Choro Q

A popular Japanese racing game series based on pullback toys created by Takara Corp. since 1978. The toys the games were based on were chibi cars with smal ledge between front and back tires with a coin slot the back. With a coin inserted in the slot, the car will be able to do wheelies and stunts, hence being sold in America as "Penny Racers". The majority of them are caricatures of actual cars. Its popularity has led the company into making many spinoffs of the series. There were even low-priced imitators of the toys -- Shoddy Knockoff Products. The series did get imported overseas under the name of "Gadget Racers" and "Penny Racers" with help from other companies such as Conspiracy Entertainment, Midas Interactive Entertainment and Play It!.

The series is auto racing with an element of Wacky Racing combined with loads of customizable bodies and parts. For instance; wings, water jet pack, speed boosters, gliding wing, and time circuit. The customization in Choro Q is almost unlimited. You can put a racing engine in a garbage truck and drive in for a championship, or putting a huge 4×4 tires and wheels into a Le Mans vehicle to drive a hill climbling, or even a tank on a high-speed oval test course.

In 1997, Choro Q2 introduced the Wide Open Sandbox system that allows you to take a run around a town, unlocking shops and courses. Choro Q3 (1998) added events and special hidden items into its town. And starting from Choro Q Wondeful (1999), the series introduced a full term of racing adventure system, complete with its own story and let you take a run between town, dungeons, or even time to advance the plot and unlock more courses. This concept is fully returned in the High Grade series from Choro Q HG 2 to Choro Q HG 4, in which HG 2 and HG 4 are imported to Europe and North America, in the name of Road Trip Adventure and Choro Q, following in the order. And it's said that Road Trip Adventure is the best Choro Q game that exists outside Japan.

The original Mini Autobots (Brawn, Cliffjumper, Bumblebee, Windcharger, Gears and Huffer) were largely based off of this line.

The spins off genre of the series are in the following list:
 * ChoroQ! (Gamecube game and Mario Kart clone)
 * Choro Q Jet (Racing jets and planes)
 * Choro Q Jet: Jet Rainbow Wing (Star Fox clone, with anime heroes instead of furries)
 * Choro Q Marine: Q-Boat (boat and submarine race and battle)
 * Combat Choro Q (tank battle, obviously says it on the tin)
 * Seek and Destroy (sequel of Combat Choro Q, called "Shin Combat Choro Q" in japanese, complete with story line and characters)
 * Combat Choro Q: Advanced Daisakusen (Turned based strategy)
 * Choro Q Park (racing game with a 'tag-team' system, where certain areas lets you switch cars)
 * Choro Q Hyper Customable (Handheld game, with Monopoly-type system of racing instead.)
 * Perfect Choro Q (uses the same system as above, but removes the Shout-Out element of Mini 4×4 toys.)
 * Choro Q Works (another RPG with odd jobs and cell-shaded graphics)
 * Boku no Choro Q (a board game)

