Neat!
Thanks for pointing this out. It's inspired a new tangent!
Part 92 - the real life locations of Zero4Champ RR
As a weirdo with an interest in Japanese street racing culture, throughout this series I've always been curious what real life history and locations inspired it.
Harperdc recognising that the unholy entrance to the darkest demon dungeon dimension is actually just a trendy heritage listed waterfront shopping complex, gave me an anchor I needed to compare the game map against a real map.
This game really is Yokohama!
You can see all the major streets represented, with major landmarks such as piers and the Yokohama stadium represented.
And many of the locations we've visited are real ones, and they're actually exactly where they say they are. So using Google maps and street view, I can actually find them.
The Yokohama Red Brick Warehouse used to be a mostly disused customs storage warehouse and presumably was much spookier, before its mid 90s renovation into what you see today.
Harperdc has also pointed out in the past that the regular meetup point is Yamashita Park, and low and behold it's right there on the map.
Earlier in the thread we were trying to figure out what the Minato Tower was, since the Tokyo Skytree wasn't built then. Turns out the place where Taro had his first date-with-himself meltdown was the Yokohama Marine Tower, which is exactly where it says it is.
Chinatown seems to have a pretty accurate representation, though the gate is now blue, not red. There's an east and a west gate however, and the other is red, so it's possible it could be the ‘other’ one.
The real life Motomachi area seems to be devoid of girls to pick up. Perhaps Taro scared them all of them off in the 1990s.
And It seems the illegal street ‘races’ are along the Yamashita Pier, on the top right of the map. Seems an appropriate place, with all the big open areas with shipping containers and presumably less activity at night.
Looks like cars still congregate there today for a big event called Wagnan Base!