Fictional Circuit Appreciation Thread

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astrarobotica

astrarobotica

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I've been thinking about fictional circuits a lot lately, especially during the past couple weeks that I've been obsessively playing GT7. In recent years, I've come to appreciate them much more than I used to. I think this is because we've been a bit spoiled with racing sims in the past decade or so, especially in the PC space. Outside of GT and FM, nearly all of them rely on real-world circuits, and there's a ton of overlap between them. Every game (not literally, obviously) has Spa, and Brands Hatch, and Fuji, and Monza...

So now I see fictional circuits as having more value than real circuits, because they really help separate franchises and give individual games their identity. When I think about FM3, I think about Camino Viejo de Montserrat. GT4? Grand Valley Speedway (even though it was around from the beginning). Maybe a lot of this is fueled by nostalgia, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. That nostalgia is proof that they're memorable.

Anyway, here are some of my favorite fictional circuits:

Camino Viejo de Montserrat - Forza Motorsport 3/4


Rally di Positano - (also) Forza Motorsport 3


Out of Blue - Ridge Racer Type 4


Maybe I've just got a lot of nostalgia for FM3. But also maybe Turn 10 was really at the top of their game back then.
 
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I know for me Red Rock from GT2 was always fun and just absurd with it's layout. The Seattle street course was peak for me in GT3. Autumn Ring can be fun no matter the game, and while I don't vibe with Forza as much, Maple Valley from Forza Original was one of the ones I liked and I happily jumped between it and Tsukuba regularly.

I think part of it is that at first licensed tracks were a novelty...now with that being the default because of sim focus, and probably resources needed to properly model a track from scratch plus the idea in the first place, it makes it less appealing for anything outside of arcade racing.

As someone who has never been enthusiastic about the Nordschleif, however, I would like to see more unique fictional tracks in sims. I'm not sure if they hold more value, point of view and focus would make that subjective, but they could add variety in ways an FIA Grade 1 circuit couldn't.
 
I love fictional tracks and to be honest, to me they're what differentiates between racing games more than anything.

My top of all time is Trial Mountain in it's original layout - I could lap that all day everyday.
Tied with it though is Grindelwald - so much so that I drove the real layout a few years ago.

After those? Seattle, Maple Valley (FM), Tahiti Road and so, so many more.

Might actually do a video on my favourite tracks now I think about it, haha!
 
Midfield raceway all the way. It was the circuit that allowed me to understand vehicle tuning. Tvr Cerberra 4.6 suspension tuning, ultimate gear ratio’s and just shaving hundreds of a second of my fasted lap.

As I mostly played the gran turismo or racing games with real life tracks, finctional tracks I love are only from GT:

  • Apricot Hill
  • Tokyo R246
 
This might be a little off topic, but I'd like to introduce a unique fantasy circuit with a slightly different pattern.

This is just my definition, but I think there are two types of fantasy circuits. One is more creativel circuits that are thought up independently by game staff. The other is homage circuits that imitate the layout of real circuits, designed to avoid licensing agreements for those circuits.

In many cases, the latter are simply imitations of real circuits, but sometimes developers will imitate those real circuits and then arrange them into creative and crazy circuits.

Yes, like this crazy "Sutsukuba"-style circuit...


DZBFqTDVwAAhsj_.webp
 
Apricot Hill and Midfield have been my favorites in GT. For Forza, Sunset Peninsula and Fujimi. In other games, basically all Ridge Racer tracks :lol:
 
astrarobotica
What game is that?? Either the Tsukuba half is too big, or the Suzuka half is too small, or they're both somewhere in-between. It's sort of ingenious, but I think my muscle memory would struggle with the discrepancy in scale.
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Zero-4 Champ Series: Drift Champ

This is a PS2 racing game that, if I remember correctly, was never released outside of Japan.
Unfortunately, I couldn't find any gameplay footage of Neo Nippon Circuit Layout A, but I did find a video of a different layout that's closer to Suzuka.
And the game also features several other crazy mashup circuits, like "Wangan Speedway" (a mashup of Fuji Speedway and Twin Ring Motegi), featured in this video.
 
GTP is slacking. Thread started 12hours ago and no mention of



And

.

I love this track too.




I always remember a faction of SIM racers sayings it's not a simmif it has fictional tracks. Crazy dingbats. I love fictional tracks and I think we need them more now than ever thanks to Mr.Tilke.
 
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The fictional tracks in TOCA 2 were always be favourites, particularly the one set in the Scottish highlands - Loch Rannoch? It had a section where the road split off into two routes, it had a big dam big long narrow sections, it was so much fun. I think it returned in some form in later Race Driver games, but I’ve always felt that Bannochbrae from Project CARS was very obviously inspired by that track too.

There was also Castl Bavaria (I think?) which if anything was probably my favourite of all, it flowed so beautifully, and the test track which I loved driving too, particularly turn one over a massive crest which was fun at race starts. There were more too but those three stick in my mind as really good ones. With the rest of the game all being UK focused, letting loose on these tracks and how different they felt seemed quite daring and exciting.
 
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m355y
The fictional tracks in TOCA 2 were always be favourites, particularly the one set in the Scottish highlands - Loch Rannoch? It had a section where the road split off into two routes, it had a big dam big long narrow sections, it was so much fun. I think it returned in some form in later Race Driver games, but I’ve always felt that Bannochbrae from Project CARS was very obviously inspired by that track too.

There was also Castl Bavaria (I think?) which if anything was probably my favourite of all, it flowed so beautifully, and the test track which I loved driving too, particularly turn one over a massive crest which was fun at race starts. There were more too but those three stick in my mind as really good ones. With the rest of the game all being UK focused, letting loose on these tracks and how different they felt seemed quite daring and exciting.
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Agreed.
 

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