Tropes in these games

 * Action Girl: Ania, Kaybert, and Luluza in HG 4, if you substitute "action" with "racing" in these kind of games. Ania is slightly better than other drivers.
 * American Kirby Is Hardcore: Seek and Destroy is the best example for this series. See these two for references. Many other games' cartoony covers were changed when they were released oversea too.
 * Covers Always Lie: Some of the Choro Q covers published in US, mostly the Conspiracy games. While Road Trip is slightly true to the name, you would not think this game is about driving talking cute super deformed cars, and the game being very Japanese.
 * Seek and destroy has nothing to do with America. It has American tanks, but set in a fictional world with no human beings.
 * Averted with with the Gadget Racers cover, being true to the game. The Atlus game and the Wii game kept their original Japanese covers.
 * Always Check Behind The Building: The basic of how to find Q-Coin in Choro Q HG-2
 * Battle Royale With Cheese:
 * Big Boo's Haunt: This setting appears at least once in each racing game from Choro 3 onward, along with normal castles.
 * Bland-Name Product: All the cars go by Choro Q No.###, some with the option to rename them. Eventually subverted with Works, with cost of non-Japanese cars.
 * Bonus Boss: Kamikaze in HG 4, almost unbeatable in "Trans-Trip L" circuit.
 * Cool Old Guy: Otto and Norahike
 * Darker and Edgier: Seek and Destroy, when compared to a kiddy show like Jet Rainbow Wings, anyway.
 * Deus Ex Machina: In HG 4,
 * Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: You in Combat series, especially Seek and Destroy, where a punny take takes out a helicopter, a lot bigger tank, a battle ship fully armed with weapons, or various mutated monster tanks.
 * Fetch Quest: Being a Wide Open Sandbox, there are some. A notable one requires you to travel around the world trade items with people, all to give one guy a rare magazine.
 * Fishing Minigame
 * Flying Car: A gliding wing part in HG 2 comes in mind. Also, flying tank.
 * Gratuitous German: All of Kamikaze's in-game quotes are in German.
 * Guide Dang It: For Choro Q 3, the are certain events/ background gimmicks that happen in town that happen. There are also minigames that require you to switch bodies for certain jobs (such as a police car for chases). But good luck completing the game 100%, especially if you can't read Japanese!
 * Try getting completing all events in Choro Q HG 4.
 * Informed Ability: In Seek and Destroy's backstory, aparrently the Q-Stein (the bad guys) were wiping out the Proton Kingdom. And then the game starts.
 * The bosses are the ones that put up an actual fight, but still lack some kind of strategy.
 * Haunted House: Unlike the ones used as racing tracks, Budbash haunted house in HG 4 may make you wet yourself and forget about achieving 100% completion.
 * The "short cut" in Nightglow raceway. But it is really just a maze made to slow you down.
 * Limited Special Collectors Ultimate Edition: Choro Q 64 came with an assemblable toy car.
 * Lost Forever: In HG 4 for events and synthetic parts from Norahike.
 * There is am embassy where you vote whether or not a track should be open to the public. If voted no, you cannot race in those certain tracks, meaning you can't collect all the prized bodies.
 * MacGyvering: Synthetise in HG 4
 * Macro Zone: Choro Q Wii is a standout example since it has Micro Machines feeling in it.
 * Market-Based Title: Hoo boy, it is confusing:
 * Choro Q HG in Japan, Gadget Racers in USA, Penny Racers in Europe.
 * Choro Q HG2 in Japan, Road Trip in USA, Road Trip Adventure in Europe.
 * Choro Q HG3 in Japan, Road Trip Adventure Avenue in USA, Gadget Racers in Europe.
 * Choro Q HG4 in Japan, Choro Q everywhere else.
 * Choro Q Wii in Japan, Penny Racers Turbo-Q Raceway in the USA.
 * Choro Q! (Game Cube) in Japan, Road Trip: The Arcade Edition in USA, Gadget Racers in Europe.
 * Choro Q Advance in Japan, Gadget Racers in USA, Penny Racers in Europe.
 * Choro Q Advance 2 in Japan, Road Trip: Shifting Gears in USA, Gadget Racers in Europe.
 * Choro Q 64 in Japan, Penny Racers in America and PAL Territories.
 * Nitro Boost: Boosters if there are available.  also uses this in HG 4's climax battle
 * No Export for You: Most games, since it's based on a Japanese toy franchise. But Choro Q HG 3, which was supposed to be released in the US as "Road Trip Adventure Avenue" by Conspiracy entertainment, was canceled for reasons unknown.
 * One-Man Army: Combat series.
 * One-Winged Angel: The Big Bad in Seek And Destroy
 * Retired Badass: Norahike, even though there is someone looks exactly like him in the Extreme Races
 * The Rival: There's one who has a same body as you but in different color in Wonderful, and Barat in HG 4. The RX-8 in "Works".
 * Sentient Vehicle
 * Serial Escalation: Wacky Racing tracks and parts from Choro Q 2 onward.
 * Shout-Out: The Team Getra's two co-drivers are named Michael and Ralf, who are brothers. You can guess where they got those names from.
 * Spirit Advisor:  in HG 4
 * Super-Deformed: All of them.
 * Super Title 64 Advance: Choro Q 64, one of the many Nintendo 64 games that put 64 in their titles.
 * Time Travel: In Wonderful, we have one in DeLorean style with 300km/h required. There's also Time Travel in HG 4, but only for a short while.
 * Vehicular Combat / Weaponized Car: ChoroQ!, or Road Trip the Arcade edition in the US.
 * Wacky Racing
 * Wide Open Sandbox: Q2 onward. Wonderful improves it with multiple towns and people NPC in them.
 * Widget Series: Well...