The Ridge Racer Legacy, part 3...

The Angel 0 and Devil 13 had become iconic cars in the Ridge Racer universe. Each version of the series following Ridge Racer Revolution had a new Angel and Devil to battle against and unlock. The designs of each car were culled from the most exotic race cars and sports cars ever produced such as the Ferrari F-40 and McLaren F1. Eventually the team at Namco got to the point where they no longer had to look at real-world cars for each of their designs. In fact, for the Angel and Devil it turned out to be a good thing that they looked unlike anything that has ever existed. The last time that both cars were sytled similarly was for the Xbox 360 exclusive Ridge Racer 6 in 2005. The two cars were still unique but both looked like expensive GT super cars.. The duo got a radical makeover in Ridge Racer 7, a Playstation 3 exclusive in 2006. The respective manufacturers for each car had been solidified as well. High-tech Japanese company Kamata had a concept racing car dubbed the Angelus. Rival German company Soldat had the menacing Crinale. The Crinale had previously been manufactured by Italian company Rivelta before they were bought out by the Germans. It was interesting that there was an actual continuity happening between all of the fictional manufacturers, teams and cars going back to the original Ridge Racer.

Car fans could tell that the vehicles looked like they came from a particular nation. In the early days the designers at Namco were taking many styling cues from real world production sports cars. The Rivelta cars for example were modeled after the Ferrari and Lamborghini Italian super cars. All of the previous Devil 13 cars had a certain Italian aesthetic to them as well but by Ridge Racer 7 that suddenly changed. The German-influenced design was much more bold and aggressive. By contrast the Japanese auto-manufacturer aesthetics, even for concept cars, focused on seamless integrated technology. In official game art Namco was sure to juxtapose natural and industrial elements to highlight the balance that each car brought into the canon of Ridge Racer.

There was tremendous symbolism at play on both cars. The Crinale sported few sponsor stickers but the brand of tires that it sported were from Astaroth. This was a recurring tire manufacturer in the series but the name carried a lot of weight with it. The name Astaroth was derived from the Phonecian Astarte. Also known as the Crowned Prince of Hell. Astaroth had an equivalent to the Babylonian Ishtar, the female goddesses of love. The ancient mythology had been revisited time and time again by Namco. The studio had released an adventure RPG named The Return of Ishtar in 1986. It was the second game in the Babylonian game series based on the mythology of ancient Babylon. It was the sequel to the Tower of Druaga, a cult favorite from 1984. There was no mistake that the Angel and Devil in Ridge Racer were symbolic of Astaroth and Ishtar. The entire interplay between good and evil, dark and light were universally understood by audiences. The team at Namco was well aware of the legacy before they painted the devil and pitchfork or winged goddess logos onto the hood of the cars.

The name Astaroth was also given to a golem in the Soulcalibur series. The large axe-wielding warrior was a force of evil in the game and appeared to be indestructible. He was just one of the otherworldly forces at play in the game. Soulcalibur was a sword fighting game set in ancient times, but not as far back as Druaga's timeline. Soulcalibur was filled with mythical and historical warriors. There was a very thin thread that connected the mythology from the Tower of Druaga to the sword fighters from Soulcalibur. That game, its alliances, good and evil characters and canon were the ancestors to the modern fighters in the Tekken series. That was over 3000 years of history that Namco had sprinkled over their various games, including the sponsor logos featured in Ridge Racer. The mythology of the Namco characters was taken in earnest by the company.

There was an Angel and a Devil personified in the Tekken series as well. In canon humans had been visited and controlled by metaphysical forces several millennium ago. Some of the descendants to these ancient creatures had survived to the modern era. Within very few people were were the genetic traits of these mythical creatures. Kazuya Mishima, a main character from the Tekken series, carried the "Devil Gene" within him. It activated when he became enraged, like the Hulk. Except instead of getting the emotional temperament of a child he became a vicious winged monster. An angel appeared from time to time to try and save the soul of Kazuya from his devil persona. The gene was passed on to his son Jin Kazama.

There was an aberration to the gene however. The mother of Jin was a good person. Jun Kazama was an officer for a wildlife conservation group. She was tasked to arrest Kazuya but fell in love with him early on in Tekken continuity. Jun had a very innocent personality, very angelic. As such there was a sort of in-between state that Jin existed in when he mutated. He did not quite become a leathery winged devil, nor did he become a dove winged angel but something else entirely.

Little by little the rest of the Namco universe had begun to shape the evolution of the Ridge Racer series. It began to make sense as the series continued to grow. The programmers, artists, animators, composers and designers that were pulled together once the original Ridge Racer Team had left the company worked on various puzzle, RPG, fighting game and space shooters. They did not necessarily bring with them an intimate knowledge of car designs, race history or track layout but they did have experience and the willingness to learn. The next blog will look at how they signed their work and changed the direction of the series. As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

The Ridge Racer Legacy, part 2...

