Touge Conqueror

Template:Infobox VG***Touge Conqueror*** is a fictional first-person/third-person RPG racing game developed by Code Red Entertainment and published by Infinite Development Incorporated. It takes place in Japan in 1998, highlighting the country's street racing culture, particularly touge racing. It is also set in the same universe as the manga/anime, *Initial D*.

## Story and Setting

The protagonist is an aspiring street racer, who wishes to be the best mountain pass racer in all of Gunma Prefecture. They recently graduated from secondary school and work full time at a gas station when they're not up on Mt. Akina or are around town.

The protagonist's older brother, Kai, is part of a team, Falling Star, that runs on the Mt. Akina. Kai is begged to have his little sibling on his team, which he reluctantly agrees to do. From this point onward, the protagonist continues to win races and improve his/her racing technique until they eventually become one of the fastest racers around.

### Characters

Main article: Touge Conqueror/Teams and Characters
## Gameplay

### General

*Touge Conquerer* works like a typical RPG game. It has free-roam elements and various activities for the player to do. The main activity in this game is street racing, but racing on a mountain only happens so often, so what else can the player do during the day? Well, anything, virtually.

The player may switch the camera angle to give them either the first person or third person perspective of their character, when walking or driving.

During the week, the player is given a first person perspective of their character's life. They will need to go to their job, they can work on their car at home, they can shop for car parts, they can drive anywhere in the city, and they are basically given the freedom of doing what they want when they're not racing. With that said, there is a strategy to using the free time to the player's advantage, rather than just wandering aimlessly. They could be making money or finding ways to improve their car on the mountain.

Despite being a racing game, the player does not have to drive *all* the time. They may want to walk to work if they don't feel like paying for gas or they may want to go shopping on foot instead of having to call people to get favors about overseas or foreign parts.

### Racing Gameplay

The racing is generally the same for every situation. Touge races are divided into two parts, the uphill and downhill. The player will be able to specialize in either one or even both if their can handle both.

In a race, there is a leader and a chaser. If the leader pulls away from the chaser at any point in the race, the leader wins. If the chaser manages to pass the leader and maintain the position until the end of the race, the chaser wins. If anyone spins out, loses control, or crashes during the race, they automatically lose. If there is no considerable gap between the leader and chaser, and the chaser has not passed the leader, the race goes into a second round, the cars switch positions, and the same thing commences. This goes on until someone wins (or loses).

#### Uphill/Downhill Specializations

Most mountain passes in the game have an uphill and downhill portion to them. The player will have the option of specializing in one or both. However, it is important for them to have the right car for it. Most uphill spec cars can also run on downhill races without too much of a problem, but not all downhill spec cars can race uphill effectively. For example, a car with little horsepower and little to no modifications (i.e. an AE86 Trueno or a Civic EG6) would do fairly well on a downhill, if the driver was good, but they would not be so effective on the uphill, as there are faster, more powerful cars that have enough power to get them uphill quickly.

### Monetary System

The monetary system utilized in this game does not exist in real life, as it would be confusing to international players if the currency was, say, the Yen, or USD, or the Euro. Instead of using real life money, the game uses "Credits." One credit is equal to roughly one USD, though this fact is not important in the grander scheme of things and is not something anyone outside dev team really knows or cares about.

## Story Mode

Story Mode follows the aspiring Protagonist, which the player can name in-game, who wishes to become one of the fastest mountain pass racers in all of Gunma Prefecture and preferably even more areas. They will get challenged by more and more teams in the surrounding areas as they keep on winning and building up a name for themselves and their team.

Story Mode is open-world and free roam. Races take place usually on one or two days of the week, but the rest of the days usually go by faster and people normally would think. There's every day life, which goes by fast, going to work, buying car parts, installing car parts, buying cars, practicing on the mountain, and much more.

