Line #70 VideoGame/Excite


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/excite-series_1715.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:300:Bikes, Trucks, and Bots - EXCITE!]]
3
4	->''"In the 1980s, few things were extreme. Maybe traffic in Los Angeles and jalapeno peppers, but that was it. Now that everything and its tattooed dog are Xtreme, Nintendo has rereleased the granddaddy of high-flying, knee-scraping, body-tumbling racing games: Excitebike."''
5	--> '''Official Nintendo website''' on the GBA port of ''Excitebike''
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7	The ''Excite'' series is a line of action-focused, dirt-track racing games from Creator/{{Nintendo}}. Each installment tends to be distinct from the rest in terms of presentation and gameplay, ranging from somewhat realistic to [[WackyRacing downright insane]], and even sometimes trading the traditional bikes for trucks or even [[TransformingMecha transforming mechas]].
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9	Despite this, there are common elements found in all of them. Tracks tend to feature obstacles to avoid as well as [[RampJump ramps to jump off of]]; while in the air, racers can control their vehicle and even perform aerial tricks, and sticking the landing is imperative in order not to crash. Vehicles also always feature a [[NitroBoost turbo mechanic]], which provides a noticeable boost to their speed and jumps, but will cause the engine to overheat if used too often.
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11	The series is comprised of the following games:
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13	* ''Excitebike'' (Platform/{{NES}}, 1984): A motocross racing game released as a launch title for the NES, where the player raced around an obstacle-ridden dirt stadium, either alone or while avoiding [[NonPlayerCharacter other racers]]. It established all of the elements that would become staples of the series (turbo management, ramp jumping, etc.), and also offered an expansive design mode that let players create their own courses. As the first and [[FirstInstallmentWins most well-known]] game in the series, it was ported to numerous other platforms, including on Platform/VirtualConsole, as part of the Platform/GameBoyAdvance "NES Classics" line, and as one of the NES games available in ''VideoGame/{{Animal Crossing\|2001}}''. [[invoked]]
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15	** ''Vs. Excitebike'' (Arcade, 1984): An arcade [[UpdatedReRelease re-release]] of the original game, which removed the ability for players to design their own tracks, but included three different difficulty levels and a different set of tracks. This version later made its way to the Famicom Disk System in 1988, with the most notable new features being a brand new soundtrack, a two-player versus mode, and the return of the track design mode which now allowed players to save their creations.
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17	** ''Excitebike: Bun Bun Mario Battle'' (Platform/{{Satellaview}}, 1997): A [[VideoGameRemake remake]] of the first game that was only made available through the Japanese-only Satellaview download service, and released in four subsequent versions (called "Stadiums"). It replaced the generic riders with characters from the [[Franchise/SuperMarioBros Mario series]], and added both coins to collect across the track and a new "SUPER" mode granting unlimited boosts.
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19	** ''3D Classics: Excitebike'' (Platform/Nintendo3DS, 2011): A port of the original game that served as a launch title for the Nintendo eShop, and offered for free to players for a limited period of time. The game had its graphics reworked to fully exploit the 3D capabilities of the console, and also allows the player to save up to 32 custom tracks.
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21	* ''Excitebike 64'' (Platform/Nintendo64, 2000): The game that marked the series' jump to 3D. Its overall aesthetic was a more "realistic" take than its predecessor, heavily inspired by real-life extreme sports and track racing; in fact, upon release, it was praised for having some of the most realistic physics of its time. It also included multiple [[MiniGame extra modes]], which involved exploring a fractally generated desert, climbing up a steep hill, playing soccer, and even playing the orignal ''Excitebike'', [[NostalgiaLevel either in its original form or in full 3D]].
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23	* ''Excite Truck'' (Platform/{{Wii}}, 2006): A launch title for the Nintendo Wii that shifted focus from bikes to trucks, and emphasized the importance of stunts: winning races is based on a scoring system, with points being awarded not only for placing well, but also for performing various actions such as staying in the air as long as possible, drifintg, spinning around, passing through rings, or [[VehicularCombat smashing into other trucks]]. This game was also on of the few Wii titles that let players import their own Platform/{{MP3}} music tracks from an SD card.
