Wave Race 64 is one of those games that you'd often hear when asking about Nintendo 64 games, and with how it was a first-party title made to boast the power of the console through the titular waves being quite visible and even influential over the water, as well as the spectacular vibes it presents with the bright visuals and music, it makes a lot of sense on why this would be a highlight on the N64.

The game may be slippery to control on your first time playing [I can sure tell you that - and will when I talk about some of the tracks] and doesn't have a high framerate [classic tradeoff with some N64 games for their visuals, another case being Ocarina of Time], but if you can stick with it, it sure will be a rewarding game to play. And I'll talk about how that first time revisiting this game was for me.

As a disclaimer, all the screenshots I used here were from playing the game at its native 320x240 resolution...which is why they will look way more pixelated than you'd usually see from people playing the game on an emulator upscaled to higher resolutions [or even the Wii Virtual Console version which bumps it up to 640x480]. I just thought it looked neat to play it like this, and does look a tad bit better than how it would on an average modern TV without an upscaler since the emulator displays the game in a crispy quality.

If you wanna ride the waves, you'll have to do it well

Something you'll notice at the start [if you don't know of it already] are the buoys you have to weave between. Do that succesfully for five buoys straight and you'll get Maximum Power speed...but miss one buoy and you'll lose that boost of speed.

...And if you miss five in a race, you're out.

I have to mention how before each race, you get told how many points you need to go to the next round. In the normal Championship, the order goes like this:

• Sunny Beach: 1 point
• Sunset Bay: 2 points
• Drake Lake: 4 points
• Marine Fortress: 8 points
• Port Blue: 12 points
• Southern Island: 16 points

You get 7 points for first, 4 points for second, 2 points for third and a single point for fourth on a race. And yes, there are only four racers.

While you can technically get to Drake Lake even with two 4th place finishes, you'd need a minimum of 3rd place or better to not get kicked out of the championship - and assuming you happen to just get 3rd there, every other race will require a 2nd place finish or better at minimum.

But obviously, you'll want to just aim for all the first places you can, racking up a lot of points and staying ahead of the others in the standings. You even get the announcer going "BANZAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIII" when you finish a race first with no buoys missed - an excellent reward to your ears for pulling off a good race, more so if you get it on the harder tracks.

This isn't too much of a big deal in Sunny Beach, a classic first timer track oval that gets some turn variety through those buoys, and Sunset Bay, the track afterwards that introduces some sharp turns and ramps early on - a ramp up for sure from the previous course, but open enough to give you a chance to pick yourself up.

But it is over Drake Lake and Marine Fortress where you'll start to be truly tested. And if you haven't been getting good positons in the first two races, these may spell disaster for you.

Drake Lake seems pretty open, but the buoys will have you zig-zagging between them and also between some poles near the end, making it the first track where you'll have to swerve with good timing over those if you want a perfect record.

Then Marine Fortress shows up with these super sharp turns and buoys that expect you to take well the inside of those turns, otherwise missing out on buoys or even just overshooting near the out of bounds area. Port Blue also has menacing music and some finicky buoys, but isn't as harsh of a first track [at least in Normal], and Southern Island is even more lenient than that.

With that said, its time that I mention some strats that you'll definitely want to know if you want to play this game.

Wait, holding down the stick to turn here actually helps?

Yeah, something I didn't know on my first Marine Fortress visit, which led to me fumbling that track and barely getting a second place finish in it, is that holding down the analog to then steer left or right makes your turns sharper.

This is a key thing you'll have to use for Drake Lake, Marine Fortress, Port Blue...and maybe almost all of what the harder championships will throw at you.

I've sometimes got to help my turning as well by tapping the accel, since letting it go entirely won't really let you turn in place. Another tip I had read out there was that pressing B as you're about to get launched by a wave helps reducing the airtime, which can be handy on the more turbulent tracks when those big waves show up and send you flying - you didn't think the waves and water physics here were just for decoration, did you?

I also had read somewhere that mashing the accelerator after a crash should help you recover faster like the CPUs do.

And finally, pressing the accelerator right as the race starts will give you a starting boost without buoys, with getting closer to Max Power the better your timing is. Sure helps for getting an early lead, but don't forget that keeping said lead is where the difficulty kicks in.

That's pretty much it for the things I could parse for the controls. Everything else comes down to your skills - and also to your selectiveness for buoys to skip. If you don't mind sacrificing the idea of races where you don't miss any buoys, you can aim to intentionally skip some of the more out of reach ones to cut some time, which can actually work to get ahead since the CPUs seem to almost if not always follow the buoy path.

Don't forget you can only skip four of them, though.

...And there's also the fact you can select between four racers with different stats that you can also tweak to your liking through the custom option.

Such colorful vibes...next to some dastardly buoys

As the menu when you select Championship indicates, there's Hard and Expert championships unlockable once you complete the one before it.

And not only they make the bots harder, but they re-arrange the buoys in most tracks to be way tougher, requiring practice to memorize them and then swerve through them succesfully...or even intentionally choosing to skip over one per lap if you feel it is worth to finish faster than taking the zig zag between buoys.

