 I've only been skiing once in my life, I was pretty terrible at it, and nearly broke my neck along with both my legs, so instead I have to settle for skiing video games. Like this one here, Waku Waku Ski Wondershoot, or Waku Waku Ski Wondersper. People can't seem to make up their minds about what the title is, but this one was made in 1995 by Human Entertainment, and those folks never shied away from trying something completely different, whether it was the Fireman, SOS, or Clock Tower, really this game is pretty straightforward. I mean, as far as Mode 7 skiing games featuring SD anime characters go. Now, if you're familiar with this channel, you know I've made it a habit at this point to make fun of certain games that are nothing more than just jumping on a popular bandwagon, whether it's mascot platformers like Bubsy or Frantic Flea, or my favorite, crappy Street Fighter II clones like Power Moves or Double Dragon 5. One other massive trend from the 16-bit era was the Mode 7 Mario Kart clone, but the thing is, most of these games were actually pretty solid. Everything from Street Racer to Battle Cars, even Power Rangers Zeo Battle Racers, and you can put Waku Waku Ski Wondersper in that category as well. It's really not all that unique, other than the fact that it's skiing instead of racing cars, but it's a perfectly solid racing game in a similar vein as the original Mario Kart. You have eight different characters to choose from, each with their own stats, and you've got everyone from a rabbit to a robot, to some guy with a star for a head, to a guy wearing a banana costume. Who is that, Sid from Final Fantasy VI? There's four different racing circuits here that have three courses each making for 12 total tracks. You can race in the regular circuit mode, which is pretty much the single-player campaign if you want to beat the game, but there's also a simple one-on-one mode versus a second player or the computer, a time trial mode, and two extra features that really make this game stand out. One is that you can edit the characters, you can readjust their stats, everything from top acceleration to turning grip, and you can change their color scheme as well. Even better than that, you can create your own course that you can race yourself, similar to how you could back in the day with Excitebike on NES. It's not the most sophisticated feature and it's pretty limited, but still, leave it to human entertainment to unexpectedly add something like this into one of their games, it's pretty cool. Another really nice feature this game has going for it includes a trick that you can race against ghost data. If you finish in the top five of a time trial, then you enter a name, and it can be anything, move your cursor to the end of the name entry and hold down L and R while hitting B repeatedly, then reset the game when the screen changes. When you go to choose the same course in time trial mode, the game will ask if you want an instructor, choose Yes, and you can race against your own previous time. Unfortunately, this will disappear when you power off the console entirely, but it's still a really fun feature to have. I should mention that since this is kind of a Mario Kart clone, the usual combat stuff is here, with items scattered all over each track. You can launch snowballs at other racers, there's a super jump, and you go all Super Saiyan, which functions as an invincibility star. And yes, there is a jump button in this game, and you'll be using that a lot, as there's a ton of obstacles to deal with. You also have to jump to collect snowflakes, which function as coins in this game, as represented in the box at the top of the screen. The bigger the snowflake there, the faster your top speed can be. A lot of courses also feature diverting paths, so there's plenty of shortcuts here that you can discover the more you play through this one. Despite all the cool features, though, the gameplay itself is kind of flawed. The racing really gets choppy when your character turns, to the point that it gets kind of distracting, at least for me. Not exactly F-Zero levels of performance and speed here. Something like this may end up being a deal-breaker for some of you out there, because, I mean, it's a racing game, and turning really makes this game chug along slowly, and nobody wants that. I appreciate that this game leans a little more toward combat, dodging fellow racers and obstacles and collecting stuff, but building up your top speed can feel kind of pointless at times, just because it's so jarring to see how choppy this game gets, when you try and hit a sharp turn. I still think this game is worth checking out, though. As a racing game, it may be flawed, but it's still pretty fun, and all the extra features like the editor and the ghost data are what put it over the top. There's no English translation available for this one, but you don't really need one. Yeah, you'll have to fumble around with the editor a bit to figure out which option does what, but still, if I can figure it out, then you can, too. This game only came out in Japan, and never received any kind of remake or re-release, so this is another game that you've got to play any way you can. Alright, I want to thank you for watching, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.