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25	* ''Excitebots: Trick Racing'' (Platform/{{Wii}}, 2009): A direct sequel to ''Excite Trucks'', in which the trucks have been replaced with [[AnimalMecha cute, animal-shaped robots on wheels]] such a frog, a beetle, or a bat. It reprises the scoring system of its predecessor, put pushes the [[WackyRacing sheer wackiness]] of the race to the extreme, with extra points being granted for completing various [[MiniGame mini-games]] along the way: knocking down bowling pins, shooting darts, scoring a soccer goal, rescuing butterflies, and so on. Unfortunately for those living outside of America, it was [[NoExportForYou never released]] in Europe, and only available in Japan [[KeepCirculatingTheTapes as a Club Nintendo reward]]. [[invoked]]
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27	* ''Excitebike: World Rally'' (Platform/WiiWare, 2009): The most recent major title in the series so far, which, despite being developed by the same studio behind ''Excite Truck'' and ''Excitebots'', marked a return to the simpler play style and design of the original game, although retaining a few features from the previous two games such as the ranking system and the ability to change terrain. Its most notable feature was the ability to connect to the Internet either to [[CompetitiveMultiplayer race against other players]], or to [[PlayerDataSharing share and download custom-made tracks]].
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29	The ''VideoGame/WarioWare'' series features various mini-games based on the original NES game, along with an unlockable "Wario Bike" game in ''Twisted'' which mixes the gameplay of ''Excitebike'' with that of ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros1''. The ''Excitebike'' racers made a minor appearance as an Assist Trophy in ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosBrawl'', in their original 8-bit form. ''Brawl'' also includes the "Results" theme from Excite Truck. ''Excitebike'' is one of the game represented in ''VideoGame/NESRemix''; as promotion for the latter, an Event Course inspired by ''Excitebike'' was added to ''VideoGame/SuperMarioMaker'', which unlocks the biker as a costume upon completion. A circuit based on ''Excitebike'' was featured as DLC for ''VideoGame/MarioKart8'', with the position of ramps and obstacles on the track changing between each race.
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31	----
32	!!This series provides examples of:
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34	* ActionCommands: ''Excitebots'' features these to earn extra points, like "Press to throw pie in clown's face."
35	* AlienSky: The skies of the Nebula tracks from ''Excite Truck'' and ''Excitebots'' are filled with a variety of star clusters, and most notably what appears to be multiple moons.
36	* AllThereInTheManual: According to the Official Nintendo Player's Guide for ''Excitebike'', the player's motivation is to take revenge against their old adversary [[PunnyName Arch Rivale]], who humiliated them in the previous Excitebike World Championship and went as far as to taunt them as he rode over their foot. This is the only mention of any kind of story for ''any'' game in the series, let alone the original NES installment, and it's highly debatable whether or not it is actually canon.
37	* AndYourRewardIsClothes: Or rather, paint jobs.
38	** In ''Excite Truck'', playing 10 races or earning three S-ranks with a certain truck unlocks an alternate paint job for the truck in question.
39	** In ''Excitebots'', earning 25 S-ranks with a certain bot unlocks a special paint job for said bot; those can also be purchased for 250,000 stars after having played 15 races with the bot in question.
40	** In ''Excitebike: World Rally'', obtaining all S-ranks in a certain cup unlocks new bike colors, while obtaining a certain amount of friend points or anyone points in Wi-fi mode unlocks new bike patterns.
41	* AnimalMecha: The Excitebots are all based on animals; most of them are arthropods, with some mammals and herpetofauna mixed in. The only exception is [[spoiler:Boulder, the starting vehicle of ''Excite Truck'' who returns as the last unlockable bot]].
42	* AnnouncerChatter: ''Excitebike 64'' features an announcer who comments on the position of the racers and the accidents that occur throughout the race.
43	* AnthropomorphicShift: [[spoiler: Boulder]] becomes what is essentially an [[Franchise/{{Transformers}} autobot]] in ''Excitebots''.
