Hi all!
Minimal buy guides and playthrus have been completed long ago, but I couldn't find anyone who fully went through trying to complete the game using as little money as possible. The challenge began trying to beat the game under 300,000, but the more I chiseled away, the more 200 became plausible. Also I'm playing on NTSC which sometimes has slightly more expensive parts, that probably was a one or $2000 deficit. All done with no wallriding or cutting or bashing the AI.
Surprisingly, most of the games races and cups can be completed with zero upgrades or $ spent, if you have the right car. Let's start with the obvious ones first before the tough ones:
-If you can use an F1 car, you can beat that race or cup with zero dollars spent.
-Rally races are easily completed with the escudo, which can be won by completing the PD cup, though something like an FTO LM would also be plenty.
-The PD cup and Trial Mountain endurance can be won by the GT-One Road Car or less.
And the less obvious free series:
-The Apricot endurance can be won by the LS you win from the B license golds, partly due to bizarre pit strategy by your competition.
-Italian avant-garde can be won by the Zonda race car which you win from the all Japan GT championship.
-The drivetrain series can be won comfortably by the F1s, Escudo, a top FR like Viper, Vette, Panoz, and the Xsara Rally car.
-Stars and Stripes can be won by the three 3 FR race cars above, probably a couple others too.
-Boxer can be won by the Subaru LM you win from dream car cup, or grand Valley endurance.
-Like the Wind can be won by the escudo.
-Altezza cups can be one from the Altezza race car you win from the Vitz cup or Laguna endurance.
-Evo Series can be won by the rally cars won from rally races.
-Red Emblem can be won by the skylines or Pennzoil.
-The Clio Can be won by the Clio racecar in the superspeedway endurance.
And now we get to the actual challenges:
-The Shigeno Trueno is surprisingly the star of 80s cup. Though I think I did avoid the other trueno on trial mountain. Won for free, Trueno acquired from Amatuer FR.
-The Type R cups can be won by the high revving Spoon Civic, from FF PRO, though the NSXs weren't easy to beat. Free.
-The Beetle cup was easy other than the test track, won with the cup car from Clio or German. The tricky part here and on other cups like the Tuscan and Vitz is that there is simply no money available to buy a gearbox, so if the AI were just a little bit faster, it would have torpedoed the whole challenge. Free.
And finally, I had to spend some money, although I did do a couple extra races for free, but it didn't matter for the tally because I couldn't beat the series for free, for instance, lightweight cup where they blow your stock car away on superspeedway.
-Mercedes Cups with the SLK with a meager 16K or so upgrades, for a total of 71960 invested, taking up over 1/3rd of our budget (No Merc can be won from a non Merc cup).
--The Tuscan cup was another stiff challenge, but I was able to pull it off with no upgrades (which counts oil). However, there is nowhere to win this car, so I had to spend 80870 to acquire it. You can see how my initial goal was 300K, because these 2 cups alone account for over 3/4s of the budget, at $152830.
-An Audi TT, won from the American championship, took me to victory against the Audis for only $6500.
-My Daihatsu, armed with only an intercooler and oil change, squeezed out victories in the lightweight cup. Laguna was truly one of the hardest races of the challenge. $2500 spent.
At this point I had just the Elise, Spider-Roadster, Vitz cups left, but the AI pose bigger challenges than usual, and I only had $38,000 left. I achieved a hard-fought victory in the trial mountain Spider-Roadster series with a lightly modded 3400S, and I assumed this was the hardest race of the three. However, when I attempted grand Valley, my tires fell apart and I finished way back. In the meantime I was also struggling with the Elise cup, and the goal of sub 200K was starting to fade. Somehow I finally made the connection, possibly while racing the Motorsport Elise in both cups, that I could double up using the Elise 190 in the Elise and spider cups. This save of cutting the 3400 out of the challenge allowed me to put on a turbo 1 and be just fast enough on that Grand Valley race and the Elise cup. I put $14450 into my Elise 190, won in the Euro champs.
I didn't begin the Vitz Cup last, but it was going pretty well after a narrow win at Laguna. However later I realized that the AI drive R11 reverse pretty damn well, and they smoked me. I realize they would have to drop a couple add-ons, upgrade sports tires to racing slicks, and find a little money elsewhere, which is what prompted me to push that lightweight cup absolutely as far as possible. With lightweight and everything else out of the way, I redid Laguna and set off to win on R11 (the other 3 races were relatively easy, though test track needed careful throttle to stay very close to the rev limiter). Qualifying, like on some other races in this challenge, was useless as they would all finish seconds ahead of me. The AI blasted off into the distance, building a 17 second lead on me by the end of lap 4. But slowly their tires faded and they had to pit. They stalked me and one, two passed me around lap 8, but I kept in the hunt and waited for my comeback chance. One I think pitted a lap earlier than the other and it faded pretty hard in the second stint. The other kept the lead and on the final turn of the final lap, it understeered into the wall and I swept through. With better tires maybe it would've had the grip to pass me back on the straight, but I won by a few tenths of a second.
The Vitz upgrades cost a total of 23500, bringing the final total to $199940, just 60 bucks to spare. So there you have it, this is the rough guide to beating the game 100% using about as little money as possible. You can watch all the difficult races from this YouTube playlist I made, if ya like.
