CGA-2026-02 🕹️🚗 REMOVE CARTRIDGE ⏏️ Racing Lagoon
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Yokohama
1999
You've got big shoulders and big dreams
Headlights flash
I challenge you to a race
You Me
START START
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\ \
\ \
\ \
---- ----CRASH
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FINISH
Drat! It's always those hard turns, isn't it?!
You and your big shoulders win
Take your prize from my loser car
Prize
______ ______ __
/ \ / \ | \
______ ____ __ __ | $$$$$$\| $$$$$$\| $$ ______ ______
| \ \ | \ | \| $$_ \$$| $$_ \$$| $$ / \ / \
| $$$$$$\$$$$\| $$ | $$| $$ \ | $$ \ | $$| $$$$$$\| $$$$$$\
| $$ | $$ | $$| $$ | $$| $$$$ | $$$$ | $$| $$ $$| $$ \$$
| $$ | $$ | $$| $$__/ $$| $$ | $$ | $$| $$$$$$$$| $$
| $$ | $$ | $$ \$$ $$| $$ | $$ | $$ \$$ \| $$
\$$ \$$ \$$ \$$$$$$ \$$ \$$ \$$ \$$$$$$$ \$$
For those that didn't play the game, that's basically Racing Lagoon in a nutshell! Except, well, the plot gets more involved (and... weird), and there's a city map you get to cruise on, and you can save at a gas station, etc.
But the key points are all there:
- Racing
- Getting new parts
- Big shoulders
Anyway, let us know what you thought of the game!
Next month will be hosted by the inimitable and incredible @J-Chiptunator and we'll be playing Kaeru no Tame ni Kane wa Naru (The Frog for Whom the Bell Tolls).
| Month | Game | Host |
|---|---|---|
| March 2026 | Kaeru no Tame ni Kane wa Naru (The Frog for Whom the Bell Tolls) |
u/J-Chiptunator |
Source for the ASCII art car
Source for the prize text
Source for the race art (It's me, I drew that. Art is my passion.)
CGA Announcement: We have officially ejected the cartridge for Racing Lagoon. No worries if you're not done -- there is still plenty of time left in the month to play!
This topic is for people to share their parting thoughts and experiences. Spoilers are NOT required to be hidden for this topic, so if you're reading this before you've finished, be careful about reading any comments here.
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I didn't play much of this one (surprise, surprise), but I really enjoyed what I did play.
The JRPG style take on a racing game was pretty unique to me and I really enjoyed driving the streets and getting into random "battles"; it sort of felt a little tongue-in-cheek to me with this take on both a JRPG and street racing.
I found the parts swapping pretty amusing overall. I'm a car enthusiast and the idea that you can simply just swap wheels or intakes or whatever across cars and have it be a straight fit was pretty funny and a logical abstraction to make for a game designed this way.
Ultimately, I ended-up not sticking with it though because of the kind of horrendous handling (which I'm guessing improves as you level up your car) and graphics that were just too muddy to accurately assess turns and twists in tracks. In most racing games, even without knowledge of the track, you can kind of keep an eye on your map and an eye on the road and gauge where, when and how fast to turn, but I absolutely struggled with that in this game. I ended-up using a Save State before races and then Reloading over and over again, because there's so little margin for error in this game and the handling, while not necessarily "bad" feels off and I struggled to get turns consistently even on tracks I'd dozen dozens of times via random battles or saving and reloading. It feels like there's this consistent unpredictability to the handling that I found frustrating pretty quickly and again without having any margin for error, I ended-up not going far with the game. Also, my one other complaint is unskippable cutscenes; fast-forward helps with that some, but overall not a fan of that, but it was the PSX era, so it's a given, I suppose.
So, all that said, in spite of putting significantly less time into this than Wind Waker last month, this was so much more my jam and I really enjoyed what I played of it a lot more.
I'm normally a fan of playing with the original resolution and graphics (everyone conveniently ignore the fact that I played Wind Waker with an HD texture pack please), but for this one I felt exactly the same as you. After struggling through the first few races, I increased the internal resolution and turned on anti-aliasing and PGXP (perspective correction). It made the screen MUCH more readable for me.
Ditto on the handling too.
I'm actually of the opinion that most racing games age rather poorly, because so many of them were limited by what was capable at the time. It's hard to go back to a lot of them because the jank that we would have overlooked at the time was just, you know, part of how things were.
Like, I put innumerable hours into Ridge Racer and its handling is... unique. I don't think I could go back to that today.
This game definitely suffers from the same phenomenon a bit.
I actually raised the internal resolution and upped the brightness considerably and I still found it difficult. Even switched to playing on a 10" tablet at some point because I thought the bigger screen size (had been on a 4" handheld) would make things easier, but it was just as challenging. I didn't try AA and PGXP (I was unfamiliar with this), however, so I may need to try it if I get up the gumption.
I do think you're correct to a point; I think once we hit the PS2 era, things get much better and many of those racing games are considerably better than their predecessors. I still regularly play Outrun 2, though the version on PSP, because I like it and it's easy to emulate.
