0 to Z of Playstation 1 - Bakusou Kyodai Let's and Go!! Eternal Wings

     

Bakusou Kyodai Let's and Go!! Eternal Wings is a driving/racing game, the game is based on the Japanese Manga series Bakusō Kyōdai Let's & Go!! created by Tetsuhiro Koshita which ran from 1994 to 1999, the game is also based on the Anime series Bakusou Kyodai Let's and Go!! MAX.

The game was developed and published by Jaleco Entertainment and released exclusively in Japan on the 30^th of July 1998 and is one of a total of seven games that have been developed since 1996 based on the Bakusou Kyodai Let's and Go Manga.

The game has three main modes, first up you have the main meat of the game the Scenario Mode, as well as a Free Battle Mode and a Course Edit mode, the game also has a large number of parts that can effect the performance of the cars in the game, with motor type and even the batteries used in the cars changeable.

 

Like most racing games the D-pad and left analogue stick are used to steer your vehicle, with the X button used to accelerate and square to break. The cars have a special technique which can be activated using the O button this button is also used to confirm. The Square button is used for breaking, while drifting can be done by pressing the L1 of R1 shoulder buttons, the camera angle can be changed by pressing the triangle button.

 

Free battle mode has three options available for the player, the first is a single player battle against an AI opponent, the second you can play against another human player while the third option is a time attack mode, once one of these modes is chosen you can choose between one of the ten tracks available as well as preferred vehicle and driver.

The game offers a wide selection of characters including the Lets go Brothers Retsu and Go Seiba as well as Tokuichi Mikuni, Blade, Rion Cusco, Ryo Takaba and Marina Ohgami. The vehicles can be scrolled through each of which have their own individual stats, these are shown in the form of a bar chart underneath the car.

 

The Story mode which is the main component of the game has the player chooses one of the 20 available characters, once chosen from what I can tell there are three levels WGP, MAX and Lets&Go the second two need to be unlocked as they are greyed out, Once one has been chosen the player will be able to choose the car they want to drive.

An Anime intro is then shown before the world map is brought up the map appears to be set on an island with a handful of yellow circles for the available races that you can compete in with your characters avatar shown on the map, once a race is chosen a small piece of dialogue between your character and opponent takes place before you race.

Retsu Seiba is only the two main protagonists in the game, he is 11 years old and a 5^th grade student, the older brother of Go, while more patient that his younger brother he is known to loose his cool once in a while, he and his brother are known as the Lets Go Brothers in the WGP (a racing competition).

Go Seiba who is Retsu’s younger brother by one year is in the 4^th grade, while his brother is known for the odd emotional outburst it is Go who is the impulsive, careless and impatient brother together they compete in the WGP competition representing their home nation of Japan as the team The TRF Victorys.

While this game has no critic reviews of any kind we do have one user review to look at, as well as the usual GameFAQs user stats and GameSpot’s user rating. Starting with the user review which comes from GameFAQs user named Kenshi.

In a fairly short review they titled An oddly fun game to play, they opened by calling the game a great racing game of the Ps, it being your standard customisation game which promotes a lot of fun and replay value. They broke down their overall scoring for Gameplay, Sound/Video, Control and Replay Value, scoring them at a 8/10, 8/10, 8/10 and 10/10 respectively.

Kenshi the review concluded with the replay value is great for racing fans and is a recommended by, while renting would be ok it would mean missing out on the larger and better parts of the game, overall Kenshi rated the game at a 4/5.

Next up we have GameSpot with the game currently sitting at an average user rating of 6.7 from a total of 6 user rating. Next we move on to the GameFAQs user rating where we find this game sitting at a very healthy average rating of 3.97/5 from a healthy 29 user ratings.

With one 4/5 user rating already from Kenshi a number of other users rated the game the same with around 9 rating at this, a 5/5 score was also highly popular with users with a slightly high percentage rating it at a 5. The remaining user rating were all pretty good with a majority not falling below a 3/5, a few though did score the game pretty poorly with around 3 users rating the game at a 0.5/5.

Moving on to the games difficulty we find a good number of users 19 in total have rated this game with a majority of around 9 users rating the game as having just the right difficulty, a good number also rated the game as being on the easy side. The remainder are split between the game having a tough difficulty level and being on the simple side, overall the game averages out at having an easy to just right difficulty level.

Lastly we have the games lifespan where we again have a healthy number of users rating this category with 15 in total, these users are spread out over a variety of time spent with the game with a majority spending a good chunk of time with the game.

A clear majority of users spent around 60 hours with the game, with some spending even longer with the game reaching the 80 hours mark. The remaining handful of users are spread out from the 40 hours mark dropping all the way down to a couple of hours with the game, averaging out though you are looking at somewhere around the 47 hours mark.

This is the part of 0 to Z where is visit four online retailers and see what the availability of the title is, and what price you would be looking at if you wanted to pick this title up, the sites that I will be using for this are Amazon.com, eStarland.com, retrogames.co.uk and Gamedude.com I know the last one is very location specific, but from a podcast I listen to, I’ve heard they have a huge stock of older games, Ebay has now been dropped unless the game is unavailable at other retailers.

So lets get down to business with Gamedude who unsurprisingly don’t stock this Japanese exclusive release, same goes for Retrogames.co.uk and eStarland.com, while Amazon.com does have items related to Bakusou Kyoudai Let's & Go!! sadly they do not stock or list this game.

The same goes for the co.uk version of Amazon with soundtracks, and figures related to the Manga series available but sadly no games listed. As a last hope he head over to Ebay.com in search of at least one copy of the game.

We finally strike lucky with the game finding four copies available from Ebay.com, all four copies of the game are used, quality wise they range from acceptable up to a very good condition copy, all of the copies currently available are complete.

Price wise these copies are quite pricey with the acceptable quality copy coming in at $56 once the shipping costs have been added in. You can actually pick up a good quality copy for cheaper than this with one available for $46.37, turns out there are actually more copies than I thought, with this seller having 5 copies in stock at this price.

The remaining two copies are again significantly high with the next good quality copy priced at $45.99 however the price increases to around $60 if you are wanting this shipped outside of the US, internally shipped the price is around the $50 mark. The final copy is in very good condition and ships from Japan, this copy is priced at $60 when shipping is added in.

  

Written by

P J Gibbon