Arcade mode
Like the name suggests, this is basically the Legends of the Streets mode from Initial D Arcade Stage Ver. 2, but with some differences.
If you still haven't picked any car yet for your garage, make sure to pick one, but make sure that you pick wisely, since the progress is tied to each car, so if you wanna switch to another car, you'll have to do everything from scratch (thankfully you can store multiple cars in your garage, so you can switch back to your old car at any time if you feel like your newer choice isn't your cup of tea).
How this mode works
Like I just stated two lines of text ago, the first thing to do is to pick your car. Refer to the "What car to choose?" page for more information and some guidance on the matter.
Once your car has been chosen, it's time to actually start the races. If you have never raced before in that mode, you'll be greeted with this screen:
As you can see, you'll only be able to race on the following courses against the following characters:
Myogi
| Driver |
Car |
Race conditions |
Difficulty (out of 10) |
| Itsuki Takeuchi |
Toyota Corolla Levin SR (AE85) |
Day - Dry - Counterclockwise |
1 |
| Takumi Fujiwara |
Toyota Corolla Levin SR (AE85) |
Day - Dry - Clockwise |
2 |
| Shingo Shouji |
Honda Civic SiR-II (EG6) |
Night - Dry - Counterclockwise |
4 |
| Takeshi Nakazato |
Nissan Skyline GT-R V-Spec II (BNR32) |
Night - Dry - Clockwise |
5 |
Usui
| Driver |
Car |
Race conditions |
Difficulty (out of 10) |
| Two Guys from Tokyo |
Nissan Silvia Spec-R (S15) | Day - Dry - Counterclockwise |
2 |
| Nobuhiko Akiyama |
Toyota Altezza RS200 Z Edition (SXE10) |
Day - Dry - Clockwise |
2 |
| Mako Sato and Sayuki |
Nissan SilEighty (RPS13) |
Night - Dry - Counterclockwise |
6 |
| Sakamoto |
Suzuki Cappuccino (EA11R) | Night - Wet - Clockwise |
7 |
Akagi
| Driver |
Car |
Race conditions |
Difficulty (out of 10) |
| Kyoko Iwase |
Mazda ɛ̃fini RX-7 Type R (FD3S) |
Day - Dry - Uphill |
3 |
| Kenta Nakamura |
Nissan Silvia Q's (S14) |
Day - Wet - Downhill |
4 |
| Keisuke Takahashi |
Mazda ɛ̃fini RX-7 Type R (FD3S) | Night - Dry - Uphill |
7 |
| Ryosuke Takahashi |
Mazda SAVANNA RX-7 ∞ III (FC3S) |
Night - Dry - Downhill |
8 |
Akina
| Driver |
Car |
Race conditions |
Difficulty (out of 10) |
| Kenji |
Nissan 180SX Type X (RPS13) |
Day - Dry - Uphill |
2 |
| Koichiro Iketani |
Nissan Silvia K's (S13) |
Day - Dry - Downhill |
3 |
| Wataru Akiyama |
Toyota Corolla Levin GT-APEX (AE86) |
Night - Dry - Uphill |
8 |
| Takumi Fujiwara |
Toyota Sprinter Trueno 3door GT-APEX (AE86) |
Night - Dry - Downhill |
9 |
Happogahara
| Driver |
Car |
Race conditions |
Difficulty (out of 10) |
| Toru Suetsugu |
Mazda Eunos Roadster (NA6CE) |
Day - Dry - Outbound |
4 |
| Daiki Ninomiya |
Honda Civic Type R (EK9) |
Day - Dry - Inbound |
8 |
| Smiley Sakai |
Honda Integra Type R (DC2) |
Night - Dry - Outbound |
8 |
| Tomoyuki Tachi |
Honda Civic Type R (EK9) |
Night - Dry - Inbound |
9 |
Irohazaka
| Driver |
Car |
Race conditions |
Difficulty (out of 10) |
| Seiji Iwaki |
Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IV RS (CN9A) |
Day - Dry - Downhill |
6 |
| Kyoichi Sudo |
Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution III GSR (CE9A) |
Day - Dry - Downhill |
7 |
| Kai Kogashiwa |
Toyota MR2 G-Limited (SW20) |
Night - Dry - Downhill |
8 |
| Keisuke Takahashi |
Mazda ɛ̃fini RX-7 Type R (FD3S) | Night - Dry - Downhill |
9 |
In order to progress, you simply must beat these guys, and once you do it, you'll see that their character portrait image has a single red slash above it:
What this means, is that you have beaten that character one time, but what happens if you try to beat him again? Well, check these cutscenes, now they feature rain! Yes, as you might have seen already in the rival selection screen, you are doing the exact same race but now, instead of doing them in dry conditions, now they must be done with rain (with the exceptions of Kenta and Sakamoto since those always feature wet conditions).
