Gran Turismo Concept

Gran Turismo Concept is a series of standalone expansions for Gran Turismo 3 that allowed players to drive and race various concept cars that were showcased in conventions worldwide. The first two entries, 2001 Tokyo and 2002 Tokyo-Seoul, were primarily released in Japan and South Korea respectively. 2002 Tokyo-Geneva, the 'definitive' third entry, was primarily released in Europe.

The content in this game compared to GT3 is akin to modern-day DLC; there's only one new track, Autumn Ring (plus its reverse layout), a bunch of concept, JGTC and 'dream' race cars previously unseen in GT3, and the infamous 'Pod Race'. The game itself is essentially a glorified Arcade Mode. While you can tune your car before racing, it's not very in-depth compared to GT3. Some cars also have very weird handling that can't be fixed with tuning (eg. the GT40 LM Race Car).

The game progression is extremely straight-forward: for 100% completion, all you need to do is get gold in the 10 time trials, then win one race on each track in Professional difficulty. The trials are slightly easier than GT3's licence tests, and usually don't require more than a few attempts.

There's 40 prize cars to be won in total, alongside four bonuses (the Pod race, the ending movie, the 2001 Tokyo opening, and a 10,000,000 credit bonus for your GT3 save file). If you're a good driver, this won't take more than a couple hours. Unless you're really excited to drive certain cars, you'll probably drop the game immediately and move onto something else.

The game's main issue in the current day, however, is that there's very little reason to play it if you own Gran Turismo 4. All of the cars featured in Concept would later appear in 4, with the added benefit of being able to tune them and race them in GT Mode. Unless you vastly prefer 3's driving physics, or you want to experience the novelty of the Pod race, this game is completely skippable.

It says a lot about how huge the Gran Turismo series was in the early-PS2 era that this game managed to see a wide release. It also says a lot about Polyphony as a company, and the fact that they thought that this game had enough content. Yes, this game was sold for half the price of a regular PS2 game, but the game offered very little to those who already owned GT3.

Ultimately, this game set a precedent: it's the first glowing example where Polyphony prioritized concept cars that very few people cared about over the actual game experience. Unfortunately, this would be a mistake they would repeat many times over, and it seems like they haven't learned 20 years later. Ask the average Gran Turismo 7 player how they feel about Vision Gran Turismo.