Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders Review (Xbox Series X|S & PC)

Crystallized, the gleaming grains of ice illuminate the route forward, serving as peppered sparkles that point towards that all-important checkered flag beyond the horizon. The snow is calling to me, asking that I treat each corner of this particular canyon with utmost respect, for a single slip or slide could result in a drastic loss of control of the skis. Here, atop this silent yet majestic mountain, I’m calculating the next move, bouncing between two vastly different strategies. Will I take the safer route and reduce my chances of falling to the bristle of the trees, or will I attempt to cascade through a twenty-foot spiral for the sake of shaving a few extra seconds off of that looming clock? It’s all or nothing, and here, in Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders, every decision counts.

The three summits that stood before me, each with a series of slopes, challenges, and timed events, would test my patience. But, having beaten Lonely Mountain, I figured I’d be spending a lot of time touching gloves with the icy walls and the clustered rocks of the woods than the prominent figures of the leaderboard. Oh, I knew that the latest installment in the studio’s catalog would drive me around the bend, both figuratively and emotionally, but I’m accepting of that feeling. In fact, I distinctly recall the love-hate relationship I once shared with the series’ mountain biking counterpart, and how it made me alternate between feeling ecstatic about my achievements, but as equally frustrated with the curveballs that I had to overcome to capitalize on them. I figured, if Snow Riders was anything like that — then I’d be in for quite the ride.

Cool & Calculated

Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders has the appearance of a cool, calm, and peaceful skiing simulation game, yet nothing could be further from the truth, funnily enough. The fact is, Snow Riders is, in spite of its unique design and charming aesthetic, an incredibly demanding game. It’s demanding because, although you do have the ability to take your time with each trail that the campaign coughs up, each second that you lose to the timer, another objective is struck from the checklist, and thus, you have to start from scratch in order to, well, progress to the next summit. And that’s really what this game is: a vigorously tough skiing sim that requires patience, determination, and calculated effort. If you lack any of these three traits, then you ought to just close this tab and go back to Riders Republic. Still here? Great.

Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders is comprised of three summits, with each one offering four unique trails to explore and conquer in a passive-aggressive manner. I say this, as if to suggest that the game is unforgivingly tough, but it isn’t. Well, it is and it isn’t; it gives as much as it takes, in the case that, if you’re failing, then you’re also learning — if you catch my drift. For example, when you starfish a rock on a downhill course, you not only have the power to return to your previous checkpoint, but also take back any lost seconds that you spent on your last descent. Granted, this doesn’t make the game any easier, but at least it makes an effort to pepper your infatuation with failure with a bit of tender love and hospitality.

Try and Try Again…and Again

The controls in Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders aren’t the problem, as they’re surprisingly easy to pick up and master. With a fairly limited selection of moves and tricks (jump, spin, and grab, for the most part) to use on the slopes, you needn’t worry about losing out on points for style. No, what is truly difficult in this world is its environment—a snowy archipelago that mostly consists of rocks, trees, icy caverns, and other still but seemingly smug inanimate objects. It’s learning how to navigate these things, that’s the problem. And not just that, but also learning how to carve through the course without having the aid of a useful navigational tool or marker system. Combined, these two ball aches amount to an annoying barrage of problems — and I’m not prepared to forgive them just yet.

The courses in Snow Riders aren’t all that long. That is, of course, unless you spend fifteen minutes on the same obstacle, in which case they can be rather bulky. For the most part, though, each trail can take up to a minute or two to complete, after which you have the option to return to the summit and mop up any leftover objectives. And, unless you’re a natural-born skiing native, you’re more than likely going to return to most of these slopes to earn your stripes and the perks that come with them. But that’s sort of what the game anticipates, and it knows all too well that you won’t achieve your goals in the initial run. Moreover, it uses small milestones and other incentives like new skis, level-locked perks, and special challenges to entice you — like a carrot on the end of a stick, you could say.

Conflicted Feelings

Snow Riders is one of those games where you spend a lot of time wishing you were doing anything else, but then finding yourself coming back to it like a fox to a magpie. For me, I hated the idea that I was generating a montage of epic fails for the world to see, but then I realized that I was still making the same mistakes two hours later. Sure enough, I was still catapulting into sharp rocks, but the fact that I was still there after failing so, so many times sort of spoke volumes. And it was that love-hate relationship that steered the ship, weirdly enough. On the one hand, I wanted to hang up the skis and boots and depart for an alternate route in a faraway region, but on the other hand, I had objectives to accomplish, and I had times that I needed to thwart.

I will say this: the serenity and grace of this chilly locale are as equally beautiful as they are essential for the aesthetic of the game. I’m grateful, in ways, that Snow Riders doesn’t rely on outspoken characters or cringe-worthy dialogue, or even the thumping sound of a pretentious bass-boosted radio station, for that matter. This isn’t Riders Republic; NPCs don’t pounce on your coattails every waking moment and use Gen-Z lingo to establish the narrative. No, Snow Riders is a bit more simplistic in that it’s more in tune with the calmness of the mountain and its isolated nature. It’s just as well, too, because if I had Nicki Minaj belting out candy-popping anthems at me during my last-ditched efforts at squashing the feud with that darn tree, I’d probably have lost my temper. Thanks for keeping it real, Megagon Industries.

Verdict

The love that I have for Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders is as mountainous as the hatred I have for its obstacles. To say that I’m on the fence with it all is an understatement, for I do genuinely love a lot of things about this game—the stillness of its environment and the lack of pretentious characteristics or rules, for instance. Still, I can’t pretend that it’s all fun and games, for Snow Riders does require you to have the patience of a saint, or the dumb luck of a stuntman, for it to flow. In other words, if you’d soon rather romp through a collection of levels and be done with the journey, then you might be disappointed with the lack of hand-holding this game has to offer.

Suffice it to say that, if you did enjoy the original Lonely Mountains adventure back in its heyday, then you will more than likely find plenty to enjoy in this snowy successor. Mechanically, it’s basically the same thing, but perhaps with more open spaces and fewer signposts to usher you in the right direction. Aside from that, though, Snow Riders is the same level of Lonely Mountains as the first — but with more ice and sparkles, you could add. And it’s a great game, truly, even though it does make you hate skiing for all the wrong reasons. That’s a small price to pay for a great skiing experience, mind you. Will you pull your hair out? Probably. Will you take the lift back to the summit to do it all over again? Absolutely.