It is divided into multiple stages, which act as "chapters" of the Protagonist's journey as they grow and evolve into the racer they want to become. Each stage in-game gets progressively harder, as the opponents become better and the player will need to try harder to win, maybe even adopting unorthodox techniques in order to win (for example, Takumi Fujiwara in *Initial D* had a special move of turning off his headlights to sneak closer and even next to his opponent before turning them back on, thus surprising his opponent and causing them to lose focus and concentration).

## Multiplayer

Multiplayer is pretty much seamlessly integrated into Story Mode. Players get to use their Story Mode character and all of their statistics (i.e. driving skill, money, cars, etc.) for online. Online gameplay is very similar to Story Mode, except the AIs are replaced with human opponents (though there are still a lot of AI opponents in case if players want to team up).

Like Story Mode, the player still has access to the same character and cars and all information/stats transfer over from one game mode to another, as if the player hadn't switched game modes. This also means that all money that is earned/spent in Multiplayer affects Story Mode as well.

### Cooperative Play

With cooperative gameplay, players can form their own online racing teams and compete with other player formed racing teams or with AI racing teams, which are the same ones from Story Mode, but more competitive and bit more difficult to face. These teams act as clans, similar to how squads or clans work in first-person shooter games, and players can practice, race, or simply hang out together.

Teams can compete in the game modes listed under "Competitive Play" or they can compete in Expeditions. It is similar to how Project D in *Initial D* operated, where the team would travel to various areas and race against those local racers. As players can purchase properties in various areas in the prefecture and other prefectures, teams will be able to race against teams that are based in those other areas. Expeditions are competitive in the sense that two teams will embark on a different expedition with a certain amount of areas they travel to and whichever one has more wins at the end wins the competition. While expeditions take longer to complete, they have better (and more) rewards for the winning team.

### Competitive Play

Players also have the option of just going against each other, whether in teams or solo. Competitive play consists of racing and basically seeing who can top all others in a lobby. These are the available races that opposing teams and racers can compete and participate in:

* **Time Attack** - Whichever team/racer gets the fastest time on the chosen track wins.
* **Cat and Mouse** - Typical touge race.
* **Sudden Death** - Similar to Cat and Mouse, but stricter rules, restrictions, and guidelines.
* **Drift King** - Whichever team/racer gets more points while drifting on the course wins.
* **Straights** - A drag race between teams/racers.
* **Shadow** - Whichever team/racer can escape the police successfully without totaling their car, whilst driving in the city, wins.
* **Deathrun** - Whichever team/racer holds the highest average speed on the mountain wins. The team/racer that spins out, crashes, or falls off the mountain automatically loses the race.
* **Rally King** - A rally race between teams/racers on rally spec tracks that are unique to Multiplayer and Quick Run.

## Quick Run

Quick Run is a tertiary game mode featured in *Touge Conqueror* that basically lets players race against each other locally using any mountain pass and car (though cheat code cars must be unlocked via, you guessed it, cheats). This is just for fun if the player does not want to play either Story Mode or Multiplayer. It supports up to four players on the same system, as there are two teams of two (or two against one if there are only three players). Alternatively, it can also be a simple one on one if there are only two players. If there is only one player, they may race against AI at varying difficulties.

### Game Modes

* **Time Attack** - Run through the selected course as fast as you can and see if you can beat the fastest time posted.
* **Cat and Mouse** - A typical touge race, with either one on one, two on one, or two on two races.
* **Drift King** - Rack up as many points as possible by drifting throughout the course.
* **Delivery** - Drive up Mount Akina and deliver tofu in the ol' Trueno and make it back home in an allotted amount of time without wrecking the car too much. If playing with multiple players, the extra players get to try and screw the first player up by acting as traffic on the road while the first player tries to complete the objective.
* **Rally King** - Race on various specialized rally courses that are not available in Story Mode.

## Trivia

* There are many in-game references to the original *Initial D* series as well as another manga/anime series having to do with Japanese street racing on the Bayshore Route of the Shuto Expressway, known as *Wangan Midnight*. Both series were serialized in the same magazine and share many commonalities.