Corona Jumper: Stunt Race FX (Super NES, 1994)

Sunday, August 10, 2025

Stunt Race FX (Super NES, 1994)

A game I've never played before, and it's on Nintendo Switch Online. The Super FX Chip (of Star Fox fame) makes a comeback here, this time in racing game form. Will this game stand the test of time, or will it demonstrate why the Super FX Chip didn't really get any use in the last couple years of the SNES? Let's find out.

I consider this one of the true "golden eras" of Nintendo Power (maybe the last one), that second half of 1994 with Final Fantasy III and numerous other awesome things.

The first half of 1994, and most of 1995 were pretty great too, so really it was a golden 20 months or so, starting with Volume 55 in December 1993 (the cover with Jafar on it). The magazine never really got to that height again after 1995, though 1996 had some cool stuff early in the year due to Mario.

The cars have a lot of personality, and I can already tell which ones are heels. The little yellow guy is definitely the nicest of the bunch, just a happy go lucky dude who's hard not to like. The red FX car is The Protagonist, while the blue car is his Vegeta/rival, and whatever that thing is in the background is the "bad guy". Maybe. IDK.

There are 3 main modes here. Speed Trax is the main mode, with cups/prix that each contain a set of tracks to race through against the computer. Stunt Trax involves driving around a track collecting stars and doing stunts to accumulate points. Battle Trax is more of a combat mode, where you drive around an arena blasting at another player.

The multiplayer modes are where it's at for this game. The single-player is frustrating, but you can get a lot of fun out of battling it out with someone else.

3 choices here. Vegeta car has durability and good acceleration with low max speed.

Yellow dude is the "average" car, with middle-ground stats for everything. This is the one I ended up going with because "balanced" is usually the racer for a n00b to go with in racing games.

That said, F-Type is definitely the best for experienced players. Low HP, acceleration isn't good, but a skilled player will pull ahead and stay ahead with this one. Also, easier to beat the DEADLY TIMER with the F-Type.

There are other vehicles to unlock, as well, like bikes.

Got two choices for "cups" as it were. Apparently ALL of these tracks are dangerous and I should keep out. I remember some of these names from when I was a kid, like "Night Cruise". Who doesn't like a nice night cruise?

Easy Ride is a nice generic level, race around the track and finish laps ahead of the other racers. Alas, immediately I have to talk about the elephant in the room: The framerate. It's so, so bad. Like in 1995 it probably seemed fine, but now, it feels almost unplayable. Star Fox manages to keep the framerate from getting TOO bad by keeping detailed textures to a minimum, while this one is brimming with textures that slow it down. There's also a ton of pop-in, with things just appearing out of nowhere.

Like this Mario sign. Hey, Mario! Good to see him making a cameo.

It feels like this game would probably look a lot nicer if the actual game visuals were taking up more of the screen (the game itself only uses about 50% of the screen at the most, even in 4:3). A lot of 3D games did this back then, shrunk down the actual game screen to a small portion of the monitor. Presumably this was so that the framerate wouldn't slow to even more of a crawl.

Aqua Tunnel is really nice, with lots of water. Probably the prettiest this game gets.

The bonus stage involves driving this BIG RIG down a course, collecting things.

Then we've got Sunset Valley, a course with really long straight-aways.

This would be a good time to mention that giant number in the upper right corner. That isn't my current rank/placement. Nope, the rank is at the bottom. The giant number at the top is the "lap timer". It's constantly ticking down, and if it reaches zero, you lose the race even if you're in first place. Completing a lap adds some time to it, but sometimes it doesn't add very much time (compared to what you started with) and the timer quickly becomes a bigger threat than the courses or the other racers.

Finally, Night Owl, the last course of Novice Cup. This...is where the game falls apart for me. The course itself is pretty challenging, and curvier than a Puerto Rican woman. However, as alluded to already, that isn't the issue.

THE TIMER IS. For whatever reason, in this course, the timer decided it was time (heh) to go absolutely nuts. The course is way too long for the super-limited lap time it gives you, and you have to finish Lap 1 perfectly to have enough carry-over time to finish the second and third laps at all (whether you do them perfectly or not...yes, you can do lap 3 completely perfectly, be in first place, and still fail).

Not only is the timer excessively punishing, it also causes me to have to rush everything to such a degree that I end up making mistakes / falling out of first place / damaging the car up from just smacking everything in sight to get through faster.

Whoa, it's Fox McCloud and Kirby. I'd slow down and get a better gander at them, but I have SIX SECONDS

Nowhere near the lap marker on that one.

Things are getting brutal, as I'm crashing into walls and getting into all kinds of accidents just trying to beat the timer.

