I've also gone insane and played Star Ocean: Til the End of Time. Here's a little something to activate traumatic flashbacks for anyone who's played it:

Also, the password is 'action', which, ugh

Playing Wizardry 7, and you hear about old copy protection schemes, but experiencing it first hand really brings home how monumentally lame those could be.

When looking up Genki's 1996 re-release of Wangan Dead Heat, I noticed that they added a bunch of pictures of models to the back of the box. It didn't really register with me why they were there until I played the thing. Let's just say it comes with a bonus disc.

Genki was definitely using the Hang-On GP tech for Wangan Dead Heat. You can tell because the road melts at the bottom of the screen.

The difficulty curve is also weird in Shutoko Battle 2. There's a Mega Man style level select with 9 tracks where you beat up on jobbers, and then you have to race Keiichi Tsuchiya on each of those courses as boss fights. He's like 10 seconds a lap faster than you when you have a maxed out car

An odd thing about Shutoko Battle 2 is that even though it's supposed to be about street racing, four of the nine tracks are just different configurations of Sebring, like, what are we even doing here. At least in the first game there was a journey you took as a player from street to circuit.

The one thing that really bothers me is that they changed the rival racer screens from the first one and excised literally all of the personality and charm. Genki went from this first style to the second.

Turns out Shutoko Battle 2 is a better video in almost every way to the first one. Better handling, cleaner graphics, no slowdown, more tracks, and a more involved upgrade system.

So, turns out Shutoko Battle '94 starts getting fucky on Stage 6, which is the difficulty Tokyo Highway Battle starts at. Also there's a Super Famicom American as the third rival.

Second rival in Shutoko Battle '94. She's saying she'll give the player a handicap by driving in high heels. After you beat her she gets mad and demands a rematch without heels, which somehow gives her an extra 10 seconds a lap.

While I'm on the subject of Tokyo Highway Battle:

In Tokyo Highway Battle (Shutoko Battle 3?) you can win all the races leading up to the Drift King by playing it like a normal racing game and not drifting. This was the case even in the first game, Shutoko Battle '94, as you can see.

I hit the wall after my best lap because rubbing is racing.

Therapist: 16-bit Tsuchiya Keiichi isn't real, he can't hurt you

16-bit Tsuchiya Keiichi:

The weird thing about the US localization of Persona 1 is that they turned Mark into a Pittsburgh Pirates fan