Sega Rally Championship is a 1995 racing game developed and published by Sega. Originally released for arcades using the Sega Model 2 board, ports were published for the Sega Saturn in 1995 and Microsoft Windows in 1997. It is a rally racing game that simulates driving on different surfaces with varying friction, with the car's handling changing accordingly. As the first racing game to incorporate this feature, Sega Rally Championship is considered to be a milestone in the evolution of the racing game genre. It is however considered an arcade game with a degree of realism rather than a fully realistic simulator of rallying. The game features both cooperative and competitive multiplayer. An enhanced version was released for the Saturn in 1998, supporting analog controls with the Saturn 3D Pad and online play via the Sega Net Link.
Sega Rally Championship received critical acclaim, with praise for its gameplay and controls, and it is considered one of the greatest video games of all time. The Saturn version was lauded for its accuracy to the arcade version; later ports were less well-received. The game spawned the Sega Rally series, and was followed by several ports and sequels on subsequent platforms.
Gameplay
thumb|left|Gameplay of the desert stage in the Saturn version. On-screen directions help the player stay on course.
In Sega Rally Championship, players can enter a "World Championship" mode consisting of three stages: desert, forest and mountain. The player's finishing position at the end of one stage is carried through to the starting position of the next stage. In this mode, it is impossible to reach first place by the end of the first stage; thus, the player must try to overtake as many opponent cars as possible on each track (while staying within the time limit), and gain the lead over several tracks. If the player is in first place at the end of the third stage, they will advance to the extra fourth stage called "Lakeside" (on the Saturn version, this course may then be played in time attack and split-screen multiplayer modes).
Three cars are featured in the game; Didier Auriol's third generation Toyota Celica GT-Four and Juha Kankkunen's Lancia Delta HF Integrale which are both available from the start, and Sandro Munari's Lancia Stratos HF which is unlocked by finishing Lakeside in first place in the Saturn version, or by using an easter egg in the arcade version. Players may drive each car in either manual or automatic transmission.
The arcade version of the game supports up to four players using cabinets linked together, while the Saturn version supports two-player splitscreen multiplayer. According to game designer Tetsuya Mizuguchi, they had no experience in driving those cars, but after repeated requests Toyota and Fiat provided feedback for game testing. Mizuguchi's car was used to produce the in-game sound of the Lancia Delta's engine.
While developing the game's visual style, the development team spent three weeks driving from the West Coast of the United States to Mexico, taking photographs for use in texture mapping. At one point, Sasaki became deeply worried about Rally<nowiki>'</nowiki>s prospects for success, and even began to question why driving cars was considered "fun": "I drove up into the mountains with my own car. It was such an enjoyable and exhilarating experience ... This was how the third mountain track in the game was conceived".
The Sega Saturn version of the game had to be almost completely remade, only referencing the graphics of the arcade version, which required detailed planning. Aside from Mizuguchi producing both projects, the Saturn development team was completely different from the original arcade team. Unlike other well-received arcade conversions for the Saturn such as Virtua Fighter 2 and Virtua Cop, Sega Rally Championship was developed without using the Sega Graphics Library operating system, as it had not yet been completed when work on the game began. For similar reasons, a split screen was used for multiplayer mode instead of the Saturn link cable; the developers also felt it was important that multiplayer be available to all owners of the Saturn game, not only those who had also purchased a link cable.
Release
In Japan, the Sega Saturn version of the game shared the full title of its arcade counterpart, Sega Rally Championship 1995, because it was released on December 29, 1995; the year was dropped from the title of the North American and European versions.