Original Release: SNK, 1995, Arcade
Other Releases: NeoGeo CD/Saturn/PlayStation (1996), Wii (2012), PS4/Switch/Xbox (2018)
An unusual pure horse racing title with no gambling or management element, Stakes Winner is very quirky but has proven to have a small but consistent cult following over the years
Stakes Winner (Arcade, SNK, 1995)
Where to Buy: eBay
How to Emulate: Arcade Emulation Guide
Review by: C. M0use
There’s a surprising amount of praise for Stakes Winner online, and I don’t get it. Ostensibly it’s supposed to be a “strategic” game, but like, barely. At least as far as I can tell.
It’s a pretty rare bird in the video game world, a “pure” horse racing title – no gambling, no management, just action-oriented racing. You go through a series of 12 races, which the horses take a painfully long time to trot to the starting line of … probably to pad the experience out as every race is short (they do gradually get longer as you go, but are never longer than a minute). You have to place in the top three in every race to continue on, but of course you get bonus points for placing higher.
The “strategic” element is that you get a choice of horses with varying stats, and then you have to watch their stamina as you whip ’em to run faster. You’ve got two levels of whipping with the two buttons, and then you can also double-tap in the direction you’re presently moving to force an obstinate opponent out of your way.
The problem is that nothing else in the game seems to be as important as picking up the power-ups that appear on the track, which seem to always appear in the same place in each race but are randomly selected each time. In the shorter early races you need the “speed boost” power-up, in the longer later races the “life” power-up is more important. That’s what it really boils down to. You can kinda block horses behind you in NASCAR style, but it’s much more important to be positioned to get the right power-ups. You can’t really place in the top three beyond the first couple of races without them.
So it reminded me of the NES RC Pro-Am games in that regard, as it had some potential but quickly gets tedious as you have to center your whole game on memorizing where the power-ups spawn and getting all of them or you’re ngmi. Apparently this did well enough in Japan to spawn a sequel and a bunch of home ports, though, maybe those are better.
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