Got japanese version 2 days ago, been playing it have completed 25% of game.
Game is very intresting, it looks good and story mode is a great feature. During the races your pit-crew is talking with you, and while driving in slipstream or passing competitors you can hear their comments as well.
While in slipstream, or drafting yoou get RP points which are cumulating for unlocing various events in some kind of event generator (couldn't understand it cause game is on japanese, with very little english words) which looks promising. There is also some kind of challenge section where you compete for bronze, silver and golden rims for unlociking a bonuses. The structure of the game is very similar to NAMCO's Moto GP titles, and graphic code is obviously improved Moto GP graphic engine.
Betwwen the races or events you can watch great movie sequnces which are explaining the story in the game: two chicks are competing for the title of the ultimate racer, and there is lot of conspiracy, jelaousy and illegal stuff trought the story. Movies looks fantastic (Tekken engine) and they are adding great overall feeling. There are very intresting things happening in that story but I don't want to spoil the surprise. All the talks are on english, so story is fully understandable.
As for driving model, it is still arcadish, but tends to simulation, especially in track racing. I don't like rally section at all, but rally itself is a nice feature for diversity of the events in game.
After you cope with the japanese menus, you can turn braking assist and turn off traction and ABS control in settings menu. You can even adjust like 15 other parameters, but as the all manus are on japanese, I just didn't have nerves to explore what is what.
Driving is very sensitive, and good thing is that you can adjust anti-roll stiffness and brake balance during the race. You have to drive trough the corners with excact spped and gear or you'll bump into walls or go ouside the track - which is nice. With driving aids turn-off you must be very carefull with acceleration out of corner, or you'll spin. In total, feeling is OK, but you need to get used to it.
Cars are nicely modeled, and various. I really like Bentley Speed 8 (sound rocks) and all the GT1 LM class cars (Alfa GTV, BMW LM, Sallen S7 LM...).
Unfortunatelly, there are just few tracks in the game: Suzuka and Suzuka short, Yokohama Street Circuit (don't know is it a real circut, though), Monaco circuit, Motegi Twinring, and two tracks I don't know names of. Other tracks are one drag track (located in USA, with reverse mode), two rally tracks (with reverse) and one rally special stage (located in Spain, still have to check in WRC3 is it a real Spanish SS).
Sound is in Dolby Pro Logic II which is very cool, especially while overtaking. In total, it is a nice done game, and guess worth buying. I think that release for American and European market is in Appril 2004.
