Game EXP: Snowboarding The Next Phase (NS)

Now that we are firmly in Spring and snowsports are not really part of the public conversation, let us talk about a snowboarding video game.  I picked up Snowboarding The Next Phase for Nintendo Switch over the sale that happened back at the end of November (back in 2019 mind you) on the recommendation over on /r/NintendoSwitch in that it was generally a fun snowboarding game coupled with the fact that it was only $0.99.  If it was a bad game, then I would have given Session Games and RedBullMediaHouse $0.99 of my hard-earned money.  I think if I had gone into the game expecting the next iteration of 1080° Snowboarding I would have been severely disappointed, but after about five hours, I can tell you that the joystick on the Joy-Con is a lot happier than the joystick on multiple N64 controllers ever were in 2001.

Snowboarding The Next Phase is broken up into a number of game modes although to date, I have only played Carrier Mode because I mostly play single-player games and I don't think anyone I know with a Switch is also playing.  But there is a fair amount of content in carrier mode to take up five hours and I am maybe halfway through, all depending on how complete I want to be.  By the looks of things, there are 11 different locations to select with between three to nine different runs per mountain and three objectives to complete on each run in the form of Bronze/Silver/Gold medals that progressively become harder as you complete each challenge.  The challenges based around acquiring a specific score or higher, are often impossible until you earn a higher score multiplier, which requires you to play additional mountains and runs and then come back later to attempt the higher score challenges.

Score multipliers are determined by the gear that you are wearing (kind of) and what vehicles you have earned throughout your career (kind of).  One thing that annoys me about the gear mechanic is that the game will automatically select what gear you are wearing based on the most recent gear you have earned in-game.  This seemingly also changes the facial look of your rider so it almost seems like you are really just a manager for a bunch of snowboarders rather than one snowboarder.  To note, you are also only able to play as a male with no option to switch genders, which is really too bad because there does not seem to be a reason behind not including a female character to play since the snow gear is not tight enough to show off Dead or Alive levels of bouncing breasts or the degree of butt curvature.  There are plenty of snowboarders of all genders out there so only including men is something that I feel either Session Games or RedBullMediaHouse could have improved upon if only to be just a bit more inclusive.

That being said, there have been some outfits that I like the look of, but if I want to keep that look, I have to constantly go back to the main menu, select Customize and change my look any time I earn a new outfit or snowboard.  What makes this particularly confusing is that you frequently earn outfits and boards as you raise levels where one outfit will give you a 0.9 to your score multiplier and then the next one will only give you a 0.3, but the game keeps the higher score multiplier, from what I can tell, while changing your outfit to the one with a 0.3.  To me, it does not make a lot of sense.  And there are vehicles too, from what I can tell, are merely cosmetic items that hang out in the background of the menu screen that only adds to your score multiplier and nothing else.  I guess it is common for Red Bull sponsored snowboarders to have a snowmobile, helicopter, and a snow groomer as part of their entourage?  Maybe if upgrading your helicopter, snowboard, and/or groomer allowed you access to additional slopes, a variation on the same slope, or a different starting location, but that might be asking too much of this game.

Now that that is mostly out of the way, let's get into actually playing the game.

The biggest issue I have with the game is that the controls feel very loose.  The physics can act a bit wonky at times too.  On some runs, you will have a ramp that lets you jump maybe 10 feet in the air although it does propel you 30+ yards down the slope, while on the same run, you can jump off a small incline and launch you 20 feet vertically into the air, or even bounce you from one side of the slope to the other while performing a two-foot verticle 180.  And since the sole purpose of jumping into the air is to give yourself as much time as possible to pull off some sick tricks, and tricks are one of the other loose aspects of the game.  Unlike 1080°, you do not have to rotate the joystick every time you want your character in STNP, instead, you just hold the direction you want to rotate and you do that.  

If you want to be able to land a 1080° or even an 1800° spin, then all you have to do is jump high enough and hold the joystick in one direction for the length of the jump/fall.  If you want to do a front flip followed inexplicably by a backflip, then you can do that, often while throwing in a couple of rotations in for good measure.  Now I am not a physicist but I am pretty sure the Laws of Motion would have something to say about that.  However, this is not a physics-reliant game with a robust physics engine, it is a game designed to pull off massive tricks, score points, and have fun.  And maybe slam back a Red Bull or five in the process.  Red Bull drinking game?

One mechanic that was nice to come across was that there is no life bar or meter, or timer you were fighting against.  If you wipe out too often, you can keep boarding and you will not risk dying or failing your run because you wasted too much time trying to traverse over to that Black Geotags to score more points.  You may end up not be scoring as high preventing you from progressing in Career Mode, but it is nice to have the emphasis on snowboarding, and not on whether or not running into another tree means that your run will end wasting the last five minutes you spent on the current stage.  And since the runs only last a couple of minutes, having to repeat a run is not as much of a time investment as other games might make it out to be.  Kind of like in Tecmo Bowl on the NES, there are no penalties or injuries, just an elaborate game of tag designed to be fun.

The big takeaway from STNP is that yes, it is a fun game if I am looking for something to play for 10-15 minutes.  Progression has been fairly steady with some runs needing multiple attempts in order to complete all of the objectives, which is fine because the runs are pretty short, often taking no more than one minute to go from the top of the mountain to the bottom.  To date, there is one objective that eludes me, which is to pull off an Off-Axis Flip, which seems like it should be as easy as pushing the joystick up and to the left or right and you rotate while flipping.  For whatever reason, it is not as easy and the technique still eludes me, which probably means that I am just overthinking things again.  You know, the usual.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian

Meiringin 2021