So F355 Challenge was a naomi and dreamcast (and ps2) realistic racing title. It seemed like a popular arcade title (I saw it at a lot of arcades) and turned heads in arcades at the time with its 3 screen setup and paper printouts of your driving stats. It had good visibility in media and gaming press at the time, particularly with endorsements by the official Ferrari race car drivers suggesting it was so realistic they would use it as a training simulation. Critics gave it consistently high reviews when it was new, and the bright high polygon graphics and unforgiving "realism" for its time was something that caught many people's attention around '99 and '00. But I don't see anyone talking about it anymore with the same frequency or fondness as many of Sega's other 3d racers. Many bright colored sega racers like Scud Race, Outrun 2, Daytona USA, Virtua Racing, Sega Rally, etc, have recognizable followings. Many of these games were significant at their respective times in different ways and were very popular arcade titles. Many have been given sequels or various re-releases, even well after Sega went third party. But I don't see any comparable following or official support for the F355 franchise from Sega. In my opinion, F355 is in a weird niche. It was realistic for its time, but is arguably outclassed by many more realistic racers that have come since. As a result, you have a racer that feels stiff and takes itself seriously, but which doesn't feel like the pinnacle of quality or realism that it used to. This is something that the other Sega arcade racers aren't faced with. No one thinks of the handling in Outrun 2 or Sega Rally as obsolete, because it is more of a unique non-realistic aspect of the respective games that there isn't a clear analogue to compare to. Maybe the Ferrari license is too expensive to justify re-releases or sequels or other racing games in a similar style by Sega - however that didn't seem to stop Sega from using the Ferrari license for the multitude of Ferrari's in the Outrun series, and subsequently releasing Outrun titles across different platforms over the last decade. Any thoughts on F355? Do you think it has a significance, a legacy, or dedicated followers that I'm not aware of? Do you think it deserves or does not deserve one?
I think it's a good game as far as graphics and gameplay, but the music is just awful. If it were not for the music I might play it more often, but as it is, it's really painful unless you just turn the sound off.
I always found that it's super boring - then I played it in the arcade and I liked it. I think much of the great feeling that is hidden in this game comes from the realistic handling and you lose much of it when playing with a Dreamcast controller.
It's one of the few Dreamcast games to use the link-cable so, it'll remain of interest to some. The arcade cabinet was also sold many, many times. Another underrated Dreamcast racer is Le Mans.
Amazing game, that only really works on the 3 screen arcade setup. The screens, the wheel and the audio system really make a difference on this.
I'm still trying to find info on the 3-screen- are the PCB's actually and different than normal naomi, can one simply stack 3 boards, insert the correct multiscreen bios, then load the game, any photos of the setup is there any difference in the pcb's other than io for airline pilot/sssf, where is video and jvs tapped- one io each board for video and jvs off first in the stack? etc.
Dude Sega games don't get nearly as much credit as they should, the hipsters at the verge did a special on arcades and completely ignored classics like Golden Axe and Altered Beast, and even called Virtua Fighter a clone of SFII! I shit you not....