44	* AstralFinale: The Diamond Cup in ''Excite Truck'' and the Crystal Cup in ''Excitebots'', which are the last cup of their respective game, are set in a space-like realm called Nebula.
45	* BigHeadMode: Entering the cheat code "BLAHBLAH" in ''Excitebike 64'' gives all the riders big heads. [[InvertedTrope Conversely]], entering the cheat code "PINHEAD" gives them all small heads.
46	* BreathWeapon: The Guatemala tracks in ''Excitebots'' feature giant heads made of stone that breathe fire on the racers.
47	* ButtonMashing:
48	** Mashing A and B back-and-forth in ''Excitebike'' after crashing makes the racer run back to his bike faster. Shaking the Wii remote in ''Excitebike: World Rally'' serves the same purpose.
49	** Mashing the 2 button in ''Excite Truck'' or shaking the Wii remote in ''Excitebots'' after crashing lets the vehicle get back on the track faster and benefit from a starting boost.
50	* ColorCodedForYourConvenience: In ''Excite Truck'' and ''Excitebots'', records obtained in Excite Mode are listed in green, ones obtained in Super Excite Mode are listed in red, and ones obtained in Mirror Mode are listed in blue.
51	* CreatorCameo: Entering the cheat code "[[SelfDeprecation UGLYMUGS]]" in ''Excitebike 64'' displays a photo of the development team on screen during the game's credits sequence.
52	* DoubleUnlock: Used often in ''Excitebots'', of the "now available to buy" variety. Playing 10 races with a bot unlocks a statue of it, and playing 15 races unlocks an exclusive paint job for it, but you still have to spend stars on them. The same holds true for player icons, which are unlocked for purchase by obtaining specific S-ranks, and new bots, made available for purchase by unlocking Super Excite Mode and reaching the lifetime rank requirement.
53	* EmbeddedPrecursor: The original NES game is included as an extra mode in ''Excitebike 64'', unlocked after clearing the tutorial.
54	* EndlessGame: The first ''Excitebike'' has no ending; you just keep playing until you reach the impossible challenge of completing Track 5 in 1:06-1:10.
55	* TheFaceless: Averted in ''Bun Bun Mario Battle'', which features characters from the ''[[Franchise/SuperMarioBros Mario]]'' series as riders, but played straight by ''Excite Truck'', in which you never see whoever is driving the trucks, and ''World Rally'', in which the bikers never take off their helmet. While their faces aren't seen during gameplay, the riders do take off their helmet when making it to the podium of a race in ''Excitebike'', or of a cup in ''Excitebike 64''.
56	* FishingMinigame: One of the various mini-games played while racing in ''Excitebots'' involves using a fishing rod near a body of water, and pressing a button at the right time in order to reel in the biggest fish possible.
57	* GiantHandsOfDoom: One of the obstacles found in ''Excitebots'' is a giant hand that rushes towards incoming vehicles and tries to crush them. If one manages to sneak past, they may be rewarded with five stars.
58	* InvincibilityPowerUp: The POW item in ''Excite Truck'' and ''Excitebots'' makes one's vehicle invincible and lets it plow through obstacles faster.
59	* LevelEditor:
60	** ''Excitebike'' had one of the more thorough ones in the 8-bit era that let players design their own racetracks, although the options to save and load previously-created courses were only operable through the Japanese-exclusive Famicom Data Recorder accessory. ''Vs. Excitebike'' allowed players to save their creations directly on the disk, and ''3D Classics: Excitebike'' restored the save function in all versions of the game.
61	** ''Excitebike 64'' also features a course editor, which is the only one in the series to allow players to add curves in order to create fully three-dimensional tracks.
62	** ''Excitebike: World Rally'' features a track editor similar to that of the original game, with the added bonus of players being able to [[PlayerDataSharing share their creations online for others to download]].
63	* LevelInReverse:
64	** In both ''Excite Truck'' and ''Excitebots'', getting an S-rank on every course in Super Excite Mode unlocks Mirror Mode, in which every track is flipped left-to-right.
