Snowboard Kids: A Nostalgic Review
Goldpanning for Ninjas
In a post-pandemic world I—like so many others during the lockdown—took a deep dive into some nostalgic escapism while we hid in our homes. I rebuilt Lego sets from my childhood and pulled old video game consoles from the deep recesses of my basement in hopes I could find joy while the world fell apart.
There is one console that has always brought me joy—the Nintendo 64. The Nintendo 64 will never be on any best consoles list. With a meek library of 388 games and a controller that looks like someone melted poseidon’s trident, there really isn’t much to love. The N64 has, and will always be, my favorite console because it is the one I opened on Christmas in 1996. The first console I could call my own. Well, I shared it with my brother, but lucky for me, he never really played it.
While there were so many great titles for the Nintendo 64 there was one that always stood out to me. While other kids threw shells in MarioKart or turned on paintball mode in Goldeneye to convince their parents the game wasn’t violent. I played Snowboard Kids.
Developed by Racdym, now known as Racjin, Snowboard Kids was a 3d race down a mountain. Instead of laps, you had runs. Instead of shells, you fired hands that would slap your opponent and knock them down. Was the game MarioKart on Snowboards? That was surely the intention. What ended up happening though is Racdym created something new and beautiful in the 3D battle racing genre of the late ‘90s. They made a game that had no business being that good. At least, that’s how 9-year-old me remembered it.
So I fired it up. Now is the time. The year is 2023 and while the pandemic, to many is over. The lingering feelings of agorophobia remain true for this millenial. So instead of going out to bars and social calls, for now, we shred.
I use the term “we” because in order to make this a true multiplayer experience I convinced my fiancé to join me in 64-bits of electronic gnar. If anything this will bring us closer together. She’ll see one of the games from my childhood that had a profound affect on me to this day. At least, it will explain why I randomly scream “Shinobin!” at the top my lungs in our kitchen.
The Gameplay
So we booted up Snowboard Kids at lunch one fine winter’s day. I decided to use my new Brawler64 controller from Retrofighters that arguably makes the N64 playable again. Meanwhile I gave her the old N64 controller and agreed we would switch after the first race.
I greatly underestimated the fury inducing nature of the old N64 controller analog stick. The new controller, as pictured above, is essentially an Xbox 360 style N64 controller. This is not an advertisement for Retro Fighters, but wow does it make a difference. In cornering and turning alone the game becomes so much easier than the old, smooshy analog stick from the three-pronged controller of doom. After switching, my fiance had a much better time with the game while I slammed my child snowboarder into every wall on Rookie Mountain.
We played two games together before we called it quits. As a surprise to no one, I don’t think she found it as fun as I did. There is a steep learning curve. From now on, I must carve the e-slopes alone.
Snowboard kids is a race down the mountain, but instead of laps, you do runs. So the race starts and you make your way down to the chair lift, picking up coins and doing tricks to afford items on the course. The items are held in dog figurines that due to questionable rendering, look like clowns (terrifying). The figures are either red or blue. Red items are offensive and you shoot them at opposing racers. These items include a hand that slaps, an icicle that freezes, a snowman that turns characters into snowmen that can’t steer, a parachute that hilariously launches a racer into the air, and last—because this is a Nintendo game—a bomb that blows up and stops every racer in the blast radius (including the shooter).
The blue items are more defensive and are secretly OP. There is a fan that gives you a speed boost, a rock that trips players (great to put right after clown pickups), a ghost that slows down the opponent in first place, a disappearing snowboard that makes you invincible to damage, a mouse that steals the other players’ money, and a gold pan…I think? Regardless it falls on top of enemies and smooshes them in a cartoony, satisfying way. We’ll stick with calling it a gold pan.
The game mechanic that holds up the most for me, and to other Snowboard Kids players may be their least favorite, is the chairlift. At the end of the run, you must catch the chairlift to get back to the top of the mountain and start the next run (lap). The chairlift has two unique qualities: only one person can queue at a time and while queued, characters are immune from all items. This comes to light in remarkably hilarious and heartbreaking ways. If the race is super close, and all four players get to the bottom of the mountain at the same time, three are going to slam against the back wall of the course while the other player here’s the satisfying “ding” of the chairlift carrying them to first place. The other instance of chairlift bolognary is if someone is in the lead far ahead of the pack, and you use the gold pan on them—no damage is taken. Essentially, the chairlift protects them and they remain in the lead. Your items are useless. Chairlift beats all items in the rock, paper, scissors of ‘90s cartoon snowboarding.