T
Minimal buy guides and playthrus have been completed long ago, but I couldn't find anyone who fully went through trying to complete the game using as little money as possible. The challenge began trying to beat the game under 300,000, but the more I chiseled away, the more 200 became plausible. Also I'm playing on NTSC which sometimes has slightly more expensive parts, that probably was a one or $2000 deficit. All done with no wallriding or cutting or bashing the AI.
Surprisingly, most of the games races and cups can be completed with zero upgrades or $ spent, if you have the right car. Let's start with the obvious ones first before the tough ones:
-If you can use an F1 car, you can beat that race or cup with zero dollars spent.
-Rally races are easily completed with the escudo, which can be won by completing the PD cup, though something like an FTO LM would also be plenty.
-The PD cup and Trial Mountain endurance can be won by the GT-One Road Car or less.
And the less obvious free series:
-The Apricot endurance can be won by the LS you win from the B license golds, partly due to bizarre pit strategy by your competition.
-Italian avant-garde can be won by the Zonda race car which you win from the all Japan GT championship.
-The drivetrain series can be won comfortably by the F1s, Escudo, a top FR like Viper, Vette, Panoz, and the Xsara Rally car.
-Stars and Stripes can be won by the three 3 FR race cars above, probably a couple others too.
-Boxer can be won by the Subaru LM you win from dream car cup, or grand Valley endurance.
-Like the Wind can be won by the escudo.
-Altezza cups can be one from the Altezza race car you win from the Vitz cup or Laguna endurance.
-Evo Series can be won by the rally cars won from rally races.
-Red Emblem can be won by the skylines or Pennzoil.
-The Clio Can be won by the Clio racecar in the superspeedway endurance.
And now we get to the actual challenges:
-The Shigeno Trueno is surprisingly the star of 80s cup. Though I think I did avoid the other trueno on trial mountain. Won for free, Trueno acquired from Amatuer FR.
-The Type R cups can be won by the high revving Spoon Civic, from FF PRO, though the NSXs weren't easy to beat. Free.
-The Beetle cup was easy other than the test track, won with the cup car from Clio or German. The tricky part here and on other cups like the Tuscan and Vitz is that there is simply no money available to buy a gearbox, so if the AI were just a little bit faster, it would have torpedoed the whole challenge. Free.
And finally, I had to spend some money, although I did do a couple extra races for free, but it didn't matter for the tally because I couldn't beat the series for free, for instance, lightweight cup where they blow your stock car away on superspeedway.
-Mercedes Cups with the SLK with a meager 16K or so upgrades, for a total of 71960 invested, taking up over 1/3rd of our budget (No Merc can be won from a non Merc cup).
--The Tuscan cup was another stiff challenge, but I was able to pull it off with no upgrades (which counts oil). However, there is nowhere to win this car, so I had to spend 80870 to acquire it. You can see how my initial goal was 300K, because these 2 cups alone account for over 3/4s of the budget, at $152830.
-An Audi TT, won from the American championship, took me to victory against the Audis for only $6500.
-My Daihatsu, armed with only an intercooler and oil change, squeezed out victories in the lightweight cup. Laguna was truly one of the hardest races of the challenge. $2500 spent.
At this point I had just the Elise, Spider-Roadster, Vitz cups left, but the AI pose bigger challenges than usual, and I only had $38,000 left. I achieved a hard-fought victory in the trial mountain Spider-Roadster series with a lightly modded 3400S, and I assumed this was the hardest race of the three. However, when I attempted grand Valley, my tires fell apart and I finished way back. In the meantime I was also struggling with the Elise cup, and the goal of sub 200K was starting to fade. Somehow I finally made the connection, possibly while racing the Motorsport Elise in both cups, that I could double up using the Elise 190 in the Elise and spider cups. This save of cutting the 3400 out of the challenge allowed me to put on a turbo 1 and be just fast enough on that Grand Valley race and the Elise cup. I put $14450 into my Elise 190, won in the Euro champs.
I didn't begin the Vitz Cup last, but it was going pretty well after a narrow win at Laguna. However later I realized that the AI drive R11 reverse pretty damn well, and they smoked me. I realize they would have to drop a couple add-ons, upgrade sports tires to racing slicks, and find a little money elsewhere, which is what prompted me to push that lightweight cup absolutely as far as possible. With lightweight and everything else out of the way, I redid Laguna and set off to win on R11 (the other 3 races were relatively easy, though test track needed careful throttle to stay very close to the rev limiter). Qualifying, like on some other races in this challenge, was useless as they would all finish seconds ahead of me. The AI blasted off into the distance, building a 17 second lead on me by the end of lap 4. But slowly their tires faded and they had to pit. They stalked me and one, two passed me around lap 8, but I kept in the hunt and waited for my comeback chance. One I think pitted a lap earlier than the other and it faded pretty hard in the second stint. The other kept the lead and on the final turn of the final lap, it understeered into the wall and I swept through. With better tires maybe it would've had the grip to pass me back on the straight, but I won by a few tenths of a second.
The Vitz upgrades cost a total of 23500, bringing the final total to $199940, just 60 bucks to spare. So there you have it, this is the rough guide to beating the game 100% using about as little money as possible. You can watch all the difficult races from this YouTube playlist I made, if ya like.
T