65	** Cheat codes allow for two variations of this in ''Excitebike 64'': entering "YADAYADA" causes race tracks to get flipped left-to-right, while entering "WHEEEEEEEE" reverses the Hill Climb mode so that the racer starts at the top of the hill and has to make their way downwards.
66	* MarketBasedTitle: ''Excitebike: World Rally'' is known as ''Excitebike: World Race'' in Japan and ''Excitebike: World Challenge'' in Europe.
67	* MechanicallyUnusualFighter: The last unlockable truck in ''Excite Truck'' is [[spoiler:the Crazy Monster Truck, which stays in [[InvincibilityPowerUp POW mode]] for the entirety of the race, thus making it impossible to be destroyed by trees or other trucks, and able to get a Tree Run bonus even after running into a tree]].
68	* MiniGame:
69	** ''Excitebike 64'' has a few extra play modes labeled as Special Tracks: "Desert Track" tasks you with extinguishing campfires as you explore a [[RandomlyGeneratedLevels randomly-generated]] desert, "Stunt Course" rates you as you perform as many tricks as possible in two minutes, "Hill Climb" challenges you to race up an extremely steep slope in a limited time, and "Soccer" is [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin literally soccer on motorcycles]].
70	** ''Excitebots'' features mini-games ''during'' the race, which grant extra stars upon completion. Those include shooting darts, knocking down bowling pins, playing the tambourine, fishing, hitting a baseball with a bat, collecting butterflies, scoring with a soccer ball or a rugby ball, throwing a pie in a clown's face, collecting music notes or sandwich ingredients on a grind rail, or smashing opponents with a hammer. There is also a "Minigames" mode which features tracks that each specifically focus on one kind of mini-game.
71	*** ''Excitebots'' also features a mode named "Poker Race", in which players must collect playing cards spread around the track in order to assemble as strong a hand as possible.
72	* MythologyGag: The animation of the rider pumping their fist in celebration after causing an opponent to crash in ''World Rally'' is taken straight from ''Excitebike 64'', in which they would behave similarly.
73	* NinjaPirateRobotZombie: ''Excitebots'' offers giant butterfly-catching, tambourine-playing, pie-throwing, spinning robot animals in rainbow-colored costumes.
74	* NitroBoost: Each game in the series features a turbo boost mechanic, which greatly increases the vehicle's speed but causes the engine to {{overheat\|ing}} when used for too long. This can be prevented by driving over special "cool zone" tiles in ''Excitebike'' and ''World Rally'', or bodies of water in ''Excite Truck'' and ''Excitebots''.
75	** In ''Excitebike: Bun Bun Mario Battle'', collecting five coins in a row enables a "SUPER" mode, during which turbo can be used indefinitely as long as the bike doesn't get knocked off the track.
76	* {{Overheating}}: In each game, using the [[NitroBoost turbo boost]] too often will cause the engine to overheat, forcing the vehicle to stop until it cools off. Said overheating can be delayed by cooling off the engine, either by driving over "cool zones" in ''Excitebike'' and ''World Rally'', or through bodies of water in ''Excite Truck'' and ''Excitebots''.
77	* PaletteSwap: In ''Truck'' and ''Bots'', vehicles have several color variants to choose between. In ''Truck'', all colors are unlocked by default. However, in ''Bots'', each vehicle comes with a unique color, plus default red, blue, and yellow, with other options, including special costumes, as unlockable content.
78	* PassThroughTheRings: A way to gain extra points in ''Excite Truck'' and ''Excitebots'' is to jump off a ramp and fly through a set of rings.
79	* PieInTheFace: ''Excitebots'' features floating clown heads on some tracks. If you successfully land a pie on their face, you will be rewarded with three stars and the terrain shifting for a better route.
80	* PlayerDataSharing: ''Excitebike: World Rally'' lets players share their own [[LevelEditor custom-made courses]] online for others to download.
81	* ProductPlacement: ''Excitebike 64'' features advertisements for extreme sports-related brands such as Bell Helmets, Alpinestars or No Fear plastered along each track. The textures for those were blanked out in the Platform/WiiU Platform/VirtualConsole release of the game, presumably for licensing reasons.
