Cool Boarders Console Archives Switch 2 Review

Cool Boarders Console Archives Switch 2 Review
Version Reviewed: Nintendo Switch 2

Despite my memory loss, some moments still come through clearly. One of them is my brother coming home from his job at the local video store with a PlayStation 1 that his boss had let him take home to test. He had two games with it, Crash Bandicoot and Cool Boarders. We took turns shredding down the mountain, figuring out how tricks worked and trying to beat each other’s best times. That was 30 years ago… During a recent Nintendo Direct, HAMSTER Corporation announced Console Archives, a spinoff of its wildly successful Arcade Archives series. Among its first releases is the original PS1 version of Cool Boarders, now playable on Nintendo Switch 2. What’s It Like? Put on a beanie, grab your snowboard, and prepare for a hit of nostalgia as we revisit Cool Boarders on Nintendo Switch 2.

Cool Boarders was part of the early wave of PlayStation titles that felt a lot like the games flooding the arcade scene. Your objective is simple. Race down the mountain while performing tricks for a high score and a fast run time. There are three courses to choose from: Novice, Advanced, and Expert, each with its own obstacles to overcome and trick areas to master. There is some variation between them, but they are all fairly short in nature, meaning you will have seen most of what the game has to offer within the first 15 minutes or so. While some sections of these courses work well, making a mistake can result in being awkwardly bounced from one obstacle to another, sometimes grinding you to a halt as you hold forward, trying to get moving again. When it works, it is serviceable, but when it does not, it is downright frustrating.

Tricks are performed by holding a direction and pressing either R1 or R2, then releasing them in time. Sometimes they work, and sometimes they do not. This initially made it feel as though scores were only applied to specific areas of a course, mainly the designated trick jumps. It turns out that on the Novice course, tricks count almost anywhere. On the other two courses, tricks work and calculate scores completely randomly. This does not appear to be by design and only adds to the frustration. That’s pretty much it for the gameplay. Its simplicity may be carried by nostalgia for returning players, but for newcomers to the game, it will wear thin rather quickly.

The sound design in Cool Boarders really highlights how far gaming has come. From the obnoxious announcer shouting 90s catchphrases at every turn, to background music that often feels more like noise than accompaniment, the audio can be grating by modern standards.

Cool Boarders stays true to how it looked on PlayStation, and unlike the Arcade Archives series, there’s no smoothing or upscaling here, meaning the game is heavily pixelated. CRT scanline options are available if you want to emulate further the look and feel of the original PlayStation version, and you can make the screen full-width if you prefer. Despite Console Archives being a separate entity from Arcade Archives, it’s hard not to notice the lack of visual enhancements. All of this ties together in an emulation package that mimics the PlayStation 1, quirks and all. That includes things that don’t hold up well, like gaps between 3D faces, asset pop-in, and shifting shapes. For modern standards, it’s rough around the edges, and the visuals do not age as gracefully as other classic ports.

In my opinion, there’s a lot of potential for Console Archives to become a great series in a similar vein to Arcade Archives. Choosing Cool Boarders as a launch title, alongside Ninja Gaiden II, which is an odd choice considering it’s available for free on the NES Nintendo Switch Online app, makes for a rather weak start. That said, I’m excited to see what future titles will come, given the PlayStation’s vast library of incredible games, many of which have been lost to time, fate, or licensing issues. Pricing, however, remains the biggest downfall of the series. At $16.50, you get a game that wears out its welcome in about 15 minutes. I do wish they had kept the lower price point of $9.50 from the original Arcade Archives releases. While not a massive difference, that felt like much better value for money.

As it stands, it’s not the strongest debut for Console Archives, but there’s a lot of promise if the right titles are chosen. Cool Boarders is very much a product of its time, caught somewhere between coin-op arcade and early home console experimentation in 3D. It’s a little basic, brief, and feels broken at times, ultimately showing that nostalgia doesn’t always translate well to modern expectations.

So, What’s it Like? Cool Boarders is like the arcade games of old, pushed to a modern console.

Enjoyed our Cool Boarders Console Archives Switch 2 Review?

✨ Support What’s It Like? Want to help keep this independent Nintendo outlet running? Here are a few ways you can support:
🌐 More Nintendo reviews and guides: https://www.whatsitlike.com.au/
☕ Buy me a Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/whatsitlike
🎥 Join the Patreon for behind-the-scenes content: https://patreon.com/u102681944