Victory Run (TG16)

Victory Run

Platform: TurboGrafx-16 Year: 1987 Developer: Hudson Soft

Victory Run is an arcade-style racing game developed and published by Hudson Soft, and published by NEC in North America. It was originally released in Japan in 1987 and made it to store shelves in North America two years later.

The game plays similar to OutRun or Rad Racer. The player controls a car in the Dakar Rally, and must make it to the goal in the alotted time limit. However, if the timer runs out, the player doesn't lose; they continue to the end. The drawback is that their position in the tournament is behind. While the game doesn't display a position, your time is allocated to your place in the tournament. Whoever clears the stages in the fastest times wins. There are eight stages and the environment ranges from road to sand and grass. The time of day also changes throughout the races, and the cars change shadowing appropriately.

Similar to Pole Position, there is no automatic transmission, which means the player must shift manually. Doing this is a bit confusing, as Down shifts the gear up and pressing Up shifts the gear down. There are many obstacles both on and off the road including trucks, cars, motorbikes, rocks, trees, and signposts. Hitting any of these will cause the player to slow down significantly, costing them precious time.

The player can also buy upgrades for their vehicle. These include upgrades for the tires, gearshift, engine, suspension, and brakes.

Victory Run was developed by only a handful of Hudson staff members. It was directed by Masaaki Kikuta, programming by Naoto Shirochika and Yasuhiro Kosaka, graphics by Koji Matsuura, Hiroyuki Ota, and Kazuhiko Nonaka, and music by Takeaki Kunimoto.

The game was later released for the Wii Virtual Console, WiiU, Playstation 3, and PSP.

Screenshots

The title screen. The setup screen. Stage 1. Stage 3. Stage 5. Stage 7.

Music

Victory Run features only five songs written by Hudson's Takeaki Kunimoto, who had just joined them and the game industry two years prior. All of the songs are fast-paced rock themes. Kunimoto also wrote the music for J.J. & Jeff (TG16), which was released around the same time as this game.

The song titles are taken from the Takeaki Kinoko Kunimoto History Vol. 5: Katoken, an album produced by Kunimoto himself. However, some of the songs have misleading titles. For example, the track Stage 2 actually plays on Stage 3 and Stage 5. The track Stage 3 is not used as a third stage theme, and is instead replaced by the title music (Title). This suggests that the numbers serve as how many themes there are total, and not in fact named after their stages, and also suggests the track Stage 3 was originally intended as a third stage theme before the aforementioned title music replaced it.

To create the music, Kunimoto used the CX-7 using the FM Music Composer II software and the YRM-55 sound module. He sent these compositions over to Hudson Soft, and his music was implemented into the game by the development team.

Recording

#	Title	Composer	Arranger	Length	Listen	Download
01	Title	Takeaki Kunimoto	Unknown	1:46		Download
02	Setup/Ending	Takeaki Kunimoto	Unknown	1:56		Download
03	Stage 1	Takeaki Kunimoto	Unknown	1:56		Download
04	Stage 2	Takeaki Kunimoto	Unknown	2:28		Download
05	Stage 3	Takeaki Kunimoto	Unknown	1:56		Download

Credits

• Ripper: MrVictorFull57 (VGZ)
• Recorder: Doommaster1994
• Game Credits:
  • Uncredited Composer: Takeaki Kunimoto
  • Uncredited Sound Driver: Takayuki Iwabuchi

(Source: Takeaki Kinoko Kunimoto History Vol. 5 liner notes; Game lacks credits.)

The game does not have credits. However, Kunimoto lists himself as the composer in the 2020 release of Takeaki Kinoko Kunimoto History Vol.5: Katoken (see below). It is unknown who arranged Kunimoto's music, but it is likely it was Toshiyuki Sasagawa, as he arranged Kunimoto's music into the same sound driver with J.J. & Jeff, which was released around the same time as this game.

We have received verification from Keita Hoshi that the game J.J. & Jeff uses a sound driver by Takayuki Iwabuchi. The same sound driver is used in this game.

Albums

Takeaki Kinoko Kunimoto History Vol.5: Katoken 2020-11-29

Game Rip

Format	Download

Ripping TurboGrafx-16 music is an arduous process that is beyond the scope of this site. The music was recorded using in_vgm for Winamp.

Audio Devices

The game uses the TurboGrafx-16's HuC6280. It uses Takayuki Iwabuchi's sound driver.

Releases

Japan Title: ビクトリーラン―栄光の１３，０００キロ― (Victory Run: The Glorious 13,000km) Platform: PC Engine Released: 1987-12-28 Publisher: Hudson Soft     USA Title: Victory Run Platform: TurboGrafx-16 Released: 1989-??-?? Publisher: NEC

Links

• gamefaqs.gamespot.com/tg16/589156-victory-run - GameFAQs.
• mobygames.com/game/turbo-grafx/victory-run - MobyGames.
• atwiki.jp/gamemusicbest100/pages/6511.html - Atwiki.jp (Japanese).
• youtube.com/watch?v=AzPMuD_SNyI - Victory Run soundtrack arranged for DOS (YMF262) by Nick Kalata.