Super Impossible Road

When I fired up Super Impossible Road for the first time on the Nintendo Switch, I was expecting a Marble Madness meets Wipeout type game where the only goal was to get to the finish line before other racers. I was thinking this was going to be a breeze, because no one in their right mind would put the word "Impossible" in their game to indicate it's possibilities. And the word SUPER means that it's coming out on the SNES. And road means there's a road.

Of course, all these assumptions were wrong. And you need to know that not only is Super Impossible Road living up to its name, but it's a love child of Rainbow Road in any Mario Kart game, and the new roller coaster at your favorite theme park. And yes, at times, it can be kind of impossible. Super Impossible Road is a game published by Rogue Games, and Wonderful Lasers Inc, who also developed the game with the help of Gunstone Studios. It is the sequel to the mobile game Impossible Road. The game starts you off with pulse pounding music and 5 options for you to dive in.

The first mode is career, which is sort of the advanced tutorial (there is one). Success in any event is measured with a mobile game-like three star system. The first challenge is to beat a time of 15 seconds for the best reward, three stars. You can do 20 seconds for two stars, or 40 seconds for one star. And you're off, racing down a roller coaster track in a Vessel. The track has no sides, so you need to react fast. You start going down the track through translucent blue gates, placed frequently along your path. These gates also serve as mini checkpoints, and if you do fly off the track, you can hit a button to respawn right back to the last gate you passed. Some tracks have 30 gates, some have 90 gates, all depending on the goal. In the case of the first challenge, if you can get to the bottom of the track within 40 seconds, you can move on to the next challenge. Now you are competitive. You're "good at the game." So you go back. And you play the track again, and you play it, and play it, until BOOM! 15 seconds. And that's only the first challenge. The second challenge is to reach the 30th gate without falling. Again, gate 30 is three stars, but if you reach gate 10, it's good enough. All the challenges through career mode are just like this. But by the third challenge, the game starts teaching you to cheat. 

And cheat you must. The third challenge is to collect 8 rings for 3 stars. Simple, right? Not so fast. The rings are off the track. You have to careen yourself right off the track to shoot through the rings floating in space. And yes, you must hit all 8 to get those wonderful 3 stars. There is no acceleration or brake, but you do have a boost, so if you go off the track, and boost your way to hit another part of the track before the screen goes into respawn, you keep going. Imagine the track as a somewhat vertical roller coaster. You go flying off the side of the track, and if you manage to fall and hit a lower part of the track, your vehicle reattached itself (maybe its magnetic?), and you you keep on truckin'. This mechanic allows players to skip massive parts of the track, just falling through air to a better position. But if you let yourself fall too long, time runs out and you are taken back to where you first left the track, losing time, and most likely failing the run. After figuring all this out, I got through 26 challenges. I’m satisfied.

As the challenges get more and more "Impossible", with races against CPU players, and Time Gates (where you extend your time by going through so many gates) you get more familiar with customization. You can change your color, which is just cosmetic, but you can change your wheel, the cap, and the core of the ball. These buff or nerf categories like steering, Air Control, and Bounce Dampening.  I buffed bounce dampening the most, because when I launch myself unwillingly off the track, I can hit another part of it with minimal bounce, hit a gate, respawn, and get back on the…road.

Now if you head back to the opening screen, you’ll see Daily Track, which is just a track the developers send you to see who can get the best time on the leaderboard. There is also an online race mode. You can create a room, and invite up to 8 people using a code, or just join a public room and wait to race. There is a regular race mode, where you can pick a track, pick the track's complexity, and choose the difficulty of the CPU opponents, from low, to ultra. Lastly, you can do endless mode, either by time gates, or survival.

Graphically, this game is stunning. The game runs at 60FPS, docked or portable (Nintendo Switch), and doesn’t experience any slowdown. Even in 4 player mode couch co-op split screen. The backgrounds are beautiful, and all text is crystal clear. You can see the inner workings of the vessel as you go at breakneck speeds to beat the other 3-7 competitors. It is sharp, and very easy on the eyes. The controls are butter. If you want to turn, a flick of the control stick makes you turn with ease, and since there is no acceleration or brake, you have that much more control on what shortcut you’re going to take to get to the finish line. And if you don’t, your opponents definitely will.

Despite the game's good looks, I did struggle some to reach the end. Between the difficulty of some of the challenges and the repetitive nature of the game in general, I found myself straining against Super Impossible Road with a mix of boredom and frustration. Not constantly, but those moments definitely occured.

Super Impossible Road is part familiarity, part new obstacles, but all challenge. I would be silly to think that I could 3 star all the challenges in career mode in one sitting. If you think you have what it takes, take on this roller coaster of a game, while dealing with a roller coaster of emotions. And when you realize that everyone else online is just better, worry not. It’s not you. It’s impossible.