Skate or Die is an Action-Adventure skateboard video game franchise by Electronic Arts for the Commodore 64, Nintendo Entertainment System and Game Boy, having the distinction of being their first game developed in-house. The NES port was handled by Konami under their Ultra Games banner.
The first game, Skate or Die, revolved around your character doing sick skateboarding moves and competing in a tournament to become the best. That was pretty much it, but the music and gameplay were received well enough to make EA develop a sequel.
Skate or Die 2: The Search for Double Trouble was a much lengthier game than the first and even had a plot, focusing on the hero's efforts to unban skateboarding in the town of Elwood, then get a permit to build a new half-pipe—all while being dogged at every turn by their archenemy Icepick.
A Game Boy game, Skate or Die: Bad 'N Rad, was developed and published by Konami and revolved around the unnamed hero working to save his girlfriend, Miss Aerial, from ElRad the Evil One. A final game in the franchise, Skate or Die: Tour de Thrash, was also released for the Game Boy in the US and was a throwback to the first game, with the player competing in skating tournaments.
Electronic Arts also produced a winter sports-themed spinoff, Ski or Die. This game also received a NES port from Konami.
This franchise contains examples of:
- All There in the Manual: Bad 'N Rad's manual explains the setting and background of the game: somewhere in the State of Confusion (just to the left of California), the town of Vileville is in an uproar because Miss Aerial, the daughter of Great Ben and the last of the Bad 'N Rad Skateboard Masters, was the last of many boarders captured by ElRad and his buddy Bionic Lester in their bid to Take Over the World. Luckily, they missed capturing you, so it's up to you to save Miss Aerial and the day.
- Cool Board: With a franchise built around skateboards, this was no surprise. Every boarder in the series has a board suited for them, and the player uses theirs to win tournaments and save the town.
- Damsel in Distress: CJ is kidnapped late into the second game, and rescuing Miss Aerial is Bad N' Rad's plot.
- Death of Personality: Bad 'N Rad's manual mentions that Bionic Lester got hit by toxic waste as a kid which resulted in his good side dying and his evil side flourishing.
- Equipment Upgrade: In the second game your board can be upgraded through the bartering system, and you can also learn new tricks to perform.
- Everything Trying to Kill You: Bad N' Rad has everything from cats, birds, land mines, Spikes of Doom, and fellow boarders out for your blood.
- Expy: CJ from the second game looks very similar to Ariel from The Little Mermaid (1989).
- Faux Action Girl: CJ is described as a tough girl who can skate you into the ground, but in the story she hits Icepick with one paint ball and is immediately chased and captured while crying for help.
- Flame Spewer Obstacle: Bad N' Rad has floor and ceiling flame jets for you to jump over and duck under.
- Generic Graffiti: Generic rad graffiti tags pop up all over the series, proclaiming things are "Crazy!" and "Bad!" in a good way.
- Green-Eyed Monster: According to the manual, the boss of Stage 3 of Bad 'N Rad has been courting Miss Aerial and attacks the player character out of jealousy.
- Grimy Water: Stage 3 of Bad 'N Rad takes place on an oil platform with rising and falling oil that slows your board if you're on top of it and kills you if you fall into it.
- Hard Levels, Easy Bosses: Bad 'N Rad has punishing levels that have many instant-death scenarios and rely on rote memorization to make it through, with the added complication of your skateboard's momentum affecting platforming. The bosses are much easier since, with one exception, there's no danger of instantly dying.
- Implausible Boarding Skills: The more platformer-based games have this, particularly the Game Boy game where you skate on floating platforms, dodge spikes, and outrun sawblades and cement barrels.
- The Mall: Featured in one level of Skate or Die 2, where your character makes "deliveries" of some kind from store to store to make money to build a skate ramp.
- Mister Muffykins: The plot of the second game starts when Icepick distracts the hero and leads them to run over the Mayor's wife's prized poodle, leading her to ban skateboarding.
- Monster Clown: The first boss of Bad N' Rad is the Berserk Not-So-Happy Clown, who juggles balls that must be jumped on to bounce back and hit him.
- No Plot? No Problem!: The first game revolved around your character doing sick skateboarding moves and competing in a tournament to become the best, with a much heavier emphasis on gameplay than anything story-related.
- Noob Bridge: The first NES game's High Jump event, where to build up speed, rather than simply tapping the B button as in the Ramp Freestyle, the player has to rapidly alternate between left and right on the D-Pad or joystick while tapping it (or holding it, if they have a turbo controller).
- Play the Game, Skip the Story: A rare invoked example happens in the second game. It gives the player the option to skip the story entirely and play the Double Ramp skating game, which would normally be unlocked after completing Story Mode.
- Pro Bono Barter: In the second game, you trade anything from CDs to French Fries in exchange for new skateboards and tricks. Justified as the plot of the game has you saving money, and you can't do that if you're spending it on unlockables.
- Raised by Wolves: The manual for Bad 'N Rad states the boss of Stage 3, Mister Wart Monger, was raised by a pack of wild sewer frogs.
- Razor Floss: Colliding with a fence during the Downhill Jam causes the skater to be diced into cubical chunks.
- Recurring Riff: The theme song ("SKATE OR DIE! DIEDIEDIEDIEDIE!") recurs in several variations in the second game (the mall theme, at least one of the cutscene themes).
- Save the Princess: Bad 'N Rad revolves around saving Miss Aerial, the daughter of Great Ben and the last of the Bad 'N Rad Skateboard Masters.
- Songs in the Key of Panic: Double Trouble has an unused panic version of the Plant stage theme.
- Title Scream: The second game's memorable "SKATE! OR! DIE! SKATE OR DIE! DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE!"
- To Be a Master: The first game and Tour De Thrash have you working your way up the tournament ladder to be crowned best of the best.
- Too Fast to Stop: Since you're on a skateboard, turning around or even stopping is dependent on forward momentum or lack of it, and it takes about 2 seconds to go from full speed to a stop. Bad 'N Rad exploits this with disappearing platforms, suddenly-appearing enemies, and pits at the end of ramps to the point where a normal playthrough is closer to a rhythm game than a standard platformer.
- Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: In the last act of Skate or Die 2's story mode, the Player Character has purchased a permit for construction of a new half-pipe ramp, and saved its blueprints from blowing away, when local gang leader Icepick kidnaps the hero's girlfriend, CJ, and he must navigate a maze-like factory to save her.
