Championship Guide for N64(WIP)

If you want to play through the game without just using the cheat codes this guide is for you, this is not a speedrun routing guide!
Playing through the game this way or similar will give you a better idea of the engine itself and likely make you better at the game than just unlocking lobster and breezing through a lot of this.
Stay in 3rd person mode when you start playing this game, it builds skills needed for first person

General Sled Choice Logic: Crashes are really easy when you start off so you want to pick something that has good handling and acceleration, Shortcuts will always beat out pure speed in this game so don't hesitate to let off the A button if it means you can line up to hit a shortcut you would have missed.

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Sport Championship

Pick 600 XC, Upgrade top speed and acceleration

As you start your first couple runs you will notice they can go faster than you, you can beat them with good attention to routing

Important to Championship Mode: Stunts

The bar at the top right has 10 circles that light up when you do a trick, do 10 tricks to get an extra wrench
Finish Bear River and enter Hunter Downs, once ingame pause and restart the championship
When you select your sled after this you will notice you still have any wrenches you earned

The fastest trick is a hand clap above the riders head so that's what will get you the most wrenches. Press up on the joystick or dpad and press the R button to complete a trick. I find the range for inputting this trick on a stick is relatively small and harder to hit on joystick than with dpad so I suggest using dpad for tricks in the air.

Holding the R button down before leaving a jump will buffer the input as soon as you leave the ground, if you are doing a trick and land on the ground you crash so be careful not to accidentally press R unless you are going off a jump and want to trick as you could accidentally crash

Learn the routing well on Bear River because it's the fastest first stage of any championship, this is the best way to improve sleds naturally.  Aim for about 3 wrenches , seems to be the best tradeoff of speed vs # of tricks(still 30 tricks, a lot). Earning wrenches is a vital part of the All Championships category so if anyone figures out a way to exploit the game to get wrenches faster please let me know :)

Return to Bear River when you unlock a new difficulty and grind wrenches to give you a better chance at beating the cpus

For upgrading the sleds themselves I generally start off with 3-4 wrenches on each of the stats, first upgrading top speed and accel then working on handling and stability

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Semi-Pro Championship

Pick the 700 XC SP, grind out at least 2 Bear River Completions before proceeding(12 wrenches)

Routing becomes more important here, a look at a route online could save you an hour of dropped attempts easily. Check out the time trial speedruns of the levels that give you trouble to give you ideas, taking most of the shortcuts will beat them every time without large crashes.
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Pro Championship

Here's where the sleds get really good!
I really would just suggest grinding out wrenches quite a bit before trying this, I maxed my sled

My favorite picks here are the 500 XC SP & 700 XC, Caseywho likes the 800 XC so maybe that's worth a shot
Probably the best choice is the 500 XC SP, it's even beating lobster on some courses(at the time of writing this)

Revelstoke has several shortcuts that are crucial to know, possibly in no other course is it as important. The snowpath jump into the ice tunnel near the end of the lap is a must or else you just won't win

Rattlesnake Ridge is the only other contender to that title, knowing the shortcuts on both these courses will save you lots of struggle vs cpus neck and neck with you/ surpassing you when you crash in lap 3

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Special Event:

Completing this level will really test your knowledge of the courses, the cpus not only will cheat in their rubber banding but also grind the back of their vehicle against you if you are not careful
The courses are selected randomly so you will need to reset to get courses you are good enough on before you can beat this
500 XC SP is my suggestion for sled
I think this is where you could possibly start experimenting with 1st person mode
I would possibly consider using the save/load codes at this point, it's at the point of diminishing returns
If you have any questions please feel free to reach out to me, I would be happy to help you :)

Happy Sledding,
GhillieGuide

Polaris Snocross N64/PS Save Codes

Hey Nerds, these are codes I found in the ROM files of the N64 version of Polaris SnoCross and the ISO of the PS1 version!

They are not Gameshark codes but can be inputted through the ingame menu and have not been posted anywhere on the internet before to my knowledge. I scoured the internet for these codes but because I had to actually go into the game files I am 99% certain this is all of them.

To get to the code input menu

From the main menu select
OPTIONS

Then select
SAVE/LOAD

Then select
ENTER CODE

The codes are as follows:

Give 100 Wrenches to All Unlocked Sleds
Ckp041980

Unlock Semi-Pro Sleds
Bcd101261

Unlock Pro Sleds
Gvb081376

Unlock 600 Edge X Sled
Kb7r51075

Unlock Sno-Razor Sled
Bdk041473

Unlock Lobster
Kvv121766

Unlock All Tracks in Single Event
Bks070971

If you input a code then save your game to the memory pack it will have that content every time you load.
This means that you can access the end game content needed to speedrun time trials or championship mode without grinding through the game naturally if you desire. Unfortunately, these codes only unlock the tracks in Single Event and not the championship mode.

IT ALSO MEANS SHREDDING SOME WICKED POWDA ON THE LOBSTA!!

Sled + Course Combination Guide(N64+PS)

This guide will quickly overview what I believe the best sled is on each course, some possible other fastest etc.