Love the ASCII art and the writeup for this one! The race art is a goldurn masterpiece! I sat this month’s game out because of the difficulty of even getting it running, and also it didn’t sound like my particular kind of weird anyway.
Should we get some more games scheduled for April and beyond? That upcoming title table ain’t gonna fill itself!
Great minds! I'm literally writing the text for that topic right now. XD
Stay tuned!
This one was really fun! It's like pokemon but with car parts. Toyota Sprinter Trueno AE86. I got stuck a few times and eventually gave up after the gameplay got a bit too repetitive.
I'm glad this video exists otherwise I might not have fully been able to appreciate all the twists, turns, and switchbacks that the story serves up:
Square's INSANE Racing RPG | Racing Lagoon (PS1)
Ooh, two and a half hours?! I'm going to have to find time for this.
I was sick as hell all month so I wasn't able to dig in, but I'm excited for when the time comes. The unique character designs, PS1 graphics and RPG elements are such a hallmark of that era of innovation. That, and I'm enjoying the Final Fantasy Tactics remake so much right now that I'm jonesing for more late 90's Squaresoft.
This is the first fan translation game I've ever played, and I'm honestly amazed at how great of a job the translator(s) did.
Obviously I can't judge the text compared to the original or anything, but the game felt exactly, 100%, like the PSX games I played back in the day. On a technical level, I was impressed at how integrated all the translations were. I was expecting something slightly jankier (like, translated overlays or the translation being subtitles on the bottom of the screen or something). Instead, this really does feel like an official English release of the game. If I picked it up without knowing it was an unofficial fan translation, I never would have guessed.
I think it's unbelievably awesome that things like this are possible these days, by the way. I played a nearly 30-year-old PlayStation game in a language it wasn't released in on my handheld Linux computer. WILD.
In terms of the game, I, like many others, didn't finish it and don't intend to. That's not to say I didn't like the game. In fact, on its own terms, I think it's pretty awesome.
If I had played this game as a kid, it would have absolutely enthralled me. It would have been the kind of game that would make me watch the clock at school, anxiously waiting through every passing minute, so I could get back and continue playing.
How do I know this? Because that's exactly what I did with Tokyo Xtreme Racer 2! This game reminds me a lot of that one, and it has bumped the recent remake up my to-play list quite significantly.
With modern eyes, though Racing Lagoon has some rougher spots: the framerate in the city shots, the handling, screen readability in general, the grind. It also takes a bit of time for the plot and characters to develop, so while I loved the aesthetic of the game (so good!), I found myself rolling my eyes a bit at the "RACING IS LIFE" and "I'M MARRIED TO MY CAR/THE STREETS" at the beginning.
I like that the game isn't afraid to get meditative and existential. The way it kind of deeply contemplates life or highlights yearnings, paired with its aesthetics, made it capture the essence of r/TheNightFeeling quite well. Sometimes it felt like the game was laying it on a little thick, but at other times it landed exactly the way that it needed to.
I ended up reading through much of this fantastic GameFAQs guide to get a feel for the rest of the game. It, of course, hits the main points as a guide should, but it's naturally missing all of the context and panache that the game's delivery has, so it was a little underwhelming as an attempt to get myself closure. Like most SquareSoft games, the ambiance and general vibe of the game are fantastic and do so much to elevate things.
Anyway, I'm really glad I tried out Racing Lagoon and I legitimately enjoyed the several hours I did end up playing it. I also think it's genuinely magical that there are skilled and passionate people out there who do things to keep old games like this alive and reaching new audiences.
I'm still playing and haven't gotten far. Actually, have yet to win a single race. It takes a LOT more focus than expected, so not as good for playing on the go as I'd hoped. It's the turns that do me in. It's hard to judge how close they actually are, so when I'd hit them, I'd just restart the race with a save state. Not sure if playing on the 3DS's tiny screen makes it harder or if it's hard on all devices. I got so close to winning a couple times, kept losing by one or two seconds. I had to stop because I needed to go to bed. Drifting seems to be key, but still figuring out how to do that. If anyone's got tips for that (or turns), please share!
That said, I enjoy the little bit I've seen. As I said, I'm playing it on my New 3DS since we're on vacation. It plays pretty smoothly, though I think there's some audio stutter with the music? Will need to listen with headphones to be sure. The game has some definite strong atmosphere though—and also hilariously 90s fashion. Ended up showing it to my mom who got a kick out of it.
Overall it seems fun and I'll keep playing it! When I get home from vacation, I might look into adding that Easy mode save though...
It’s been a bit of an insane start to the year for me, and with Nioh 3 out this month and taking all of my very limited gaming time (Nioh 2 is my most played game on Steam), I found neither the time nor the energy to figure out how to play this one.
Sure, I could have tried to acquire it form somewhere, spent an evening to get it running, play it for an hour or so, and say that at least I tried it. But everything that you guys wrote about it, and everything that I have seen elsewhere, really makes me want to give this game a proper try one day. So, I didn’t want to just dip in. I feel I didn’t give The Wind Waker the time that it needed in January, since it’s been, like I said, a bit of an insane start to the new year, and I regret that a little.