Hello, and welcome to the sick and radical world of shredding quads.

Steep Slope Sliders is a snowboarding game for the Sega Saturn developed by Cave and Victor Interactive Software. It was released for the Sega Titan Video arcade board exclusively to Japan sometime in 1998, and for the Sega Saturn in every major release region throughout late 1997 and early 1998. This guide is focusing on the Saturn version since it is by far the most accessible. Though we will welcome S.T.V. runs if you have the hardware.

Cave is known primarily for its "bullet-hell" shmup/shoot-em-up/STG games. They released multiple installments of DonPachi and various driving games for the Sega Saturn. Cave's high octane gameplay of dodging hazards at high speeds is perhaps well reflected in the hills of Steep Slope Sliders. It shows good use of the Saturn's 3D capabilities, while taking advantage of billboarding 2D sprites. Its art style oozes with radical late 90's but also doesn't spike the experience with too much Jolt cola. Trippy loading screens serve as colorful mortar between bricks of gameplay, with a soundtrack ranging from deep techno to poppy love songs. Weaving through the courses at high speeds require lots of practice, precision and level memorization. Do tricks, go fast, and be rad. This is SICK!

Seven courses and four characters are available from the start. There are four unlockable characters, totaling eight of what we will call "standard characters." There are several "secret characters" which can be played by holding down certain shoulder buttons while selecting the unlockable characters — AFTER playing through one of the regular courses with all eight "standard characters."

There are four secret courses (Asteroids, Space Colony, South Pole and space Half Pipe) that can only be played by holding shoulder buttons while selecting certain courses — AFTER playing through one of the regular courses with all eight "standard characters."

The process is a little messy, but unlocking everything would only take the average player about one hour. Full unlock guide here: https://www.consoledatabase.com/cheats/segasaturn/steepslopesliders/

At this time, Racer is believed to be the fastest snowboarder. He cannot jump as high, his steering is worse, and selecting him requires going to the second character menu — something that would add potentially unnecessary loading screens to a full game run. Whether you think it is worth those precious seconds to select the faster boarder is up to you.

In the near-future, I will record a video of all the snowboarders going straight down the Half Pipe course to rank their speeds.

Controls: Your snowboarder can steer with the d-pad and drift/spin with either shoulder button. Press A to jump. Jumping appears to slow you down, but you may find it more advantageous to use jump at the ends of cliffs and drops. Drifting also slows you down. It can make it easier to get past areas that are dense with trees and other obstacles. The snowboarder's "hitbox" seems to be right in the middle of the board. The B button does grab tricks and the C button lets you perform flips mid-air, though these do not appear to make you go faster. Wiping out at a failed trick will slow you down significantly.

Alpine is split into two categories on the IL list. This is because it has a slalom course which docks one second from the timer when you go on the wrong side of a flag. Alpine Real Time allows you to take the truly fastest route while Alpine IGT lets you compete for the fastest slalom time.

South Pole is also split into two categories. This is because the course is a series of narrow islands that require precise jumps and navigation to reach the end without hitting the water. If you touch the water, you are still able to "surf" the rest of the course. This is actually the fastest way to complete the course, since it takes away the precise jumping required to stay on land. Islands are too high to jump back on to after falling off. The announcer has different lines for when you finish on land or on water, recognizing that the skill-set required to make a good land time is far greater than a good water time. For this reason, one South Pole category allows you to touch water, the other does not.

Any secret or unlockable character is allowed. No one appears to have what could be considered a game breaking advantage. Since the Racer is really fast, we may see more runs use that character, which is fine.

If you find any cool tricks, fun strategies, or bizarre parts of Steep Slope Sliders (it has a lot of bizarre things, like the secret bonus game) feel free to post them in the forum.

Happy shredding. Stay sick.