I am currently switching between 3 sleds depending on course and all records have been set on these sleds since 2019

Regardless of sled they perform better with maxed stats, so until exceptions pop up I am using maxed stats, use the save/load code Ckp041980 to give all sleds 100 wrenches for customization

Updated: Sept 24th 2021

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Lobster

This sled is only able to be unlocked in the save/load menu using the code Kvv121766 

Completely Maxed Stats make Lobster the first choice to try out and maybe optimally best on every course somehow

Pros: 

Fast Recovery from Slowdown

Highest Top Speed

Less Slowdown from Most Things

Has Access to Unique Routing from Above

Cons:

Often launched in the air if accelerator is held, releasing it too often slows you down/reduces jump length

Easy to lose time bobbing up and down with improper angle adjustment before landing

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Sno-Razor

This sled is unlocked by completing the Special Event(s) or using the save/load code Bdk041473

When you need to go super fast but also not launch in the air as much Sno-Razor is your answer

Pros:

Very high top speed+accel with reasonable handling and stability

Faster than Pro Sleds when you have small jumps but still lots of straight aways

Doesn't jump up as easily as Lobster so saves airtime at cost of jump distance

Cons:

Easy to lose large amounts time on mistakes, similar to 800 XC but less punishing

Low Handling/Stability can limit ability to hug curves well

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500 XC SP

Unlocked by completing the Semi-Pro Tournament(s) or the code Gvb081376

This thing doesn't look impressive compared to the previous 2 at first glance but I am finding it extremely useful on levels with lots of jumps, bumps and other obstacles most notably on the harder snocross levels

It saves you from most large time losses with it's handling and stability, it's a great beginner pro sled so I highly recommend it

Pros:

Easier to avoid collisions with better handling and lower speed/accel

Can lean back often and far to avoid dipping nose, much harder to pull back too far and slow down

Doesn't get as much air as either of the other options, and with a smoother landing it often has different routing options available that coincide with the course design(ramps, kickers, moguls)

Cons:

Gets demolished on straight-aways by the other 2 options, as your routing gets better this sled should naturally get worse

Can't jump quite as far or as often as lobster

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Bear River

Primary: Lobster

Secondary: Sno-Razor

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Hunter Downs

Primary: Lobster

Secondary: Sno-Razor

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Geyser Canyon

Primary: 500 XC SP

Secondary: Lobster

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Silver Peaks

Primary: Sno-Razor

Secondary: Lobster

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Frozen Falls

Primary: Lobster

Secondary: Sno-Razor

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Thunder Bay

Primary: Sno-Razor

Secondary: Lobster

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Mount Revelstoke

Primary: 500 XC SP

Secondary: Sno-Razor

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Horseshoe Park

Primary: Lobster

Secondary: 500 XC SP

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Rattlesnake Ridge

Primary: 500 XC SP

Secondary: Sno-Razor

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The Polardome

Primary: Lobster

Secondary: 500 XC SP

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Non-Lobster Levels:
500 XC SP
- Geyser Canyon
- Mount Revelstoke
- Rattlesnake Ridge

Sno-Razor
- Silver Peaks
- Thunder Bay

-Ghillie

The Basics of Movement(N64)

Here's a quick guide for Polaris SnoCross, I am still learning but this will teach you the bare bones basics to movement



1. Controls

Stick Up/Down tilts your sled forwards/backwards respectively
Stick Left/Right rotates your sled

A is Acceleration, it remains held down during most of gameplay

R + Stick Up is the fastest/easiest stunt, stunts are needed if you are naturally earning wrenches in championship mode to upgrade your sled

Holding R, L, or Z on the ground can easily lead to crashes by accidentally activating a stunt
C Down toggles the view, the 3rd person view is much easier to use and I suggest starting with it before moving to 1st person for the lag reduction. I will touch on this later 




2. Movement Tips

- When in any sticky situation the best thing to keep in mind is to keep the nose of the sled slightly off the ground by tapping your stick down slightly

- Textures appear to matter a bit on speed/acceleration so stay on the path unless a shortcut makes it worth it

- If you have a long straight section it's best not to attempt to keep your nose in the air and just stay flat with the ground

- Leaving a jump you should pull your nose up, if you need to go a long way to make a kicker make this input quite dramatic for extra distance to make it and level off a bit

- Landing from a short distance just tap down lightly to avoid smashing the nose of the sled into the ground, if you are falling from a long distance pull it up so the spring on the rear of the sled takes the impact of the fall and can accelerate out of it

- If you tilt back too far you end up losing your grip and slow down to a crawl and often crash with worse sleds, learn your sled's limit and avoid going past it while tilting your nose up to keep it from impacting the ground.

- Pay attention to the routing on the videos, even for completing the game naturally good routing is important if not essential as the CPUs get quite difficult at times

- Real Snocross seems to mimic a lot of the same strategies, even falling from a long way and using the spring to land seems pretty standard

- Don't hit the back of other racers or try to knock them off, 90% of the time this is a bad idea


3. Camera

Although untested switching to 1st person should always be theoretically faster than staying in the default camera. The game has an easier time running smoothly in this mode and it save real time, in addition because the ingame timer is tied the clockrate of the console it also saves ingame time to do this.

A problem with 1st person is that you are unable to see the sled at all, this means you have to visualize how far back you are leaning in order to benefit from it and are punished harshly for doing so poorly.

Another quirk about 1st person that IMO makes the game easier to complete really fast is that it appears to alter the way you collide with objects in the ground. Usually this means less collisions and a quicker run when compared to the same mistakes in 3rd person, that being said it also seems to increase vastly the amount of places your sled can clip out of bounds. Out of bounds in this game is a bad thing, you just void out and lose tons of time.

All of these factors make the decision to use 3rd/1st person a difficult one to answer for me, I think you should learn the game in 3rd person at least and then maybe test out 1st person. It doesn't seem like the game was well tested in 1st person overall.

I haven't tested music yet either but it's suspected music also takes a toll on framerate as well, that's to come.

That should get you started enough, feel free to contact me via twitter or discord preferably if you have any questions. I am still bad at this game so take my advice with scrutiny please.

- GhillieGuide

Nome	Autor
Championship Guide for N64(WIP)	GhillieGuide 5 years ago
Polaris Snocross N64/PS Save Codes	GhillieGuide 5 years ago
Sled + Course Combination Guide(N64+PS)	GhillieGuide 3 years ago
The Basics of Movement(N64)	GhillieGuide 5 years ago