12/26/2024:

Decided to break out Cool Boarders 2 (PSX, 1997) this morning. 'Tis the season for snow, and this game recently came to mind the other day for tangential reasons not worth delving into. But I used to love the demo for this game A LOT, and played it many times with friends. It was one of those demos that was sufficient in and of itself. So while I used to enjoy it thoroughly, I never had the urge to get the full game.

I almost thought I did have the full game back in the day while reminiscing, but immediately remembered I only had the demo as soon as I started clicking around the menus and saw how many more options there are in the full game. To its credit though, and if I recall correctly, the demo retained just enough variability in options (rider, board type, clothes, courses, 2nd player option…) to really give the player a proper taste of what the full game had in it. Also, since there’s an ability to perform tricks during downhill races, I think the demo had a good amount of replay-ability to it.

After my recent replay, while I can see what kept me coming back to it, I can also see how dated it feels now. The visuals, gameplay options, music, announcer, menus, and depth (for the time) to rider/board options hold up really well. However, the gameplay itself gets stale very quickly and there isn’t enough control complexity in the game to really allow for any sort of mastery. Feels very basic in retrospect. I can see now how SSX was able to come along and add more fun to the snowboarding genre, but also how Cool Boarders laid the foundation.

All that being said though, Cool Boarders will always be a cherished series. I look at it as a pioneer of snowboarding games, and think it did a great job in that context. For the time and place it existed in, I believe it carried the torch well. And it certainly feels like a very late-90s and very PSX game, which is rad.

Fun fact: Had no idea there was a first person mode.