Past meets present: Cobra Triangle

Another classic title from Rare's NES era, made available on another modern platform.

This column is “Past meets present,” the aim of which is to look back at game franchises and games that are in the news and topical again thanks to a sequel, a remaster, a re-release, and so on. Previous entries in this series can be found through this link.

In the time before Rare’s relationship with Nintendo morphed into that of a second party, they were “merely” a prolific developer on the NES. A relationship with Nintendo existed, yes, but Rare had relationships with all kinds of publishers during their NES era: Acclaim, Tradewest, Milton Bradley, Gametek, LJN, Ultra Games, and Hi Tech Expressions all published multiple Rare-developed titles between 1986 and 1993, in the years before the development of and investment in Donkey Kong Country solidified the nature of Nintendo and Rare’s partnership. And that’s just talking about a couple dozen of their titles, as well. Rare reportedly worked on over 60 NES and Game Boy conversions of those games for these publishers.

One such title — which was published by Nintendo, but remained in Rare’s stable of properties even after Nintendo sold their shares in the company, a la R.C. Pro-Am — was Cobra Triangle. This was a racing game, too, but with far more emphasis on vehicular combat and specific challenges that needed to be conquered in each stage than R.C. Pro-Am had. For all the combat and weirdness [complimentary] inside of R.C. Pro-Am, it was still a pretty typical racing game: you wanted to get to the finish line first, and sure, you deployed quite a bit of violence and trickery to get there, but that was the goal. Cobra Triangle, apart from the fact it’s a racing/vehicular combat game that takes place on the water instead of on roads, differentiated itself from Rare’s other racer in the same-ish vein on the same platform by focusing heavily on individual challenges and levels that weren’t always about racing.

If the dragon on the cover of the game wasn’t enough of a hint, there are enemies to defeat, most of them just other boats racing against you, or planes flying overhead to light you up as they speed across the screen, or turrets waiting for you to come into range. But there are also enormous sea creatures of mythical design and proportion, and you’ll occasionally have to take one of them down in your little boat to move on to the next stage. There are also levels where you must defend people trying to tread water from boats trying to kidnap them and what look like UFO’s flying in to stun you with missiles, ones where you have to steal mines and bring them to a new location before enemy speedboats can catch up to you and take them back, levels designed specifically around avoiding an ever-increasing number of more and more complicated obstacles, and ones where you try to jump a waterfall while having roughly the blink of an eye to orient yourself in the direction of the ever-shifting ramp you’ll need to hit head on in order to jump at all.

There are 25 stages in Cobra Triangle, though, the last of these is just a chance to rescue some survivors from plane crashes, for which you’ll receive additional points to add to your final score. The level types are few in number, but since you’re just going through 24 actual stages, they don’t get old, either: having to go through three different mine stages isn’t a big deal when the game uses the first one to introduce the concept, then the second one to increase the complexity and number of mines to grab, and the last one to turn everything up to 11. That’s pretty much how it goes throughout. The races add more and more other boats to slow you down — you’re not racing against them so much as the clock that ticks down, but crashing and being knocked off course will make that more difficult — while also including jumps off of ramps that, without the proper speed upgrades, won’t result in anything besides your boat exploding when it lands somewhere a lot less forgiving than water.

Those upgrades aren’t purchased or discovered waiting to be picked up like in the various versions of R.C. Pro-Am, but instead, Rare utilized a Gradius-esque power-up system. You pick up capsules labeled either “1” or “2,” and that’s how many slots on your power-up bar the cursor will move. Press the Select button on the NES pad to pick a power upgrade, or hold on and wait until you get more capsules and can move over to your desired choice.

You’ll want Turbo immediately, as it’s improved acceleration, and a one-time upgrade. It’s helpful for every time you bounce off an obstacle or enemy or wall, or if you slowed down briefly to grab another capsule or to find a better vantage point for firing off missiles against a boss. Those missiles, by the way, are also extremely useful, as you start with a little pea shooter. Adding missiles is a big change, but getting homing missiles later on in the upgrade cycle is even better, for reasons that should be obvious. The two best places for those homing missiles are the missions where you’re fending off the incoming boats trying to steal the people floating in the water away from you, and in the missions where you’re aiming at specific targets along the side of the river that you’re driving down. Those targets are worth more points the more of them you hit in a row, and homing shots certainly help with that.