There are other game modes besides your standard battle race. They have three other skill minigames you can play speed, shot, and trick games. I tried them each. Speed has you run down the mountain as fast as possible while picking up fans along the way. The more fans you grab the faster you go. I only tried this once and got first place fairly easily. Shot game involves you firing actual bullets at snowmen while riding down the mountain. You want to get as many as possible without missing. You have ten shots and those reload slowly overtime. All that happened was I sprayed and prayed my way to getting 26 out of 30 snowmen.
The last skill game, trick game, is easily the best because it has it’s own special level, Animal Land. Guess what? It’s full of animals. The creativity of naming conventions in Snowboard Kids knows no bounds. This is without a doubt the hardest skill game. Tricks in the game take a lot of practice to know when you have enough hang time to pull them off. You could do five perfect tricks in a row on the half pipe and then biff your last because you jumped a split second too early or late. The coolest part of the level is the giant grind rail over the river. That’s if you can hit it. Most of the time my character went for a swim.
There is another game mode “time attack” that has the player doing a standard time trial with one fan. I’ve never been much for time trials in racing games, but the addition of having a strategic fan is pretty neat. That at least adds one, minute layer of strategy to this minigame.
The Plot
Well, it looks like I need to add this section now. Believe it or not Snowboard Kids has an actual plot. I never knew this as a child because I lost the instruction booklet and the entire plot is there on two pages. Thankfully, due to the power of the Internet and some nerd with a scanner, I can now sum it up for you.
Why put the story in the game when it can be a two page spread in the instructions?
All of the snowboard kids live in a small town “somewhere in the Canadian Rocky Mountains.” Since all they can do is snowboard they are constantly arguing who is the fastest. Things get heated at lunch, there’s some yelling, and boom—snowboard competition. I think my favorite part of this is Tommy clearly doesn’t want to be involved even though he is the fastest. Speaking of Tommy, let’s talk characters.
The Characters
There are six characters in Snowboard Kids. Five from the start, and one secret unlockable character.
First we have Slash. Easily the bad boy of the group because he has spiky hair and a no nonsense attitude when it comes to goggle color choice on an all black outfit. He’s like a snowboard goth caught mid experiment with his look. Slash is arrogant and thinks he’s the fastest. Which is funny because he has middle ground stats—all are balanced at two stars. He’s the Mario of this off-brand MarioKart. I always played as Slash until I unlocked the secret character because as a child and adult I can’t make decisions. There’s always been something to me about average characters with balanced skills. Also, he has spiky hair. For a kid raised in Eagle River, Alaska in the mid 1990s that was pretty cool.
Nancy is the next character. For ‘90s video game fashion points, she gets a 10/10 with bunny ears and all pink. Her stats make her slower than most riders, but has great trick and cornering stats. She’s actually the best character to use when you’re starting out and figuring out how to play the game. Cornering and tricks are the hardest parts of Snowboard Kids. Playing as Nancy is a lot more forgiving when you’re trying those out. That’s juss a free pro-tip for all of you potential professional Snowboard Kids players. I know you’re out there. On top of that Nancy’s actually the best character, as a character! She’s described as modest and would never brag about being the best at tricks. What a nice person. You keep on keepin’ on Nancy.
Jam is Slash’s best friend and according to the instruction booklet he “follows the New York rap scene.” I can’t make this up. He’s the kind of friend you always want in your corner as he pushes Slash to be an even more competitive, worse person. Jam has a poor top speed but is good tricks and cornering. In the story he’s vying for Nancy’s place as the best at tricks. Fashion sense though he has more color than Slash and seems more fun. Unfortunately in this game I feel like he’s been demoted to best friend. He does have what I think are two breathe-right strips on his nose? I think it’s a fashion choice.
