Grand Mountain Adventure: Wonderlands

Genre: Open-World / Top-Down Sports (Skiing / Snowboarding)

Players: 1-4 (Local / Local Wireless)

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Review:

(Note: This game is included in Microids Indie Bundle, along with Murder Mystery Machine, Scrap Riders, and Super Chariot)

Grand Mountain Adventure: Wonderlands (later renamed to Grand Mountain Adventure: Ski and Snowboard Wonderlands) is an Open-World Skiing / Snowboarding game released on mobile devices in 2019 and ported to PC and Nintendo Switch in 2022. However, while “Open-World Skiing / Snowboarding” may put you in mind of Steep and the later SSX games, Grand Mountain Adventure actually feels like an evolution of another classic Winter Sports game: Ski Free. Well, without the snowman who chases you down and eats you.

That’s not to say that the presentation is unimpressive here. Quite the contrary, Grand Mountain Adventure is a gorgeous game, despite its mobile roots. This game’s open-world mountains are absolutely full of detail, with tons of wildlife, buildings, trees, and other people willing about, enjoying the scenery, or skiing the slopes themselves. And every single person has an effect on this game’s snow, leaving trails when skiing or boarding, or even little footprints when walking. This adds to the already-excellent textures and lighting to give the snow in this game a realistic feeling. What’s more, Grand Mountain Adventure makes use of a “Depth of Field” blur feature much like the Nintendo Switch version of The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, resulting in the entire game feeling like a scale model, almost like one of those “Christmas village” models. The only thing that spoils this effect is the low-poly elements like trees, but overall Grand Mountain Adventure is a fantastic-looking game.

What’s more, this game has surprisingly snappy load times, with players able to instantly zoom to any part of the current mountain, reset their current goal, or even rewind to a short while earlier if they like. Amusingly, the broken skis and snowboards from past run attempts will remain, along with the trails you took, meaning that a particularly tough run can gradually become filled with the remains of your past attempts.

While the visuals are the highlights of the presentation here, the game’s sounds are quite good too, with some nice snow sounds, environmental noises, and even nice little touches like some of the other human characters whistling as they walk nearby. All of this is backed by a placid synthesized soundtrack that gives the game a peaceful feeling. I should note that the game also has an interactive soundtrack in parts, with pronounced music notes playing as you pass through gates when trying to complete a goal in-game.

For the gameplay itself, players direct their skier or boarder with the left analog stick, picking up speed by quickly swerving left and right. Players can brake, jump, and can use ZL to do a quick turn or ZR to do a drift turn, with some other subtle movements as well. It all works well enough, for the most part. However, there are a few issues – trying to explore uphill requires players to struggle to work their way up a slope, making for somewhat difficult, tedious work. Meanwhile, going downhill at faster speeds can sometimes feel out of control, making precision turning difficult.

All of these problems are exacerbated by a camera that refuses to cooperate, usually insisting on remaining pointed opposite the direction the player is heading, making you move toward the camera and the bottom of the screen. This can be particularly disorienting when you make a quick turn, and the camera swings around wildly to compensate. It can also make it hard to judge if the path you’re trying to tread is level, an incline, or a decline.

It’s a shame the game’s camera and controls sometimes fight you like this, because otherwise this is an absolutely delightful game, with a good variety of goal types, some good-sized mountains to explore and plenty of secrets to find so you have a good reason to do so, and with each secret found and goal completed unlocking more ski lifts and new mountains, giving players a solid goal structure to follow. There’s even some multiplayer play here, though it honestly feels like an after-thought to me.

Despite its issues, I still really enjoyed Grand Mountain Adventure. The gorgeous presentation really makes it exhilarating to explore this game’s beautiful mountains, and when the gameplay works well, it is a joy to play. It’s just a shame that the camera and controls are n’t a bit more cooperative, which could have made this a truly phenomenal experience, instead of merely a very good one. Still, if you’re looking for a delightful Skiing and Snowboarding game, Grand Mountain Adventure is well worth playing.

tl;dr – Grand Mountain Adventure is a Top-Down Open-World Skiing / Snowboarding game that has players exploring large open-area mountains and completing goals. The game’s presentation is wonderful, making exploring these mountains an excellent experience, though the frustrating controls and camera can make things frustrating at times. Still, despite these flaws, this is a wonderful Skiing and Snowboarding game, and one well worth playing.

Grade: B

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2022 Game Awards:

Winner:

Best Sound Design – Grand Mountain Adventure’s excellent sound design does a great job conveying the feeling of carving through snow even if the world looks like one of those Christmas village models, and there are even nice little touches like passersby whistling happy tunes as they walk around the Winter wonderland. I can’t think of another game in 2022 that is so shaped by its sound design.

Runner-Up: Best Sports Game

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