Video Game / Battle Gear

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Before Initial D and Project Gotham Racing, there was this.

Side by Side is the franchise for a popular 1990s touge racing game series whose name changed to Battle Gear in the 2000s. It was developed by Taito and was first released on arcade cabinets before being ported to the PlayStation home consoles. Battle Gear 2 is known as Tokyo Road Race in Europe.

See also Project Gotham Racing, the series' rough Western equivalent.

This work provides examples of:

• Ace Custom: 4 has Special cars, which are custom tuned variants of existing models of the roster. Cars included the Nissan Skyline GT-R R33 Nismo LM, the Subaru Impreza SpecC S Ti, the Toyota Altezza TRD, as well as the D1 Grand Prix cars like the Mazda RX-7 Type RS A'PEXi Top Secret-tuned Nissan Fairlady Z ORC driven by Yoichi Imamura in 2005 and 2006 respectively.
• Anti-Frustration Features: The Tuned version of 4 introduces braking assist for automatic transmission, where the car brakes automatically before a tight corner. Very handful for beginners who want to tackle the expert courses with ease.
• Creator Provincialism: All the cars and tracks up to the third game (including the Side by Side games) were strictly Japanese. The fourth game broke this with foreign cars and courses although they were all hot hatches, while one of the tracks is essentially the Circuit de Monaco.
• Design-It-Yourself Equipment: In 3, the cars can have visual customization, but in 4, the customization extends to performance modifications. Though this is restricted to players who have NESYS keys and in 3, players who bought the home port.
• Diegetic Interface: Hell, even the interiors are somewhat detailed, if not today's standards. But in early days of racing games, it was outstanding.
• Easier Than Easy: The Super Beginner B, taking place at the metropolitan expressway, where majority of the roads are just nothing but straights. It's the perfect place to push a tuned car to 300 km/h.
• Forest of Perpetual Autumn: Majority of the Expert courses take place during autumn, featuring lots of sepia-colored trees.
• Gratuitous English: The Battle Gear 2 theme. BATERU GIIIIIIIAAAAAAAAH~
  • Also, the more-complex Professional cabinets of the same game.
  • Takumi Mode in 3 Tuned is also this. (see Video Game Cruelty Punishment)
  • Well, the series was meant to emulate the real-life driving physics, so it can be hard for many gamers.
  • Added in 4 Tuned is a Harder Than Hard version of manual transmission. Which now uses an H-Pattern gearbox and requiring the clutch to shift gears.
• Metropolis Level: Many of the Beginner levels take place in a bustling city, usually on the highway and often as an oval-shaped track.
• Nitro Boost: Available as an upgrade in 4 for cars with non-turbo engines. It is essentially the non-turbo counterpart to the turbocharged engine's over-boost function.
• Product Placement: Lots. Not just licensed cars but 4 adds tuned variants and drift cars from the D1 Grand Prix.
• Revenue-Enhancing Devices: The NESYS keys. You can get one for free once you bought the PlayStation 2 port of 3. Sadly, the keys designed for 3 cannot be used on 4, prompting players to use different keys designed for that game instead.
• Sequel Goes Foreign: 4 features a few tracks that are outside of Japan. One of the notable and distinctive is its Expert course, being essentially the Circuit de Monaco, while one of its Dreadnought courses take place in the narrow Col de Turini mountains.
• Shout-Out: In "2" and 3, you can select quite a few Initial D cars with all their appropriate colors.
  • In 4, there are few racing tracks modeled after real-life race tracks, like Circuit de Monaco.
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Any track that takes place in winter is this, where the roads are covered with snow, and traction should be managed as it is slippery when wet.
• Updated Re-release: Tuned versions of 3 and 4. Before that, Side by Side 2 had the Evoluzione and Evoluzione RR versions.
  • 4 Tuned 2010 is the export-only version of the Japan-only 4 Tuned, which removes NESYS compatibility in favor of having all of the extra content available by default.
  • The PlayStation exclusive Side by Side Special 2000 is this to the original Side by Side Special, which includes all tracks and cars from the two Side by Side games.
• Video Game Cruelty Punishment: The Takumi Mode in the 3 Tuned forces you to stay off the walls. Even so much as touching it nets you a TIME PENALTY.