Remember my import mini reviews a while back, guys/gals ? (Cyber Org, iS : Internal Section)
It’s time for another one 
This time I’d like to share my experiences with the Racing/RPG hybrid called Racing Lagoon. Here we go !!
Racing Lagoon Mini-Review
Racing Lagoon is described by Square as a “High Speed Driving RPG”. Basically, there’s this huge story involving the revival of Yokohama’s fastest Racing Team, called Bay Lagoon Racers. After the initial race, you are given free reign over Yokohama, you’ll get encounters against other drivers. If you get into a random encounter (you always bump into your opponent), you have to race him over a certain distance.
The racetracks vary depending on which street you are. Lose the race, and you lose a certain component of your car, like the exaust pipe for example. If you win a race, you’ll usually gain a part of their car to upgrade yours. After each race, your car parts gain experience points (engine, body, chassis, etc…). As the parts gain levels, obviously, you become more efficient in racing.
Additionally to all of that, you’ll be awarded a certain amount of RP (Racing Points), think FFT’s Job Points, but instead of gaining new abilities, Racing Points are used to buy new car parts, you can also customise your car to make it speedier and stuff, I’m sure I’ll find Nitro Boosters somewhere in there 
If you keep on losing random races, obviously, you’ll have lost more important componants and will be less efficient. Of course, after each race, you’ll have a nice stash of japanese Yen to use to fix your car, go to the gas station every now & then to save your game :), and even go to a bank to deposit or withdraw money.
And unlike FFT, when you lost random battle gave a game over, it dosen’t do that here, but you keep on losing parts, which is bad. Story races however, like FFT’s story battles, must be won, otherwise it’s game over.
I’m really enjoying this game so far and yes, it’s a japanese import for the PSX, a mod chip is required to play obviously and like in Front Mission, the menus are in english, story text and item descriptions are in japanese. It’s not too hard to figure out, it’s actually quite import-friendly.
A few interesting facts : Akitoshi Kawazu, the producer of the famous SaGa series was behind Racing Lagoon, and Noriko Matsueda from Bahamut Lagoon and Front Mission worked on this, and we get a kick-ass jazz soundtrack, something we don’t often see in RPGs these days
Overall, it’s a very quirky but highly interesting title Although, I wouldn’t reccomend it to people who don’t have some knowlegde of japanese(I know I don’t, but I’ve beaten japanese RPGs before without understanding what I was doing, so I’m used to it :P).
Damnit DG, you and your god damn Internal Section…