Evolution of Initial D Games | 1998 - 2023 

Which of these games is your favorite?

Initial Unity actually came out on Steam, it’s now called Togue Shakai. Came out on the 7th of January. It’s pretty good so far.

Initial D and Wangan Midnight by Bandai are still today the most played arcade games here in Japan. Whenever I go to the arcades, the Initial D machines and Wangan midnight are always full. Now a days you can even create save files in the arcade. Just swipe a IC card, and your save gets loaded with the car customizations

AA = Double Ace Which means Project D's double ace, Takumi Fujiwara & Keisuke Takahashi, and new Tag Battle feature. AAX = Double Ace Cross Same as AA, and refers a new CPU Tag Battle mode.

Stage 3 nostalgia, Having those driver data saves were lit. Just walking into an arcade and seeing people line up their cards on top of the machines to wait to play was just part of core memories.

Every single Arcade Stage game has its own unique physics that makes each game worth playing at least once. Surprising how SEGA manages to refresh them in a way that doesn't just feel like its a complete port of old physics from other games, which means every game also has it's own set of mechanics and techniques that behave differently based on the game, you got old D's (1,2,3) Eraser and TST, 1 being floaty fast, 2 being fast and grippy, and 3 being slower and stiffer, to 4/4Kai's wacky cornering physics and "overspeed penalty", to 5's "Tire wear" mechanic and the first game to introduce Brake Cancels in the form of Powerslides, 6 with the Drift system and boost systems that influence cornering and acceleration, different cornering settings with their own varying physics, 7 with their "fast brake cancel" with emphasis on keeping as much speed through corners 8 with their stiffer but faster pace, reflected in their brake cancels where it feels like doing a combo on a fighting game lol Zero with their take on hybridizing D6 and D8, incredibly high speeds with fast cornering. Using brake cancels and gas release tech Zero2 with their stiffer physics but still keeping very fast pace, with the introduction of the tire and body gauges, meaning that races become more like battles of attrition than all-out sprints, using the H shifter to its full advantage for 5-3 shifting, and infamously the "wheel slam" technique to reduce understeer when cornering The Arcade with their unique take on physics, no longer needing tech to drift, and being able to corner by simply slowing down to an appropriate speed, with the car improving its cornering based on your speed and stiffening at faster speeds, with minor changes for Season 1,2 and 3

Great content! These evolution type videos are common, but the way you make it, it's really great, not just showing the games, but making you own comments on it, keep it up!

This channel is awesome :) Well structured, informative narration, and space to let the games speak for themselves. Fantastic!

The Arcade Stage in 2021 IS released outside of Japan, you can find it in a few Asian countries like Taiwan or Singapore, but sadly has not migrated to the Americas or Europe. Really hope they do that soon, the game is awesome

Actually underrated video! You explain things very well and your editing skills are great.

Arcade Stage2でドハマりしたな… タイムアタックやるようになるとコーナー一つ目失敗でスタート＋セレクト同時押しの強制終了で、１０秒しないで１００円が溶ける恐ろしいゲームだった。

I thought I was watching a 100k channel! Really good video+editing

For me, Initial D Arcade stage 5 is the most amazing ID game. The physic and saving the tyre/boost gameplay for grip play is most accurate in initial d anime/manga

5:50 he accidently turned on his real accent

the AA in the later arcade series, as far as i know stands for double ace, the machines are usually 4 cabs due to being one played for the uphill while the other races downhill

great video!

Such a cool video, thank you for talking about the Initial D games! I wish I knew about the anime back then when the PS2 version came out so that I could have had it and played with it. 😭

Special Stage is my all time favorite. It has the courses from Stage 2, plus additional ones like Shin Usui, anime VA dialogues and a story mode that follow up to Takumi’s encounter with Bunta in the WRX.

Forever love this series since I got into the games years later after the anime.

Amazing content! I'd like to see an evolution of the Wangan Midnight game series. I only saw footage of the arcade machine games and i think of it as one of the best games out there! I wish they were released outside of Asia, honestly..

Thanks you for making this video! Before watching I didn't know there is a product on GameBoy :). By the way, name of Initial D Arcade Stage 6, "AA" is mean: double Ace: uphill and downhill, and the name of Initial D Arcade Stage 7, "X" is mean: cross.

I get confused everytime I see these Initial D videos because my experience with the arcade games was so different than the information online. For example, I am 90% certain Stage 2 and Stage 3 had snow courses, at least for Akina. Stage 4 seemed like it completely changed the series too, switching to cell shaded graphics and using a hard manual shifter instead of the sportstronic one from the previous 3 games. Also the cards were thicker and more expensive. But I dunno, maybe I'm wrong.

Thanks for talking about Initial Drift Online. Nice video!