Linda is described in the instruction booklet as “a rich girl.” Actually, that doesn’t do it justice. Let me just show you and write out the entire description from the instruction booklet:
“Linda moved to the village four years ago, when she was seven, because she was sick. She’s gotten better, if you can call a rich girl who tries to control everyone’s lives better.”
Dear, Snowboard Kids instruction book writer, who hurt you? Is Linda your revenge on some rich girl from your childhood? This is the easily the most backhanded character description in a video game. Not to mention that you just drop a bombshell about a character’s flawed personality, and then have the audacity to call their signature trick “The Whirligig.” Make the trick wrapped up in Linda’s personality—call it “The Grubstaker,” “The Warbucks,” or “The Whirli-capitalist-pig.”
Honestly this description fits her character look. Linda wears bunny ears, a bikini top, and leopard print pants. That could best be described as “after this snowboard race I will definitely partake in some molly at a rave.” I think we can all agree that’s a real rich kid thing to do.
At the same time though, Linda is eleven. Where are Linda’s parents? Now I want to know Linda’s family dynamic. Did she move to this Canadian mountain town alone? Does she live in a mansion, just her and a butler, like a snowboarding Bruce Wayne? On second thought, ditch the other kids. Let’s give Linda a really hard hitting visual novel. Something that can really pull in all the game awards. Linda is a big childhood snowboard prodigy, until she becomes cripplingly addicted to Tide Pods. That’s a game just waiting for sad indie rock and quicktime events.
I digress, in the story she’s Slash’s biggest rival, and they constantly compete for who is best on the mountain. I feel if this series continued we would see a potential old school, boring romance develop between Slash and Linda. Two rivals, competing to be the best, decide that their real love was each other all along. I sure hope not though because that would mean these ten year old kids would become snowboard teens, and that sounds like a terrible video game—unless it’s just about Linda. Linda’s top speed is better than Slash’s at “good,” but only “fair” in cornering and tricks.
Tommy is your generic ‘90s overweight friend. He’s the fastest racer in the game since he is the biggest (much like Bowser or Donkey Kong in MarioKart 64). Tommy has three star speed but one star tricks and cornering. He wears a big puffy green overcoat and has a bandage on the point of his nose. I like to think Nelly played Snowboard Kids and found inspiration from Tommy. In fact, all the kids have breathe right strips or bandages on their nose. Is that a snowboard thing? I wouldn’t know. I’ve only ever snowboarded digitally. Easily the most ‘90s part of Tommy is that when you select his character from the screen, his animation is just him munchin’ on a burger continuously. Someone in corporate said “we need a fat friend” and the developers sure delivered.
The last character is a secret. Watch out we’re getting into spoilerville for a 25-year-old game. His name is Shinobin and he is a ninja. This was the ‘90s—the age of ninjas in children’s pop culture. You had the movie series Three Ninjas, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Beverly Hills Ninja also in 1997. You couldn’t step three feet in a toy store without seeing a ninja—which is odd—since they should never be seen. Shinobin is actually derived from the Japanese word shinobi, meaning ninja. So the developers really went out of their way to name that one. The coolest part of Shinobin is how he rides. He crosses his arms and has a katana on his back. This makes Shinobin the only character in a snowboarding video game to be actively bored. That said, all of his stats are at 2.5 stars making him better than Slash and the best character in the game. You unlock him by defeating him on the last course, the aptly named Ninja Land.
The Levels
There are nine courses to battle race on and one special course, Animal Land, that’s for tricks only. All of the courses are good, but some are more memorable than others. Notably the courses that have you snowboarding on well…not snow.
Snowboard Kids made my nine-year-old self think everyone snowboards on grass. That’s just totally normal behavior. I now know this not true, but it was the first course I picked up again when I booted the game solo. I needed to know, was Grass Valley as annoying as I remember?
Yes, of course it was.
Probably a secret level in Snowboard Kids 3
Their are numerous side paths to take in Grass Valley, and none of them appear to help you out. It’s almost like the developers include them to trick young children into thinking they are taking a shortcut when really they are completely screwing themselves over. Maybe the folks at Racdym wanted to include a life lesson in there. Hey kids, don’t take shortcuts.
