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Where to get it

Nintendo eShop

1981 · Tecmo · Arcade · Maze

Route-16

Nintendo console exclusive

A racing game where the main character is the greed. Several cars battle each other on maze-like rooms trying to get the money bags and avoiding the dangers. In this game, everybody cares just about the money, showing that the money is the "route" of all evil.

Released: 1981
Platforms: Arcade NES Nintendo Switch
Genres: Arcade Maze Racing
Developers: Tecmo Sunsoft
Publishers: Centuri
Modes: Single-player
Perspective: Bird view / Isometric
Themes: Action
Country: Japan
Age ratings: PEGI 3 ESRB E
Languages: English, Japanese

About

Route-16 is a 1981 maze video game developed and published by Sun Electronics for arcades. The game was released by Tehkan (not yet a video game developer by its release) in Europe and Centuri in North America. It was ported to the Arcadia 2001 console. An enhanced version was released in Japan as Route-16 Turbo for the Famicom in 1985.

Keywords

fuel management

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

The player controls a car and must explore a maze divided into sixteen rooms. The player must collect all the money bags while avoiding colliding with opponents' cars or running out of fuel. Every time the player goes out of a room, a large overworld map is shown, indicating the position of every car and all the money bags. There are also flags that can be driven over to invert the roles, so the player can crash the opposite cars and stop them for a few seconds, while getting bonus points.

Route-16 distinguished itself from other maze games with the addition of an overworld map, showing the locations of the player, cars, and treasures.

Legacy

Route-16 Turbo, an improved version of Route-16 for the Famicom, was published on October 4, 1985, by Sunsoft only in Japan. Route-16 Turbo added multiple difficulty levels and improved graphics and music. It is included in the 2001 PlayStation compilation Sunsoft Memorial Vol. 2. The game was also re-released as part of the Nintendo Classics service in Japan on December 12, 2019.

Hamster Corporation released the game as part of their Arcade Archives for the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 in 2018.