| Racing Lagoon | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Square |
| Publisher(s) | Square |
| Designer(s) | Akitoshi Kawazu Motomu Toriyama |
| Composer(s) | Noriko Matsueda Takahito Eguchi |
| Platform(s) | PlayStation |
| Release date(s) |
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| Genre(s) | Racing video game Role-playing |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
Racing Lagoon (レーシングラグーン Rēshingu Lagūn) is a 1999 video game developed and published by Square. The game is unique in that it combines street racing with role-playing elements. The game's story follows a new member of a street racing team in 1999 Yokohama, Japan as he tries to learn about his forgotten past and a mysterious race that took place ten years prior to the game's opening. Released for the PlayStation, the game is compatible with the Sony PocketStation. The game's music was composed by Noriko Matsueda as a jazz/techno fusion; she was joined by Takahito Eguchi as his first compositional role, and the soundtrack was released as an album. The game received poor reviews in Japan and was never released outside of the country, but still sold over 100,000 copies.
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The game features street-races that are initiated by flashing headlights at other drivers. Players are able to customize their car colors and other parts, and beating another driver entitles the player to pieces of the defeated car.[1] The game features two modes: a "High Speed Driving RPG" mode, where the player drives around taking missions and racing other drivers, and a "2 Warriors Battle Mode", where the player simply competes in races. The RPG mode is the primary portion of the game.[2]
The game's plot takes place in the year Yokohama, Japan, in 1999, and centers on several groups of street racers. 10 years prior to the game an event called "Fastest Legend" took place. One night, Team Bay Lagoon Racing (BLR), a five-member team led by "The Ace", Ikki Fujisawa, holds a race against Night Racers Honmuku (NR). The story follows one of BLR's newly joined members, Sho Akasaki, who is just beginning his racing career. Akasaki is determined to find out about the mystery of the "Fastest Legend", as well as his forgotten past.
The game's soundtrack was composed by Noriko Matsueda, with a few tracks contributed by Takahito Eguchi; it was Eguchi's first compositional role.[2] It has been described as a jazz/techno fusion, with "fast-paced" music that includes live recordings of saxophones. The soundtrack was released as an album on June 19, 1999 by DigiCube. The two-disc album features 62 tracks and covers a duration of 2:31:03.[3]
Although the game was not well-received by the Japanese gaming publication Famitsu, scoring only a 21 out of 40, the game managed to sell over 100,000 copies within a few weeks of its release.[4][5] The game was voted #45 for "most wanted sequels" by Famitsu's readers.[6]