit due to apparently not having a sense of directions*

Name	Author
About Japanese/North America/PAL releases of the game	NerdMasque 8 years ago
Drift vs Grip/Car Stats/Manual Transmission Explanation	n1nj4ofshr3d 8 years ago
Fast menus	Randomii666 3 years ago