And, well, that's it. Got a propa thrashing on this last course. Tried Expert Cup and it pretty much picked up right where this one left off, with me getting timed out midway through the third lap of the first course, no matter how well I did.

After a few more runs through all of Novice Cup (thought I could get better with practice, but the same thing happened every time), I finally managed to eke out a win over Night Owl to win the Novice Cup.

And by eke out a win, I mean EKE OUT A WIN:

Sailing over a finish line after running out of time is something that happened to me several times in my various runs at this last level. If it didn't still count as a win, I'd have been hosed.

That's it. I have beaten the game! HALLEUJAH, I HAVE BEATEN THE GAME

Expert Cup? Shh no such thing

The main issue with Night Owl is that the course itself is so long that the timer doesn't even seem to accommodate it or take it into account. Like they gave it the same timer as the other levels, and didn't playtest it or adjust/tune for the longer track.

Either way. I beat the game. Meee! I beat the game-uh! I am the champion-uh of Stunt Race FX!

Meh, alright, Expert Cup it is. I tried it a couple times before and couldn't get past the first track, but I'm gonna try it again.

King's Forest is actually a pretty cool level, with mist and trees.

While the last stage of the first cup was the toughest, I think the first stage might be the toughest of this one. Without any rollover timer from previous levels, it's ass and a half to try and get through this without getting got by the timer.

ASSSSS!

The checkpoint was RIGHT THERE!

ASSSSSSSSSS!

I try something new here. You can change the enemy racers to be what you want, so I set them all to the lowest max speed racer (since max speed is their biggest limiter). This effectively lowers the difficulty of the game, using the game's own mechanics.

Between that and using the F-Type (i.e. the fastest car) I manage to eke out a win over King's Forest. The main threat now is going to be not smashing the car into bits while bouncing all around the level trying to beat the timer.

Extra time rolling over is huge, and I suspect the reason I had so much trouble with Night Owl was because I wasn't rolling over enough time in the races before it.

Sea Breeze is easier as far as the timer goes, but harder to stay alive in. Using the shoulder buttons to make sharp turns is a must now...except the controls are so touchy that I always either rotate WAY too much when turning (sometimes even ending up facing the wrong way) or I barely rotate at all because I'm trying so hard not to over-rotate.

The worst part is this section where the sides of the track are cliffs that you can fly right over to your death. All the aforementioned over-turning problems get really serious here when it can kill you.

This time with the BIG RIG minigame, I go specifically for the "extra time" bonuses.

+13 seconds, it isn't a ton but I'll take it. We're in a war here with the timer.

White Land is probably my favorite level, a nice snowy environment. Mashing boost (and grabbing every boost-restoring item on the track) is the only way I have any shot of beating the timer by the third lap in these levels.

This level also contains Tits McGee, the Last Snowman.

Finished this one with a heap of extra time, this should give me a huge advantage for the last level.

....OR NOT

Night Cruise is my final battle for this game, and it's as cool-looking as I always envisioned it to be.

Come on, beat the timer...

As always, Lap 3 is the hard part, because by then you're gonna be running super low on time.

2 seconds left, goal in sight. GO GO GO

WHOAAAAA

I crossed the finish line AFTER time expired, and it counted. What a brutal game.

Phew, I did it. I'd say it was a rush but it was mostly just a lot of "what were they thinking" with the timer.

So final thoughts on this game? It feels like a "just because you can, doesn't mean you should" situation where they had a new 3D technology that they wanted to make use of, and a racing game was a logical way to use it. However, the Super FX Chip isn't really ideal for fast-paced 3D, and compared to something like Super Mario Kart (running on plain ol' garden-variety Mode 7), this game really falls short in the smoothness department.

While the framerate hurts it a lot, the timer on the courses is what really destroys the fun factor. A timer isn't the worst idea, as it adds tension and makes sure you're hauling ass. The issue here is that they made the timer so damn unforgiving after a while. Like on the last levels of the cups, it is incredibly unforgiving to the point of leaving you almost no room for error, where you'll be flying over finish lines after the timer runs out and getting a lifeline.

The game is fun as a novelty, to see what the SNES could do in 1995. It was worth a run. And now, Nintendo Power Time:

They really play up the 3D, and they use zoomed-in screenshots rather than actual ingame shots (where the game obviously only takes up a portion of the screen).

They did a good job presenting the tracks, and I remember wanting to try this game as a kid. I think it would have just frustrated me, though.

As mentioned before, "Night Cruise" stuck with me as a kid. Also, there are no levels after Night Cruise. A third cup? That's just a mirage. Why is Nintendo Power pretending there was more to the game? I finished the whole thing, dagnabbit!

They also make special sidebar mention of the halfway-minigame: BIG RIGS.