Konami GT is a first person racing game which its Japanese name Konami RF2 - Red Fighter is a reference to Konami's 1984 Road Fighter, and thus this may be considered an spiritual sequel.
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Regional Differences#
Three versions of the game exist: the original Japanese version which runs on the Konami Bubble System, a later Japanese version converted from the Bubble System to the Konami Nemesis/GX400 due to the commercial failure of the Bubble System for being more expensive than ROM boards and extremely sensitive to electromagnetic fields, and the US version which is a version rebuilt from scratch on the Konami Nemesis/GX400.
For a very long time, only the latter two versions are playable via emulators (e.g. MAME), as the former wasn't playable due not being dumped yet (as Konami Bubble System games are very rare nowadays, until two Konami Bubble System version of Konami RF2 - Red Fighter cartridges was rediscovered in 2018 by BEEP Shop in Tokyo). Starting from MAME 0.288 (released on May 29 2026), the former was dumped into the romset, along Galactic Warriors, and now playable.
Game's Startup#
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Both Japanese versions features the famous Konami Morning Music routine where the game greets you with a screen saying "WARMING UP NOW PRESENTED BY KONAMI" and a warm-up countdown of 100 seconds. During this time, "Morning Music" will play as the countdown goes down, giving you a nice melody to listen to as the game readies itself up. Once the sequence ends, you'll be greeted with the title screen. In the later version, however, due to the conversion from the Bubble System to the Nemesis/GX400 hardware, the warm-up countdown sequence is shortened, noticeable by the warm-up countdown which goes down faster than it used to on the Bubble System hardware. Unfortunately, this also means that the "Morning Music" can no longer play in its entirety.
The US version, due to being created for the Nemesis/GX400 hardware from scratch, completely replace the Morning Music routine with a standard RAM/ROM check. The check starts with the screen showing some palette cycling rectangles, then it'll perform the RAM/ROM check. Once it ends, you'll be greeted with the title screen.
Title Screen#
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RF2 - Red Fighter is replaced with GT.