There’s also a “Fire” option, which doesn’t blast flames, but refers to the spread of your shot. Upgrades here change the nature of your attacks. The last of the options, Force, gives you temporary homing missiles, refills your health, and grants you temporary invincibility as well. A great pick in a pinch, or something to save for when you’re fighting a boss. The capsules don’t have to be used right away: just like in Gradius, you can hold onto them until such time you want to use them. But also like in Gradius, you’ll just keep cycling through the upgrade bar if you continue picking them up without utilizing these upgrades. Which can be a problem late, when you don’t have the firepower to take down a boss in time, or to move fast enough to make a jump in a race, or to outmaneuver the boats trying to take mines back from you.

The game isn’t just about going as fast as possible. Those mine levels are designed so that the boats chasing you are always faster than you are, even at your max: you need to bob and weave and out drive these boats, not just slam on the gas pedal. (See the above video for an example of what’s meant there.) You need to remember that your boat comes equipped with weapons so that you can plow the road, so to speak, and it’s vital that you figure out movement patterns for bosses so as not to die against them, repeatedly. You have extra lives, and can pick up more as items, but running out of them will reset your upgrades and force you to start a stage over, whereas simply dying — in a race, against a boss, whatever — eats some time off the clock and costs you a life.

Granted, that clock is timed so that you can’t win by accident in some levels, especially late ones. We’re not talking Blast Corps level of masochism here, but Rare didn’t pull any punches: there are “just” 25 stages, but it’s going to take a lot of effort to complete these with the limited number of lives you have. You can power through eventually even dying a ton — races are a great opportunity to pick up a lot of capsules, and on a couple of occasions you get levels where picking up capsules (and mystery items designated by a question mark that could be points or something that stuns you) until time runs out is the entire point — but if you want to manage a high score, you can’t be getting a game over. Case in point: I completed all 25 stages on a single credit before writing all this, and my final score was only about halfway up the default leaderboard. You stand no chance if you need to continue, too.

An important thing to note here, too, is that modern releases of the game include a rewind feature. Which you’re probably not going to mind utilizing while you figure things out: in the end, you still have to do things the right way to proceed, you know? In addition, the Xbox One version, which is included in Rare Replay, lets you turn on infinite lives. Which, by the way, is how I finally got around to finishing this game and seeing all it has to offer. Like I said, this is a tough one, and while I’m sure I could eventually get there without the assist, well, I wanted to write about it while it’s still 2024. You can blame that crab in level 10. Or the late-game squid that instakills you if any of its roving tentacles touch you. Or the shark that will also kill you in one hit if you happen to be where its mouth is when it surfaces, and oh, by the way, you can only damage it from the front as it comes at you, jaws open. Really, blame nearly any boss fight, and that’s a reason to be happy about the infinite lives cheat.

The Nintendo Switch Online edition of the game, which released in 2024 alongside some other long-lost-to-Nintendo Rare titles earlier in July, has the rewind feature like other games on the service, but lacks the infinite lives. It’s six of one, really, since you can just keep rewinding a bit so long as you don’t go too far ahead of where you were last safe, but the Rare Replay version does grant you a bit more freedom to mess up with less consequence.

Regardless of whether you use rewind or infinite lives, though, you still need to be able to finish the levels before the clock winds down. Which is no small thing in some stages, and it will take skill to complete the game even with assists. That’s why there are just 25 levels here: they’ll take you plenty of time to work out, never mind master, as is.

Cobra Triangle remains well-respected, and with good reason. Paste Magazine ranked it the 65th-best NES game, ahead of other Rare titles like Battletoads and Snake, Rattle, ‘n’ Roll, but behind Wizards & Warriors and R.C. Pro-Am. IGN rated it similarly, placing it at number 66, while Games Radar put it at 33, saying that it’s the Rare NES title they had “the most admiration for.” It’s a special game, one Xbox One and Series S|X owners have access to through Rare Replay, which is also on Game Pass, and for Nintendo Switch owners with the basic NSO subscription. It doesn’t have the kind of major recognition that Rare’s later releases on the SNES and N64 would have, but their output on the NES had a ton of gems within, as well, and Cobra Triangle is one of those that gleams the most. Even if that squid’s tentacles are kind of bullshit sometimes.

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