Collection essentials #57: Excitebike (NES)

This is a very early side-scrolling racing game from Nintendo which, despite not usually being the most widely talked-about NES game or one that tends to appear at the top of peoples’ favorites list, was still a very successful early title that did spawn sequels (albeit many years later). Nintendo has re-released pretty often, including it, for example, as an unlockable game you can play in Excitebike 64 and Animal Crossing in the early 2000s. I can’t remember precisely what my first exposure to it was, but I think it was probably getting it in Animal Crossing. 

Excitebike’s tracks are divided into four rows, and your racer is affixed to one of the four at a given time, and of course you can freely switch between them. You need to dodge obstacles and opposing racers all the time. There are many hills and ramps in the courses and you need to know how to land properly so that you don’t lose speed (or outright crash). 

For a long time, I thought Excitebike was a pretty boring game. But years later I discovered that I was completely overlooking a crucial gameplay mechanic! You can use the B button to increase your speed, but you can’t hold it all the time because then your engine will overheat (and you can see how close you are because there’s a meter, and it will start to make a high-pitched noise). There are arrows on the track that reset your engine’s heat level, so hitting those is very important so you can keep holding down the B button for max speed. This dynamic is what makes the game actually fun to play! I felt silly for not picking up on it all those years.

Excitebike has a mode that lets you design your own tracks to race on, which is pretty cool, but sadly there’s no way to save your work, so when you power off the console your creation will be lost. There’s also no multiplayer, which is a real bummer. But there are actually enhanced versions of this game (in the arcade and on the Famicom Disk System) that DO boast multiplayer and the ability to save your created tracks. The arcade version can be purchased on the Nintendo Switch eShop right now which is pretty cool, but the arguably better FDS to my knowledge has still not been re-released.

Still, despite not being the optimal version of the game, this is a significant and fun classic Nintendo title that is a definite essential.