Gameplay
Physics in the game have been altered, making the game feel much faster and less prone to hazards than a racing game focused on realism. Players can smash through objects such as trees, fire hydrants, and street lights without breaking their cars. Since much of the game is within the streets of Drift City, traffic is always present. Thus, collisions with other cars have also been altered where the damaged vehicle will often go flying rather than stopping the player's car dead in its tracks.
There are nine tiers of cars, V1, V2, V3, V4, V5, V6, V7, V8, and V9. The player starts out with one of five out of the available 10 V1 cars, which are the most basic, the most fuel efficient, the worst performing, and the cheapest. The V9 cars are the most advanced, have the worst fuel effciency, is the most expensive (1 million mito or more), but can drive the best and fastest. The player used to be required to reach a certain level in order to be able to drive higher tier vehicles, during the time the game was in possession by IJJI. However, after upgrades by GamesCampus, players can drive any type of car, even if the player is a level 1 driver, he can still drive a V9 car. The player also has to get coupons, which are tickets that allow for purchase of certain vehicles, obtainable through completion of certain goals. There is an alternate feature called the lucky box, where players can gamble either GamesCampus credits or ten thousand mito to try and obtain parts to build one of ten available vehicles. This requires an A, B, C, D, and a key part for the vehicle the player wishes to build. The vehicle can be built in V1 through V8 levels.
Recent updates have caused most vehicles that do not require coupons to end up as V1 or V2 cars that the player can buy for only 10,000 or 14,000 mito. However, this comes at a price, as this limit's the player's choice of higher-end vehicles to those that require coupons to purchase. This also forces the player to buy upgrade kits that require CampusCredits, or buy them at the Parts Shop, to upgrade their vehicles to a higher tier.
Players can equip their vehicles with parts to increase the performance. There are three tiers of parts- normal, super, and hyper, in respective order of performance level. Before completion of the game, the player is granted one of the hyper parts during a mission. The rest are only obtainable through HUV chases and Rush Time. Upon introduction of Neo City, a new tier, ultra parts, were introduced. These parts can boost the player's vehicle's performance over that of hyper parts. There are also parts that can only be used in Neo City, in the future, namely weapons and shield generators. Alpha or Beta parts, like the Shinoya Beta parts line, will give additional points when the player equips all 4 types of parts:Speed, Acceleration, Durability, and Boost.
Combos are when the player drives dangerously, such as driving into incoming traffic, or when the player drifts. Players receive random objects after 20 combos, including parts.
On an unrelated note, the maximum speed for any car in the game is 249 mph on level ground, and depending on how many upgrades or parts have been equipped, may be lower than that. Also, due to the long update time between the original storyline and Neo City, many players have given up on Drift City. The game has been rapidly losing popularity with users, up till Neo City came out. Most low-level players in Drift City are simply players that have created other accounts, as a player may have up to 3 Drift City accounts at a time.
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