Many arcade manufacturers found that they could get into the console publishing business by adapting existing games. There was little change for many of the titles, in fact some of the teams learned simply to switch the code to allow for unlimited free play / continues on otherwise straight ports. The newly formed Ridge Racer Team at Namco decided that the best game they could debut would be a title that incorporated all of the elements of Ridge Racer 1 and 2 for the Playstation. The 1996 debut of Ridge Racer Revolution was similar to the arcade version in many instances. It featured the music from the games, the same track layouts, car selection and even identical map, gauge and position icons. It even saved fastest times per track and allowed players to enter their initials at the Game Over screen in true arcade fashion. At first it seemed like another direct arcade port. It was the layers of nuance that Namco added to distinguish it from every other Playstation release.

Ridge Racer Revolution featured all sorts of modes for players to unlock. Each of the modes made the game visually different and some more difficult. Players could play through the game with the familiar daytime lighting. Or they could try and race the courses in noon, evening and night modes. Each mode made less of the track visible and thus more difficult to navigate. The different daytime settings also came with changes in the music. The game caused the biggest stir with long-time arcade fans when Namco included a mini-game to make the loading times bearable. Namco had filed a patent on mini games during game loading screens that year which meant that the feature would most likely never show up again on any other console unless Namco was publishing it. The mini game was a stage from Galaga '88 featuring the classic arcade graphics and sounds. Normally there were four cars for players to choose from but it they managed to knock down all of the alien ships then an even dozen cars (these were the opponent cars) would become playable as well.

The Galaga series was iconic. It was one of the first space shooters that did well on both sides of the Pacific and a breakout hit for Namco. It was so well regarded in arcade circles that to this day some people argue that Galaga '88 was the finest shooter ever made. I wouldn't go so far as to say that but it was a fantastic surprise for racing fans to discover. That was not the only surprise waiting for audiences. If players managed to defeat all of the alien ships during the loading screen in exactly 44 shots then the Buggy Mode would be unlocked. The Buggy Mode made all of the cars short and stubby, basically it was a port of the Pocket Racers arcade game that I had mentioned previously on this blog.

The game also featured a "boss battle" of sorts. It was one of the first racing titles to do that. In the arcade there was one car that could outperform every other class. The mysterious 13th Racing car, sometimes referred to as Devil 13, would wait for opponents on a dark track. It was actually a rare surprise for those players that managed to see it on the course. Like an urban legend a player would drive past a black race car parked on the side of the road. It had red wheels and a yellow devil logo on the hood. No sooner did a player pass it than they would see it appear in the rear view mirror, meaning that it could accelerate impossibly fast. Before the player knew it this car would fly past them. If it got far enough it would simply stop and wait at the side of the road where the player saw it the first time. It was a lopsided game of cat and mouse. No matter how well a player drove they could never escape the shadow of the Devil. The only way to beat the car was to use the rear view mirror and try to block it before it could pass. If the player stayed ahead before the finish line then they would unlock the car.

The reaction was very strong to the obscenely powerful race car. The Devil 13 would be revisited time and time again through the series, each time the car would be changed to make it more unique and aggressive. The Devil 13 was not the final surprise that Namco had in store for gamers. Just as they had mastered every course on the game and thought that they had unlocked every secret there would be something else that popped up to challenge them. Ridge Racer Revolution was the debut of the White Angel or the Angel 0 car as well. This car perfectly complimented the Devil 13 in almost every category. Players could challenge it by meeting the right criteria on the Intermediate Track but found that beating it was extremely difficult as well. Some players swore that the only way to beat the Angel was by using the Devil. Like the Devil 13 this car would get redesigned in future versions of the game as well. Both cars became symbolic as the most powerful racers in the game.

Die-hard car fans fell in love with these fictional vehicles. There was only one thing however that kept me from jumping on the bandwagon.When I saw the first Ridge Racer Revolution ad I was angry. The logo on the hood of the car was clearly mirrored from the character Seska as featured in the Orion manga. I grew up on the stories of Masamune Shirow and held him in very high regards. I spotted the misuse of his work right away. The thought that somebody would so blatantly steal one of his illustrations and try to get away with it upset me. Namco realized the error of their ways and redesigned the Angel logo for the next iteration of the game.

Despite my grievances I could be one of the millions of fans that could attest that the studio had given audiences far more than they expected, especially for an arcade port. Sega was doing amazingly well in the arcade but they would begin losing ground as the decade progressed. Despite the major difference in graphics between consoles and the arcade Namco was giving audiences a reason to stay home. It seemed lucky that the new Ridge Racer Team turned out to be more influential than the original. This was due to many factors, not the least of which were the car fans that still remained at the company. The full scope on why Ridge Racer would become an iconic series would not be understood for many years. The devil as the saying goes was in the details. Once players began to connect the dots they saw there was a divine hand at play as well. The next blog will look at the importance of finding Heaven and Hell in the Namco universe. As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!