Stage 3 is the freaking legend. Street stage is also underrated. Stage zero and the arcade are fun, but it's hard to say you are driving when you play the games. Initial unity is great. But it will be better if it supports steering wheels control.

Initial D the Arcade. There was a machine in vegas at an arcade called Game Nest and for an arcade racing experience it was def the best

damn man... why i found you now.... this is literally my kind of channel i was hoping for... haha, subscribe... keep it up

Actually there's Akina (snow) version on Initial D 3rd stage the arcade. This is still my favorite arcade racing game, I use to play 2nd stage constantly at my local arcade till they got rid of the card reader where I couldn't use my card anymore.

I loved how the opponents in the Arcade Stages actually used their moves from the games. It was awesome.

i never thought graphics would get better overtime

Great video! A few items of note: The (most probable) reason why Arcade Stage 4 didn't have as many cars or courses is because the game engine completely changed, possibly in favor of newer/better graphics, which also ended up changing a lot of the physics of the game and had a lot of backlash for that back in the day, with many people preferring to play Arcade Stage ver. 3 instead of Arcade Stage 4. There was another (and probably many more) online fan game back in the day with a top-down view. It actually used a spaceship game engine and the cars controlled as well as they could for the type of engine they used, but it was kind of fun nonetheless. I tried finding references for it but to no avail. Kind of in-topic for the video: there was an Initial D-inspired series of games (even having a "mysterious tofu delivery racer" and other references in some of the games included) called "Kaido Battle" (brought to the west as "Tokyo Xtreme Racer: Drift") for PS2 which I believe were 3 games and all of them were localized as well. It had a much more "simulation" focus for downhill/drift battles than the Initial D games (the ones I played at least), with the player having to change tires, suspension, etc to actually setup their car for drifting.

Quality content.

UPDATE 30 May 2023: Togue Shakai got 9 Different Cars 5 Tracks Fully licensed Eurobeat Car customization now

The arcade got released to a few countries outside of Japan, Namely Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Australia... etc

i play stage 8 infinity at a local arcade in the usa. we have two machines and i have a card with two exfull spec cars, awesome opportunity

Dude thanks for the video, it was really interesting, you also got a great voice

I watched the Initial D anime but I haven't played the games. Cool video. ^_^

Ahhh, I remember arcade stage 1-3 had magnetic card reader, to save a driver data. Young boys were in fever. They trained their home game-center, and went to different game-center to beat rivals. Which team was faster??

AA refers to the Double Ace in Project D, Takahashi Keisuke and Takumi Fujiwara.

not sure what happened to my comment before but imma rewrite it: Arcade Stage 0: first game to include support for Sega Aime and soon Banapassport and e-amusement cards. Game soon got collab events with Touhou Project and MF Ghost, the sequel to Initial D. Initial D The Arcade was released internationally... i guess.. as an export version but I guess Sega or Bandai Namco whoever was responsible for importing the games are pretty bad with responding to arcade venues. Australia is pretty much the only western country to have at least 5 places officially connected to the servers but I see majority play Wangan Midnight. Hence the dead online and local battles. Since the Sega Aime system was a thing, those who played IDAS0 got their full tuned cars turned to tickets to buy in the newer title.

The creator(s) of Initial Unity are making a sequel/successor named Touge Shakai, which is currently in early access on Steam (according to some the physics are unfortunately not as good as in Initial Unity).

nice info

Intial D The Arcade is actually in my mall's arcade. Took awhile for me to figure out how to change the shifting to manual since there is no english version I believe. But overall, really fun with friends or yourself.

You could have shown the games in third person to see at least the evolution of car models Very cool road texture evolution I guess

woah, that 2001 initial d arcade stage looks fricking good as hell even today

spent so much money on arcade stage 3 when i was younger. i always play when i see one in stores or when i am in asia

Initial drift online has such a good sense of speed ngl

the intial d arcade one stage 3 i have at my local bowling alley and its really fun it has a wheel a shifter and a handbrake for the setup it sick

Bar perhaps an arcade cabinet in the 2000s, I don’t think any of these were ever released here in Australia

I have to say this is one of the first "Evolution" videos that I actually liked a lot

5:23 sorry for commenting so much, but arcade stage three did have snowy Akina so just wanted to say it

I would say Initial D8 was the last good one imo, car data was stored locally on cards, and people still to this day can play Initial D8 at Round1s in the US. but finding a card is hard now since they dont manufacture them anymore and you have to see if the card reader is even functional because sometimes they could just be off or broken. my round1 has perfectly functioning card readers, but no cards. I also happen to work there lol.

