License School[edit]
Tourist Trophy's core "Race Event" mode requires licenses, obtained after completing riding lessons on various circuits using various motorcycles. There are four licenses to unlock, and each following license is progressively more difficult to obtain and allows the player to unlock faster motorcycles in Challenge Mode upon completion.
Challenge Mode[edit]
Unlike the Gran Turismo games, Tourist Trophy does not contain a currency system. The player must obtain licenses in order to complete short races in "Challenge Mode", which award motorcycles to add to their garage. Motorcycles won by the player are used and tuned to compete in championships, and are unlocked for use in the game's Arcade mode.
Tourist Trophy has 135 motorcycles with engine displacements from 124 cc to 1670 cc, including both road and race versions, from years 1961 through 2005. Dedicated racing bikes exist as semi-licensed "RacingModified" versions of street bikes, as well as five official fully licensed 2005 Suzuka 8 Hours endurance bikes. Motorcycles from many major manufacturers, as well as two specialized Japanese tuners, Moriwaki and Yoshimura, are included; bikes from the latter two can only be obtained as prizes in Race Events.
37 different track layouts are present in the game, including 22 original courses, the Tsukuba Circuit motorcycle layout, and two versions of Fuji Speedway as it appeared in the 1980s and 1990s.
The motorcycle selection covers a broad range of modern motorcycles, including scooters, enduros, motards, sports bikes and naked bikes, as well as any respective "RacingModified" versions. For "RacingModified" bikes, a racing number from 5 through 99 can be selected—numbers 1 through 4 must be won in Race Events.