They also include alternative paths opening up for Marine Fortress and Port Blue after the first lap, although Port Blue's initially acts as a difficult shorcut in the Hard mode...only to become the only path available in the Expert mode. Proceed with caution.

Oh, and they also add a new track each.

Twilight City, added in Hard after Port Blue, is a very nice looking track set at night and with a fitting tune to go with it...but is certainly a jump in difficulty like Marine Fortress was, with a ramp shortcut at the start that only works if you know you can dive under the wall in front of it, more patches of sand on the track, and overall having to adjust to it while racing the harder CPUs in the first place.

Then there's Glacier Coast, added in Expert after Twilight City.

Seems okay enough until you get to that one section after the ice turn, in which if you don't get to approach the straight from the right angle, you WILL miss the buoy that points to the inside of it afterwards, since you can't turn at all while sliding over the solid ice floor. That alone is enough to catch anyone off-guard, but of course, you have to keep your cool and perform well on the rest of the track. I was lucky to get a third place finish on this one due to the CPU with most points on standings happening to struggle at the same time as I did.

Southern Island is always the final track in the harder championships, but note that you will still have to work through that one under the pressure of what came before. If you are looking forward to take the ramp over the ship, make sure to do it with enough speed in order to not land on top of the ship...

For my Expert run, I had done well in the first five races, only to then take the blows in the two new ones, and was so nervous with how I HAD to finish Second Place for the Championship to count that I straight up dodged the ship in the last two laps to not risk a failure with the ramp.

Thankfully, since the CPUs had been kind of messing with each other evenly on that run, I still had enough points by far to get first place in the Championship.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reRk8_pPI48

And with that, I have finally conquered Wave Race 64-

...challenge another class?

...Oh no.

OHHHHHH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Wait a minute, I got enough points to finish the reverse championship in first-

...Yeah, you ALSO need to get a target score even in the very final race, regardless of how you did on the positions overall.

Welcome to Wave Race 64.

Conclusion

Putting aside the implied evil of the Expert buoy placements along with the Reverse mode using those AND not even flipping the ramps for you to be on the right side [meaning you have to dodge them or else] that had me suffering...it was a neat playthrough.

Certainly makes sense that this is one of those games the N64 is known for, even if nowadays isn't as big of a name compared to some other popular N64 titles, but it is for sure an idea that Nintendo for some reason never revisited more than once after the Gamecube sequel [Wave Race Blue Storm, which I should try out and talk about one day].

There's even an updated Japanese version of the game dubbed meant to add Rumble Pak support...and additionally tweaks most of the soundtrack, with Sunny Beach practically being turned into a new song altogether.

https://youtu.be/vFuX2qqzlD8?si=5lzo-ufr2vnyHyEm

And by the way, a few attempts after my last blunder at the Reverse Championship, I decisively took it home.

Got 1st in the first four tracks, 2nd in Port Blue, 1st in Twilight City, 2nd at Glacier Coast, and as the CPU were way behind me in points, I was guaranteed the win at Southern Island no matter how bad I played lol.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mb0-4tu04Ns

And I haven't even got into talking about the Stunt Mode, but that's because I have yet to really put my hands at it. I assume that there will be some new button inputs to do some tricks while you take air from a wave, and with those, you got to rack up points on your track of choice, including the usually inaccessible Dolphin Park, the track seen on the title screen.

But hey, if you got any fond memories with this game already, or if you decide to try it out for the first time, let me know how that went for you.

Thanks for reading, and see you next time.

Spanish translation with DeepL. All screenshots were captured by myself.

Español

Wave Race 64 es uno de esos juegos que suelen mencionarse cuando se habla de juegos para Nintendo 64. Al ser un título propio creado para presumir de la potencia de la consola, con olas muy visibles e incluso influyentes sobre el agua, así como con el espectacular ambiente que presenta con sus brillantes efectos visuales y su música, tiene mucho sentido que sea uno de los juegos más destacados de la N64.

El juego puede resultar difícil de controlar la primera vez que se juega [te lo puedo asegurar, y lo comentaré cuando hable de algunas de las pistas] y no tiene una alta velocidad de fotogramas [una compensación clásica en algunos juegos de N64 por sus gráficos, otro caso es Ocarina of Time], pero si eres capaz de perseverar, sin duda será un juego muy gratificante. Y hablaré de cómo fue para mí volver a jugar a este juego por primera vez.

Como advertencia, todas las capturas de pantalla que he utilizado aquí son del juego en su resolución nativa de 320x240, por lo que se verán mucho más pixeladas de lo que se ve normalmente en los emuladores con resoluciones más altas [o incluso en la versión de la consola virtual de Wii, que lo eleva a 640x480]. Simplemente me pareció que quedaba bien jugarlo así, y se ve un poco mejor que en un televisor moderno normal sin escalador, ya que el emulador muestra el juego con una calidad nítida.

