Game #1042: Dark Summit

 Cool Boarders is done, but I'm not done with Snowboarding games!

 A few years ago I played this marvelous little game, 'Road Trip', which was, for all intents and purposes, an adventure game dolled up as a racing game! Sans the horrible endgame, it was so much fun that I wanted something similar, and eventually I discovered this little game, Dark Summit, an adventure game on a Snowboard!

 You play as Naja, a snowboarder girl that is out to fight the authority on the mountain. There's a whole conspiracy involving aliens and what not, but it's not the narrative that will pull you in, but rather, the gameplay. At first, you can only select a single starting point on the mountain to go down from, but as you complete more missions you'll be unlocking more starting point, and thus, more missions to complete. The only thing that makes this adventure feel a bit disjointed is the fact that it's not like you can freely go up and down through the mountain, it's a downward slide, and once you reach the bottom is back to the menu to select a starting point and go downhill again. It's not too bad, and it makes sense since you slide down a mountain, but it does kill a bit of the immersion.

 Alright, so colored gates are the missions that give you lift points, AKA, the points you need to open up more starting locations, but the real objective is to find all five bomb pieces, which are a bit better hidden. Particularly the final bomb-piece, I actually had to look it up, since there are no colored beacons or radar blimps to guide you towards it. There's a very basic and rudimentary trick system, which makes sense as points are not the focus of the game, some missions are based around performing certain amount or types of tricks, but that's about it.... except that as you accumulate points, by performing tricks, you'll slowly unlock more costumes and boards for Nayaa.

 Finishing the game unlocks five more characters, but they don't get exclusive story content, costumes or even alternate boards, but it's not an awful extra.

 As a snowboarding game, it doesn't cut the mustard, the physics are a bit janky, the trick and combo mechanics are blander than the ones in the latter Cool Boarders games... but one shouldn't look at this game as if it was a Snow Boarding game, because it isn't. This is an adventure game, a fun one, built around snow boarding, and I think that in that regard it works perfectly fine for what it is. The final mission is a bit too tough, but otherwise, it's a good one.

7.0