The snow courses you take are all good, but the one that stands out to me the most is Sunset Valley, mostly because of the sunset ambience of the whole level. Sure the kids don’t notice, they’re kids, they have no idea how beautiful something is because they only care about whose the best boarder. Now though, as a mid-thirties person, I notice. I get it Racdym, good job. You made me believe a 64-bit mountain sunset is beautiful.
Quicksand Valley is the other course that is non-traditional when it comes to a glaring lack of snow. I know snowboarding down sand dunes is a thing. So at least this one’s more believable. At the same time though, this level could be argued as the most treacherous of the game. There are so many corners that try to trick you into going the wrong way. You really have to be on your A game for this one.
All of the courses are great. Dizzy Land is set in an amusement park and is just as charming as you think. Each area of the course lends itself to a different amusement park activity. The start is a roller coaster track before the big dropoff, there’s a river ride, teacups that bump you back and forth, and a dinosaur cave. This level also has a rough corner where you can fall into the waterfall be careful. What this level really does though, is give you a little hint into one of Snowboard Kids secrets—shortcuts. Some levels have shortcuts, in Dizzy Land you want to take the sharp left corner to cut a significant chunk of the level. Other courses have shortcuts too, but this is the one I remember most because—tragically—it’s as far as I got.
The Painful Truth
That’s right folks. Don’t tell my childhood self, but apparently I’ve lost my edge when it comes to Snowboard Kids.
I played all six courses that were unlocked from the start with my lovable ‘90s chunk, Tommy. I achieved gold on Rookie Mountain and Big Snowman. I went into Sunset Rock confident, thinking I had this all figured out. “It’s just like riding a bike” I said to myself, so ignorant to the horrors that await me on that magenta hued mountain.
I lost to Linda—my nemesis. I don’t know if it’s the game wants to create a feud between me and Linda, or if this was another sick trick by the instruction booklet writer, but there was a pattern in all my losses. They were always to her.
Every other course I tried, Night Highway, Grass Valley, and Dizzy Land, all Linda. Not only was I defeated. It wasn’t even close. Linda would beat me and the rest of the pack by easily an eighth of the progress bar. She was flying, dodging pans and riding through ghosts. There was no MarioKart laws of fairness to make the race close by giving the best items to those farther behind. We were all a part of the Linda show, and there was nothing I or the other computer controlled ten-year-old snowboard racers could do about.
The losses weren’t a big deal though, right? I could just try again. Wrong, in a false sense of security I saved my progress to a memory card. I completely forgot that the battery in those memory cards now are easily over twenty years old. I lost all of my progress. So in the end, I did what any millenial in my position would do. I watched other people play the other levels I couldn’t unlock on YouTube.
Between losing to Linda and memory card woes there still is one other terrible part of this. This might be the worst honestly. What really keeps me up at night as I write this in the wee hours after my defeat?
I still had fun.
Ugh, fun in a video game—disgusting. I want to win. I want to be the best. I want to spend 200+ hours collecting spider butts only to turn those in for a legendary weapon I’m only going to use three times. Video games are not about having fun. They are about filling progress bars and making other people on the Internet feel bad about themselves because they had the gall to play a game and lose.
Sorry, I hit myself with a gold pan and blacked out for a second.
The snowboarder’s weapon of choice.
Snowboard Kids is fun. This game puts me in a hokey mood—even when I’m losing—I’m winning. Amidst the cartoon dog that sells you snowboards between races, the joy I get when slapping a racer and watching them tumble down the mountain, or the absolute absurdity of crushing a child snowboarder with an oversized gold pan—there’s just so much love put into this game. I haven’t even discussed the absolute bop of a soundtrack. Every course has its own unique theme and they are all bangers. Composers Isao Kasai and Tomohiko Sato really outdid themselves when it came to this video game about a child snowboard tournament in a rural Canadian Rocky Mountain town.
I think that’s why I love it. This game has no business being this good. They could’ve just said “Yeah, so you’re a kid and you snowboard down a hill. Whoever gets there first wins.” Instead they decided to add thrilling powerups, sneaky shortcuts, a snowboarding ninja, and a chairlift mechanic that will turn friends into enemies faster than your memory card corrupts your save data.