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Regional differences [WIP]

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.

 

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.


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.

 

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.