Zero4 Champ
Zero4 Champ (ゼロヨンチャンプ) is a series of racing games created by Yutaka Kaminaga of Media Rings, which started in 1991 with the PC Engine title Zero4 Champ.
Hudson Soft gained the license for the PlayStation 2 Zero4 Champ Series: Drift Champ by Work Jam and Tamsoft, and for the mobile phone Go! Zero4 Champ developed by Profire, both of which were released in late 2002.
"Zero4"
In Japan, street racing sometimes occurs on long straights in industrial areas, which are used for drag races. These races are known as "zero-yon" (ゼロヨン) or "04", short for "0-400 meters", ヨン being Japanese for the number four.
Summary
The series is something of a predecessor to works like Initial D and Wangan Midnight, with its touge racing, aero parts tuning, and anime-style "Story Mode". It has also RPG and simulation gameplay which was succeeded with the Shutokou Battle titles Kattobi Tune and Racing Battle C1 Grand Prix.
The series features various sport-grade Japanese cars such as the Toyota MR2-GT (SW20), the Mazda RX-7 Type RS (FD3S), the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VI (CP9A), the Subaru Impreza WRX STi (GDB), the Nissan Skyline GT-R V-Spec (BNR34), and the Honda NSX Type-S Zero (NA2), all import scene classics.
The series
1991.03.08: Zero4 Champ (ゼロヨンチャンプ), PC Engine- 1993.05.03: Zero4 Champ II (ゼロヨンチャンプII), PC Engine Super CD-ROM²
- 1994.07.22: Zero4 Champ RR (ゼロヨンチャンプ ダブルアール), Super Famicom
- 1995.12.25: Zero4 Champ RR-Z (ゼロヨンチャンプ ダブルアール・ヅィー), Super Famicom
- 1997.06.20: Zero4 Champ DooZy-J (ゼロヨンチャンプ ドゥーヅィージェイ), PlayStation
- 1997.06.20: Zero4 Champ DooZy-J Type-R (ゼロヨンチャンプ ドゥーヅィージェイ タイプアール), Sega Saturn
- 2002.11.21: Zero4 Champ Series: Drift Champ (ゼロヨンチャンプ シリーズ ドリフトチャンプ), PlayStation 2 (Hudson Soft)
- 2002.12.24: Go! Zero4 Champ (GO!04チャンプ), Mobile phone i-mode 504i (Hudson Soft / Profire)
Zero4 Extreme
In June 2005, a fan-made flash game Zero4 Extreme (ゼロヨンエクストリーム) was released by Kuruma,[1] though it is currently a dead link.