82	* PromotedToPlayable: Wario appears as a [[NonPlayerCharacter non-playable opponent]] in ''Excitebike: Bun Bun Mario Battle Stadium 1'', but becomes playable from ''Stadium 2'' onwards.
83	* PullingThemselvesTogether: In ''Excitebots,'' if a bot messes up in a bar spin, it will be ripped to pieces. If the pieces stay airborne long enough, the bot will slowly piece itself back together, at which point it will hit the ground like nothing happened, provided that it sticks the landing properly.
84	* RampJump: A staple of the series as a whole is the inclusion of ramps for the vehicles to jump of off, after which they need to adjust their angle in the air in order to stick the landing and not crash miserably. Although inspired by real-life motocross racing, other vehicles manage it just as well, [[RuleOfFun despite how unrealistic it might be for a truck to jump over the Great Wall of China and land on the other side unscathed]].
85	* RandomlyGeneratedLevels: The Desert Track mode in ''Excitebike 64'' tasks the player with putting out campfires spread around a fractally generated desert. All the dunes were randomly created as the player explored the area, but previously generated terrain was kept in memory, so the player could always return to a previously visited spot.
86	* RockMonster: ''Bots'' features large rock creatures in the terrain that move in place and blow on the racers. Their effect on the race is minimal, but they do add visual flair.
87	* {{Scatting}}: Present during the intro song of ''Excitebike 64'', and the China course theme of ''Excite Truck''.
88	* SentientVehicle: While never explicitly stated, the Excitebots seem to be this, given how they pose joyously after certain stunts.
89	* SuperTitle64Advance:
90	** ''Vs. Excitebike'' reprises the ''Vs.'' prefix used by most arcade ports of NES games.
91	** The Nintendo 64 installment is simply titled ''Excitebike 64''.
92	* TimeTrial:
93	** Both the original ''Excitebike'' and ''World Rally'' require the player to beat a specific time in order to move on to the next stage; the other riders act more like obstacles than actual competitors.
94	** ''Excitebike 64'', which plays more like a traditional racing game, features a separate Time Trial mode in which the player races alone in order to get the best time possible on each track. It's also possible to save "ghosts" of specific runs on a Controller Pak in order to face against them later.
95	* TitleScream: '''EXCITEBIKE... SIXTY-FOUR!'''
96	* TransformingMecha: In ''Excitebots'', the bots run to the track before turning into vehicle mode. One power-up allows them to turn back to legs mode and kick other racers they get close to, knock over trees, ignore most hazards and grind on rails. Jumping off a ramp in legs mode then transforms the bot into a glider, which can either fly for collectibles or dive for more speed.
97	* UpdatedReRelease:
98	** ''Vs. Excitebike'' is an arcade port of the original Famicom game, with a new set of tracks and multiple difficulty level. Then the Famicom version of ''Vs. Excitebike'' is itself an updated re-release of the arcade version, which adds back the course designing feature, includes a new two-player modes, and even features [[GameMusic music]] during gameplay.
99	** ''3D Classics: Excitebike'' is a re-release of the original ''Excitebike'' on Platform/Nintendo3DS, which features graphics that have been reworked in order to offer a widescreen display and support the system's 3D capabilities, and a {{level editor}} with a much improved interface and the ability to save up to 32 tracks (which was impossible in the NES version).
100	* VehicularCombat: The Crush Challenge mode in ''Excite Truck'' consists in chasing after five other trucks spread around the map in order to smash into them as violently as possible.
101	* VideoGame3DLeap: ''Excitebike 64'' was a total overhaul of the original game. The cool down spots and stacking ramps gave way to fairly more realistic track designs, the lanes vanished, and the perspective shifted from a side view to a from-behind view. Following installments either took after ''Excitebike 64'' while shaking up the formula with new vehicles and mechanics (''Excite Truck'' and ''Excitebots'') or went back to an experience closer to the original game (''World Rally'').

Context VideoGame / Excite