system The Japanese version of the game, Advance GTA, had save support. However, THQ pulled the battery RAM out of the North American and European releases of the game, and utilized passwords to save data instead. The system forces players of the North American and European releases to enter a sixteen digit code consisting of upper and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols into the game to retrieve their data. Many critics blamed THQ for what was perceived to be a cost-cutting measure. It was the only major change from the Japanese version of the game. Development MTO began development on GT Advance Championship Racing about a year before the release of the game in Japan. The game was first announced in August 2000, under the name of Pocket GT Advance. With the exception of a new password save system, tweaking was kept to a minimum for the North American version of the game. The choice was made in the Japanese version to use mostly English in the game so it would be playable outside Japan. The Japanese version of the game, Advance GTA, was praised by critics and the anticipation for the North American and European releases of the game grew. A reported bidding war between United States publishing companies to release the game in the US began after the positive feedback from the Japanese version. THQ later gained the publishing rights for the game's North American and European releases. Reception GT Advance Championship Racing received "favorable" reviews according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. In Japan, Famitsu gave it a score of 26 out of 40. Critics garnered praise for its overall gameplay, but the inclusion of a password save system by THQ into the North American and European releases was heavily criticized. IGNs Craig Harris praised the high quality graphics engine and the entertaining powerslide system, but panned the password system. GameSpot called GT Advance as robust and graphically impressive racing game. Despite praising the gameplay, GameSpot recommended that players buy a Japanese import version of the game instead, since it was in English and included a battery save feature. Eurogamer wrote that even though GT Advance was hampered by passwords, it recommended the game for fans of racing genre. NextGen, however, wrote that the game "has the best feel of any racing game at launch. But it ain't pretty." Responding to criticisms of the password save system,