Great video! But you missed the best of them all! The Assetto Corsa modding community 😀

5:29 : Damn, thats a nice pass 🤣

I have fond memories of me and my wannabe-drifter friends going to the arcade playing Stage 3 in high school. Since then I've only played stage zero a couple times, but it didn't quite feel the same.

Here in Jacksonville Fl There is A Aracde Spot That Has The 2021 Inital D The Arcade Cabinet.

Initial D from ps1 was amazing man, good times

love tyhis video, I just start watching the serie now and I love racing videogames so I would like to know about games about the serie. Thank you so much.,

My First Initial D game is Initial D Arcade Stage 6AA.

2:22 these graphic are crazy for the time

i wasted so much money on stage 3... "can you hold the brake pedal for boost off?" lol

street stageめちゃめちゃやってたなぁ〜🥺

I had to throw this is but 6AA wasn’t the first with a snow course. Arcade Stage had an Akina snow course.

Funny thing about ID The Arcade, my local arcade has four cabinets here in Vegas 😂.

What’s the song playing in the background of the Arcade Zero showcase?

Initial D stage 5 has a realistic-ish physics which i miss tbh

Still playing initial d street stage today!

The physics jump between 3 and 4 was massive, enough to turn me off from Arcade Stage for a few years. The latest looks incredible though. I wish I had nearby arcade cabs

"Never released outside of Japan" Well, that is true, but my local arcades actually imported cabinets for Stage Zero and The Arcade. Granted it isn't translated into english, we can still play online with other players.

Street stage made my while childhood🥰

IDO is one of my favorite games i just wish the dev would actually do something with it again me and my buddies played it religiously but we had to switch to assetto corsa because theres nothing new in IDO

Welp the "Initial D The Arcade" is available outside japan. I live in Hong Kong and they have some english added into the game but most of them are just japanese I guess its just not available outside of Asia, which is still sad

good video

Stage 3 for me 🥲 childhood nostalgia

Its sad how Sega has the rights to make every Initial D game and they deliver one garbage after another. This franchise has so many potential, witch besides can be canonical to Yakuza games. In the end of the day, the best experiences for enthusiasts of tofu delivering is somewhere else, but not on Initial D games. Ok, i cant leave without mention that Kaido Racer 2 is the real deal.

Ayo, was that steins;gate music being played on the last game?!

Initial D special stage still my favourite until now😊

Actually ID: The Arcade was only released in Australia, one of the places in Australia I know they have ID: The Arcade is Melbourne.

Initial d the arcade was a rather shocking game fo anyone who last played AS4. it was a harsh lesson in handling and corner speeds. it probably didnt help i chose an evo7 for the short time i was on vacation there, it seemed to not handle the best but the corners played differently from V2-4.

Now all the Initial D Arcade legacy is in Assetto Corsa and this is the best what could happened to this files

Does "Initial D Another Stage" have an English version? Cuz that will be great if I could play it and actually understand it

I'm watching from Japan, but I feel very nostalgic 6AA=Double Ace 7AAX=Double Ace cross ４→４改(kai)というマイナーチェンジバージョンもあります。

what's the songs name at 6:27 ?? its so familiar

0:44 ayo why is itsuki driving nani!?

im going to atest for the psp version its not bad its completely fine don't let it stop you from trying it

Initial unity got a sequel called Touge Shakai, add it to this

I had no idea any of these existed

One main reason why i enjoy Arcade stage 8 a lot more than zero, is that the animations and even voice lines were removed. Idk why this ticks me so much but the animation and voice lines made it the perfect initial D game and removing that and replacing it with the Less memorable Legends style with only text just feels like an insult to the work that was put into the previous installments in the series. It's not a bad game, just dissapointing in some areas.

snowy course wasn't new in 6aa it was in IDAS3 first. Also you have a lot of "never released outside of Japan" thing. But I have played a lot of those games in Hong Kong or Singapore. It's released outside of Japan as the JP version just not in the West as a localised version.

I'm over here playing arcade stage on PSP, taking this personally.

Most people should have already pointed out, but AA means double aces

I was first introduced with initial D by playing mountain vengeance... ikr

As of today, Initial D The Arcade has unofficial servers running. Playable on PC with wheels/controllers, game saves (emulated aime card), and a WIP English translation mod.

6:13 Oh hey that's me!

The ending song... :)

3:41 what's the song name??

8:17 they launched it in Asia from 29 july 2021

what's the song that played in initial d street stage 2006?

Some small hole in the wall aracde places in the USA have Initial D The Arcade and have things set as a private server. So at least its here in states for the time being but just not on the updated version yet.

this is going to bother me until i figure it out so can anyone help me what meme song plays at 6:25-6:28 is it an initial d song im going insane

I just discovered a new Initial D game on steam. It's just called 'Initial D' It's coming soon, there's a synopsis and a little preview so far