1997 · Arcade · Racing

Top Skater

Top Skater is an arcade game released by Sega in 1997, and built on the Sega Model 2 hardware. It was one of the first arcade games to feature a skateboard controller interface.

Released: 1997
Platforms: Arcade
Genres: Arcade Racing Sports
Developers: —
Publishers: —
Modes: Single-player
Perspective: Third person
Country: Japan

About

Top Skater is an arcade skateboarding sports video game released by Sega in 1997, and built on the Sega Model 2 hardware. It was one of the first arcade games to feature a skateboard controller interface. The game was directed by Kenji Kanno.

In Top Skater, players stand on a skateboard-like platform which swung side-to-side or tilted, manipulating the actions of the avatars in the game. The game has ramps, rails and other skating objects from which the player can do tricks to gain points. The player has a limited amount of time in which to perform tricks, but can extend this time by collecting time bonus rings or by performing certain tricks.

Keywords

skateboarding

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Development

The game was directed by Kenji Kanno and produced by AM3 general manager Hisao Oguchi. The AM3 team wanted to make Top Skater a game which would allow players to explore unrealistically large skateboarding courses and perform the fantasy tricks associated with skateboarding's image, rather than a realistic simulation. Because of this, recreating some of the tricks for motion capture would require an unusually large studio with equipment to propel the motion capture actor through the air, so all the animation was done by hand. The primary target audience for the game was young Americans.

None of the development team members skateboarded; instead, they watched professional skateboarders both live and on video for research. An AM3 member explained the game's trick-based approach: "It wouldn't make any sense to make a skateboard racing game. You don't need to skateboard as fast as you can. I just wanted to make the game cool and fashionable. If the game were a racing game you wouldn't want to do any tricks as you'd be absorbed in trying to race as fast as possible."

Reception

Upon its debut at the Otaku Entertainment Plaza, it was the most popular game at the show and drew long queues. In Japan, Game Machine listed Top Skater on their June 15, 1997 issue as being the third most-successful dedicated arcade game of the month. Next Generation reported in early 1998 that Top Skater sold "briskly" to U.S. arcade outlets.

The game received a positive critical response from Computer and Video Games magazine.

Legacy

Kenji Kanno went on to create the Crazy Taxi series. Crazy Taxi (1999) has a similar style to Top Skater, notably the character art design and type of music. A sequel called Air Trix was released for the Sega Hikaru arcade system in 2001. Ollie King, published in 2004 and developed by the creators of the Jet Set Radio series, contains much of the same gameplay as Top Skater and used a nearly identical arcade cabinet.

Activision's Tony Hawk's series was inspired by Top Skater. While developing the original Tony Hawk's Pro Skater (1999), the Neversoft development team spent lunch breaks at a bowling alley near the studio, where they would play and study from Top Skater in the arcade. Members of the team were fans of Top Skater, the design of which served as a strong basic influence.