Regional differences
The game has been released in 3 different regions, NTSC-U, NTSC-J and PAL. All of them have their own differences between themselves, and we will compare all regions in the instances where any game version differs from the rest.
Cars
Region
|
Sell price (in credits)
|
NTSC-U/NTSC-J
|
7.500
|
PAL
|
75.000 |
Dodge Viper GTS-R Team Oreca '00
Region
|
Purchase price (in credits)
|
Dealership brand
|
Livery differences
|
NTSC-U
|
1.000.000
|
Dodge
|
-
|
NTSC-J
|
1.000.000
|
Chrysler
|
Includes a PlayStation logo in several places
|
PAL
|
- |
Dodge
|
Includes a PlayStation logo in several places |
The selection of F1 cars between regions is pretty different. While the NTSC versions of the game have 6 cars, PAL only has 2 of them. Not only that but their naming structure and design are completely different.
First we'll start with the NTSC ones, since those are the most complex to understand.
Car
|
Cylinders in the engine
|
Year of participation
|
Driver
|
Polyphony Digital F090/S
|
10
|
1990
|
Ayrton Senna
|
| Polyphony Digital F094/H |
10
|
1994
|
Damon Hill
|
| Polyphony Digital F094/S |
10
|
1994
|
Ayrton Senna |
| Polyphony Digital F686/M |
6
|
1986
|
Nigel Mansel
|
| Polyphony Digital F687/S |
6
|
1987 |
Ayrton Senna |
| Polyphony Digital F688/S |
6
|
1988
|
Ayrton Senna |
If you can't figure out the naming for these cars, here it goes: the first number equals to the number of cylinders of the engine that car has, the last two numbers are the last two digits in the year those cars were driven by the specific driver they wanted to pay homage to. The letter in the end represents the first letter in the last name of the drivers whose real counterpart of those cars were being driven by.
As for the PAL vehicles go, there's simply no structure to follow, even though they are simply reusing two of the NTSC vehicles (with some minor changes and some extra liveries).
Car
|
NTSC counterpart
|
Polyphony001
|
Polyphony Digital F094/S |
| Polyphony002 |
Polyphony Digital F688/S |
Honda S2000 '99
Region
|
Purchase price (in credits)
|
Differences
|
NTSC-U/NTSC-J
|
33.800
|
-
|
PAL
|
- |
The front bumper has two black bars, and its title thumbnail is missing when viewing the car from the garage
|
Initial credit funds
Region
|
Amount of credits
|
| PAL/NTSC-U |
18.000 |
| NTSC-J |
15.000 |
NTSC-J is basically a harder NTSC-U version, and here's one of the reasons why that's the case: the credits you get upon starting the game. If we take into account the Mazda MX-5 '93's price, we can see that the best initial car cannot be bought, meaning that your initial car must be another one by force.
Language differences
Between regions, some elements are called different due to some nuances between regions, even if the language is the same. Considering that english is the only language that gets repeated between regions, we'll stick to only this one (with an exception). The following table will compare the names used for the same terms between regions.
NTSC-U
|
NTSC-J
|
PAL
|
PAL (not in english)
|
Hard racing tyres
|
-
|
Slick tyres
|
-
|
HP
|
PS (slightly higher value than HP and BHP)
|
BHP
|
-
|
ft.lb
|
kgf.m |
kgf.m |
-
|
Take into consideration that this list could also include car names changes, but it is kinda unnecessary since the name differences are pretty minor all things considered.
License tests
B license
Region
|
Differences
|
NTSC-U/NTSC-J
|
-
|
PAL
|
Stricter times overall
|
A license
Region
|
Differences
|
NTSC-U/NTSC-J
|
-
|
PAL
|
Stricter times overall
|
IB license
Region
|
Differences
|
NTSC-U/NTSC-J
|
Harder IB-6 gold time requirement
|
PAL
|
-
|
IA license
Region
|
Differences
|
NTSC-U/NTSC-J
|
Harder IA-4 gold time requirement
|
PAL
|
Stricter times overall
|
S license
Region
|
Differences
|
NTSC-U/NTSC-J
|
-
|
PAL
|
Stricter times overall
|
R license
Region
|
Differences
|
NTSC-U/NTSC-J
|
-
|
PAL
|
Easier times overall
|
Events prizes
Region
|
Differences
|
| PAL/NTSC-U |
- |
| NTSC-J |
Less credits given per victory overall
|
Like we just mentioned in the "Initial credits fund" section, NTSC-J is basically a harder version of NTSC-U. In this case we will omit listing all of the events, but to make it clear, the japanese version of the game gives you way less money for every event completed, meaning that you must be more conservative with your purchases, specially during the early and mid-game.
It is also worth pointing out that some events also have different car prize pools between regions.
Time trials
Circuit
|
NTSC-U/NTSC-J
|
PAL
|
| Midfield Raceway |
1:25.533 |
1:24.993 |
| Trial Mountain |
1:47.968 |
1:49.025 |
| Tokyo Route 246 |
2:02.270 |
2:02.330 |
| Deep Forest Raceway |
1:25.350 |
1:26.360 |
| Laguna Seca |
1:22.716 |
1:23.178 |
| Apricot Hill Raceway |
1:17.447 |
1:18.558 |
| Grand Valley Speedway |
1:48.795 |
1:49.453 |
| Swiss Alps |
1:23.104 |
1:23.703 |
| Tahiti Maze |
1:59.459 |
1:59.964 |
Complex String
|
4:52.716 |
4:49.869 |
As we can see, for the most part, PAL times tend to be easier than the NTSC counterpart, with a big exception, Complex String. This actually makes the time trials way easier to complete in NTSC, since the last time trial is considered to be the harder one to beat by a long stretch.
It's important to mention that in every NTSC version of the game, disabling the assists in the options menu does not disable them in this mode, unlike in PAL.
