Snowboard Kids is such a gem. There may be relatively few tracks, but the ones that are here are huge, with an escalating difficulty and amount of general craziness going on. Track 1 is as basic a snowboarding course as you can get, while some of the later tracks involve snowboarding down grass, or through deserts, or a theme park.
The AI does have rubber banding, which like a lot of games of this kind with it, mean it's only really the very end of the race that truly matters. No matter what you do before then, they'll always be able to catch back up to you, so it all depends on if you get hit by something near the end. Especially as blocking options in this game are near non-existent. There's also some more blatant cheating going on, like hitting an opponent with an item, then as soon as you pass them they're throwing an item back at you, despite the fact they should still be stunned and in recovery mode.
Actual item variety is fun. Red items are all offensive and you use them all by just throwing them forward. But their effects vary quite a lot - you can freeze your opponent in ice, or turn them into a snowman so they can't turn, or force them into the air with a parachute... of course the rubber banding kinda makes all items work the same on them, while you yourself getting hit by a slower one, like the parachute, is devastating. There's also some kind of homing ability on at least some of these items, but how it works I have no idea, because sometimes it would work from quite far away and other times I could shoot just a few feet behind them and the item makes no attempt at tracking them.
Blue items are defensive and contain some of the best and worst items. For the best we have the pan item that is essentially just an offensive item but it affects everyone regardless of where they are and crushes them. This set also contains the rock, which is basically a banana peel from Mario Kart, except can't be used to block anything. It's most likely function is to make your next lap more annoying for yourself.
The physics generally work pretty great, though I find tight turns are near impossible unless using the character and board with the highest handling, which, ok yeah it makes sense they can do it, but I feel like it shouldn't be "either use the min-max for turning, or you can't do these courses".
Good game. Love the courses. Playing against AI can feel frustrating though since it just feels like nothing you do has any real impact. Or I rather, you're not fighting to get ahead, you're fighting to not fall behind. Because I noticed in a lot of races one AI will just rocket to the front of the pack and you'll never be able to catch them no matter what. It's like their rubber banding breaks and it gets stuck in "catch up" mode. I'm not sure if this is intended, such as when you fall too far behind, or what.
The AI does have rubber banding, which like a lot of games of this kind with it, mean it's only really the very end of the race that truly matters. No matter what you do before then, they'll always be able to catch back up to you, so it all depends on if you get hit by something near the end. Especially as blocking options in this game are near non-existent. There's also some more blatant cheating going on, like hitting an opponent with an item, then as soon as you pass them they're throwing an item back at you, despite the fact they should still be stunned and in recovery mode.
Actual item variety is fun. Red items are all offensive and you use them all by just throwing them forward. But their effects vary quite a lot - you can freeze your opponent in ice, or turn them into a snowman so they can't turn, or force them into the air with a parachute... of course the rubber banding kinda makes all items work the same on them, while you yourself getting hit by a slower one, like the parachute, is devastating. There's also some kind of homing ability on at least some of these items, but how it works I have no idea, because sometimes it would work from quite far away and other times I could shoot just a few feet behind them and the item makes no attempt at tracking them.
Blue items are defensive and contain some of the best and worst items. For the best we have the pan item that is essentially just an offensive item but it affects everyone regardless of where they are and crushes them. This set also contains the rock, which is basically a banana peel from Mario Kart, except can't be used to block anything. It's most likely function is to make your next lap more annoying for yourself.
The physics generally work pretty great, though I find tight turns are near impossible unless using the character and board with the highest handling, which, ok yeah it makes sense they can do it, but I feel like it shouldn't be "either use the min-max for turning, or you can't do these courses".
Good game. Love the courses. Playing against AI can feel frustrating though since it just feels like nothing you do has any real impact. Or I rather, you're not fighting to get ahead, you're fighting to not fall behind. Because I noticed in a lot of races one AI will just rocket to the front of the pack and you'll never be able to catch them no matter what. It's like their rubber banding breaks and it gets stuck in "catch up" mode. I'm not sure if this is intended, such as when you fall too far behind, or what.