On September 10, the previously bankrupt video game publishing company, Acclaim, made a shocking return to the video game industry with its first-ever “Play Acclaim Showcase”, which detailed the first nine games the revived company would be publishing. Although the original Acclaim Entertainment, responsible for publishing games like Turok and NBA Jam, filed for bankruptcy in 2004, this modern revival of the company places a heavy emphasis on funding indie developer projects.

While small in scope due to the small nature of the developer team behind HyperYuki: Snowboard Syndicate, this game was one of the nine revealed to be published by Acclaim that showed incredible promise, as well as a clear set of inspirations that any fan of retro or extreme sports games would pick up on immediately. HyperYuki’s vibrant cel-shaded character designs and environment are strikingly reminiscent of Team Reptile’s 2023 hit Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, with similar sprawling downhill cities equipped with roaring train cars on raised platforms overhead, and cell towers far in the distance. The heavily cartoon-inspired art style allows for a reasonable extension of belief when the player sees a gap in the road where snow should be, filled with lava, as your character idly rides past without a care in the world other than the need to get first place in the race.

The snowboarding aspect of HyperYuki has a striking similarity to EA’s SSX series, particularly due to the arcade snowboarding mechanic shown off early on in trailer footage. This mechanic can be seen by the fact that your character’s feet seem not to be strapped to their board, allowing for skateboard adjacent tricks such as kickflips. The snow-covered cyberpunk aesthetic HyperYuki‘s team has pulled off through their design choices present in trailer footage evokes a feeling that games from the early 2000s would have seemingly effortlessly. It is a feeling that appears to be almost extinct in the modern triple-A titles of today, and which is almost exclusive to indie games nowadays.

Fans of EA’s now-discontinued SSX series, as well as fans of Sega’s Jet Set Radio, or even fans of the Tony Hawk skateboarding games, are sure to find some serious downhill slope style classic arcade fun when HyperYuki: Snowboard Syndicate releases for PC via Steam.