Si quieres surfear las olas, tendrás que hacerlo bien

Algo que notarás al principio [si aún no lo sabes] son las boyas entre las que tienes que zigzaguear. Si lo consigues con cinco boyas seguidas, obtendrás la velocidad máxima... pero si fallas una boya, perderás ese impulso de velocidad....

Y si fallas cinco en una carrera, quedas eliminado.

Tengo que mencionar que antes de cada carrera te dicen cuántos puntos necesitas para pasar a la siguiente ronda. En el campeonato normal, el orden es el siguiente:

• Sunny Beach: 1 punto
• Sunset Bay: 2 puntos
• Drake Lake: 4 puntos
• Marine Fortress: 8 puntos
• Port Blue: 12 puntos
• Southern Island: 16 puntos

Se obtienen 7 puntos por el primer puesto, 4 puntos por el segundo, 2 puntos por el tercero y un solo punto por el cuarto en una carrera. Y sí, solo hay cuatro corredores.

Aunque técnicamente puedes llegar a Drake Lake incluso con dos cuartos puestos, necesitarías como mínimo un tercer puesto o mejor para no ser expulsado del campeonato, y suponiendo que consigas justo el tercer puesto allí, todas las demás carreras requerirán como mínimo un segundo puesto o mejor.

Pero, obviamente, lo ideal es intentar conseguir todos los primeros puestos posibles, acumulando muchos puntos y manteniéndose por delante de los demás en la clasificación. Incluso el locutor gritará «BANZAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIII» cuando termines una carrera en primer lugar sin perder ninguna boya, una excelente recompensa para tus oídos por haber hecho una buena carrera, más aún si lo consigues en las pistas más difíciles.

Esto no es gran cosa en Sunny Beach, una pista ovalada clásica para principiantes que tiene cierta variedad de curvas gracias a las boyas, y en Sunset Bay, la pista siguiente, que presenta algunas curvas cerradas y rampas al principio, lo que supone sin duda un aumento de dificultad con respecto al circuito anterior, pero lo suficientemente abierta como para darte la oportunidad de recuperarte.

Pero es en Drake Lake y Marine Fortress donde empezarás a ponerte a prueba de verdad. Y si no has conseguido buenas posiciones en las dos primeras carreras, esto puede suponer un desastre para ti.

Drake Lake parece bastante abierto, pero las boyas te obligarán a zigzaguear entre ellas y también entre algunos postes cerca del final, lo que lo convierte en la primera pista en la que tendrás que esquivarlas con buen timing si quieres conseguir un récord perfecto.

Luego aparece Marine Fortress, con sus curvas súper cerradas y boyas que esperan que tomes bien el interior de esas curvas, ya que de lo contrario perderás boyas o incluso te pasarás de largo cerca de la zona fuera de límites. Port Blue también tiene una música amenazante y algunas boyas complicadas, pero no es tan dura como la primera pista [al menos en Normal], y Southern Island es aún más indulgente que esa.

Dicho esto, es hora de mencionar algunas estrategias que sin duda querrás conocer si quieres jugar a este juego.

Espera, ¿mantener pulsado el joystick hacia abajo para girar aquí realmente ayuda?

Sí, algo que no sabía en mi primera visita a Marine Fortress, lo que me llevó a cometer errores en esa pista y apenas conseguir un segundo puesto, es que mantener pulsado el analógico para girar a la izquierda o a la derecha hace que tus giros sean más cerrados.

Esto es algo clave que tendrás que usar en Drake Lake, Marine Fortress, Port Blue... y quizá en casi todas las pruebas más difíciles de los campeonatos.

A veces también tengo que ayudar a girar pulsando el acelerador, ya que si lo sueltas del todo no te deja girar en el sitio. Otro consejo que leí fue que pulsar B justo antes de que te lance una ola ayuda a reducir el tiempo en el aire, lo que puede ser útil en las pistas más turbulentas cuando aparecen esas grandes olas y te lanzan por los aires. ¿No pensabas que las olas y la física del agua aquí eran solo decorativas, verdad?

También leí en alguna parte que pisar a fondo el acelerador después de un choque debería ayudarte a recuperarte más rápido, como hacen las CPU.

Y, por último, pisar el acelerador justo cuando empieza la carrera te dará un impulso inicial sin boyas, y cuanto más te acerques a la potencia máxima, mejor será tu sincronización. Sin duda, ayuda a tomar la delantera desde el principio, pero no olvides que mantener esa ventaja es lo realmente difícil.

Eso es prácticamente todo lo que pude analizar sobre los controles. Todo lo demás depende de tus habilidades, y también de tu selectividad a la hora de saltarte boyas. Si no te importa sacrificar la idea de las carreras en las que no te saltas ninguna boya, puedes intentar saltarte intencionadamente algunas de las más difíciles de alcanzar para ganar tiempo, lo que en realidad puede servir para adelantarte, ya que las CPU parecen seguir casi siempre, si no siempre, la ruta de las boyas.

Pero no olvides que solo puedes saltarte cuatro.

![image.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/acstriker/23wqeRuG3pUyZJsixXYbey4Htn68qtRo5HtzUva2esy8j3BmeqPS3G5jcMPXydP5a