Beat them once again, and their portraits will now display a double slash on their portrait, indicating that you have succesfully now beaten them twice.
Walkthrough of this mode
First of all, defeat all of the characters listed above at least once in order to unlock the following secret race:
Irohazaka
| Driver |
Car |
Race conditions |
Difficulty (out of 10) |
| Takumi Fujiwara |
Toyota Sprinter Trueno 3door GT-APEX (AE86) |
Night - Dry - Downhill |
9 |
Once you have beaten him, you'll unlock some new extra races to complete, which are the following ones:
Real Myogi
| Driver |
Car |
Race conditions |
Difficulty (out of 10) |
| Shingo Shouji |
Honda Civic SiR-II (EG6) |
Night - Dry - Downhill |
8 |
| Takeshi Nakazato |
Nissan Skyline GT-R V-Spec II (BNR32) |
Night - Dry - Uphill |
9 |
Real Usui
| Driver |
Car |
Race conditions |
Difficulty (out of 10) |
| Mako Sato and Sayuki |
Nissan SilEighty (RPS13) |
Night - Dry - Downhill |
9 |
Shomaru Pass
| Driver |
Car |
Race conditions |
Difficulty (out of 10) |
| Wataru Akiyama |
Toyota Corolla Levin GT-APEX (AE86) |
Night - Dry - Outbound |
9 |
Momiji Line
| Driver |
Car |
Race conditions |
Difficulty (out of 10) |
| Toru Suetsugu |
Mazda Eunos Roadster (NA6CE) |
Night - Dry - Downhill |
8 |
| Atsuro Kawai |
Nissan Skyline 25GT Turbo (ER34) |
Night - Dry - Uphill |
8 |
Enna Skyline
| Driver |
Car |
Race conditions |
Difficulty (out of 10) |
| Daiki Ninomiya |
Honda Civic Type R (EK9) |
Night - Dry - Downhill |
9 |
| Smiley Sakai |
Honda Integra Type R (DC2) |
Night - Dry - Uphill |
9 |
Beat all of these races at least once, and you'll finally unlock the final race, which is this one:
Akina
| Driver |
Car |
Race conditions |
Difficulty (out of 10) |
| Bunta Fujiwara |
Subaru Impreza WRX STi Coupe Type R Version V (GC8F) |
Night - Dry - Downhill |
10 |
Manage to complete this challenge and you'll be greeted with the Arcade mode credits, which simply includes official manga drawings of the characters you race against in the Arcade mode, in contrast to the Story mode, where in those they include the official coloured panels from some of the most iconic moments of the races portrayed in said mode.
Post-credits content
Once you have seen the credits once, you'll be booted back to the main menu of the game. But, this doesn't mean that mode is completed (with the car that you have chosen), far from it. Like we said before in the "How this mode works" section, you can play against everybody in the wet condition, so that'll be your main objective for now.
This time, you can do every race in any order you may wish, but that doesn't mean that you can simply beat Bunta again and call it a day, no, you must win against everybody in order to actually beat this mode and be greeted again with the Arcade mode credits.
Once that you have fully completed the Arcade mode, if you try to enter again the course selection with the same car, you'll realize that your progress has been wiped entirely (except the fact that you can race Takumi in Irohazaka and Bunta from the get-go), but that's not entirely true. The game doesn't tell you about this (it only shows you the amount of times you have beaten the mode with stars), but the game has increased a notch its difficulty (not to be confused with the difficulty setting in the options menu, since that difficulty modifier stacks up alongside the one you have in this mode).
While at first glance you might don't see too much of a difference, the more times you complete this game mode with the same car, the higher the difficulty will be, so as you can see, this game mode is designed to be completed multiple times instead of just one in order to enjoy it at its fullest potential. So for example, if you have managed to beat everybody twice seven times, you'll be playing in NG+7/New Game Plus 7, and unless your car is a meta car and your times are relatively close to the world records, just forget about giving it a chance.