Rally Bike (NES) Playthrough
131A playthrough of Romstar's 1990 racing game for the NES, Rally Bike.
Rally Bike for the NES, developed by Visco, was the sole console port of Toaplan's 1988 arcade game of the same name.
It's a top-down, vertically scrolling racer that features six courses set across the United States, but the goal of each stage isn't to win the race. Taking first place will earn you plenty of bonus points, but as long as you make it to the end with a qualifying rank, you'll move on to the next.
That's quite a challenge, though, because hitting an obstacle or car ends the race immediately and forces you to restart the stage from the beginning. So does running out of gas, which is all but guaranteed if you miss a gas station. You can collect power-ups thrown from helicopters for extra gas, sidecars (for wiping out enemies), and invincibility-granting helmets, and these can be lifesavers when you're in a tough spot, but finishing Rally Bike is largely dependent on your thorough memorization of the tracks.
New to the NES version is a bike upgrade system that allows you swap tires and engines between races, but the engine upgrades don't seem to have any tangible impact on the gameplay. The only time the system matters is when you're racing on a sand covered track - you'll want to switch to "brock" tires for those.
Beyond that, Rally Bike does nothing new or novel - it's Zippy Race with a fresh coat of paint and a dash of Spy Hunter and Bump 'n Jump thrown in for style - but it can be good for a little mindless fun.
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