SBK: Snowboard Kids

"The DS stands for 'doesn't suck'."

So, yeah, I picked this up a couple weeks after I got Mario Kart DS. I'd played the first few games in the series on the N64 and had fond memories, and although the new game abandoned the art style of the previous titles (to the dismay of many series fans), I still had high hopes for the game. I took it home and played through the game's World Tour mode on all the classes, played a couple of multiplayer games, and found myself unwilling to pop the game out of my DS.

Graphics:
Aside from the gripes about the character design, this game looks a bit better than the N64 games did, benefiting from crisper textures. All the animation is smooth, and pop-in, while occasionally noticeable (particularly on tracks like New York, where at one point you can see through the track on a particularly steep section), isn't usually very distracting.

Sound:
I found the music in the game catchy and fun, fitting the atmosphere of the game. Rather than having dedicated themes for each track, you can switch songs at any point during the game. While this is pretty cool, it also made the tracks seem even more bland (more on this later).

Control:
The controls are responsive and allow for a lot of functionality. The only thing I could pick out to fault here was the fact that the crouch button is also mapped to a trick, so if you're trying to crouch right as you land and hit the button to early, you'll fall. This happened to me quite often in Trick Mode and Boss Battle mode.

Gameplay:
The game offers several modes of play, which are all combined in the World Tour Challenge. There's the Exhibition mode, a 3-lap race to the bottom, where placing first is the goal. I liked the fact that in this mode, items and shots (projectiles earned by doing tricks instead of hitting item boxes) could be toggled on and off separately. Also, the number of laps can be changed, making this a bit more customizable than Mario Kart's local multiplayer. Second, there's a Trick Mode, which isn't really fully realized. The track selection here is SEVERELY limited, and the designs on the tracks seem to hinder you, making it so it is difficult to hit more than one 'big trick' jump in a row. All in all, this seems like an afterthought. Next is Slalom mode, in which you must pass through checkpoints to extend your time and make it to the bottom with a certain number of points, gained from collecting gems and doing tricks. This is often extremely challenging, and the game likes to place mines right before the finish line to cheaply prevent you from winning. Finally, there's a Boss Battle mode, where you must earn Shots to take down a giant robot before it gets to the bottom of the slope.

The tracks in the game are a bit bland, especially compared to the tracks from the older games, in which 'boarding on sand and grass were fairly common. All of them except for a couple have a sort of 'Day After Tomorrow' look to them; cities buried with snow, cars stuck along the sides of roads. I really missed the goofy gigantic snowmen and amusement parks of the last couple games. The actual designs of the tracks are very good, the layouts are fun and interesting, but thematically a little more could have been done with each track to make it more unique.

The items available also seem a little more tame than usual. Not to say that they're realistic, fireballs and huge explosions abound, but the lack of things like using fans for turbo boosts, slapping your opponents, and turning racers into snowmen really takes the feel of the game further from 'Mario Kart on ice' and closer to 'SSX with bombs'.

Even though the game doesn't have as crazy of a feel as past games in the series, it still manages to be addicting. Multiplayer's a blast as well, but don't expect much from single-card. Atlus could have given us at LEAST more than one track to race on in this mode. Multi-card impresses, but, sadly, there is no WFC Online play in this title, which would have single-handedly raised my score a couple of points.

Overall:
A fan of kart-racing style games? Already have Mario Kart DS? Go ahead and pick this up. While strictly not as good as that aforementioned holy grail of kart games, this little series has a charm all it's own, and if you're into snowboarding at all that added theme might sweeten the deal a bit for you. Overall, I'm giving this game a 7.25 out of 10, lowered to 7 for GameFAQS rating system.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 11/28/05