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Overshadowed attractions

oriolat2

oriolat2

Giga Poster
Well, the title pretty much sums it up! What attractions do you think that don't shine as much as they would in another park?

Maybe it's a ride that hasn't got the right PR, maybe it's a ride in a park so densely packed with bigger thrills it's kind of cornered, maybe it's a ride whose glory days are over...

We are talking objectively GOOD rides, not some crappy old school Vekoma which is forgotten and rotting away (and rightly so).

What are your contenders?

- Zumanjaro. It still baffles me that the tallest drop tower in the world doesn't get more recognition. Granted it's tucked away behind Ka and the trek to the ride is an attraction in itself, but I have a feeling that if that same attraction was in another park, it would be the star. However, at GAdv, it loses its appeal next to Ka or el Toro.

- Black Mamba. By no means I am saying that this is not a headliner, but in Phantasialand, with big guns like Taron or FLY, Black Mamba gets lost in the background. Surely it's an inverted coaster ANY park would want and it would steal the show anywhere else, but even despite it's amazing rockword and theming, I have the feeling that it doesn't shine as much at Phantasialand.
 
Black Mirror Labyrinth is a fantastic example of what a Thorpe dark ride (or walkthrough in this case) should be; Thorpe re-embracing its "taking itself less seriously" character after mercilessly wrecking it in 2018.

The park should be full of silly ideas like this. People may put the Thorpe dark rides in a bad light due to DBGT and TWD and rightly so, but BML should be left out of that as it's just fun. Very consistently the best Thorpe indoor attractions (outside of Fright Nights) have been the ones where the park takes a more 'prioritise fun over dread' approach.
 
Most of Cedar Point. :D

Let's be honest - if Gatekeeper or Valravn, two of the biggest of their type in the world, were in the UK we'd never shut up about it. At Cedar Point they're minor second tier stuff. Heck, I'd wager Gemini, Raptor, Rougarou and Magnum could be lumped into that too.

They sit in the enormous shadow of Steel Vengeance, Millennium Force and Top Thrill Dragster*.

*Although at the moment, the shadow of Dragster is only really a literal than a metaphorical one. ;)
 
Hixee said:
Most of Cedar Point. :D

Let's be honest - if Gatekeeper or Valravn, two of the biggest of their type in the world, were in the UK we'd never shut up about it. At Cedar Point they're minor second tier stuff. Heck, I'd wager Gemini, Raptor, Rougarou and Magnum could be lumped into that too.

They sit in the enormous shadow of Steel Vengeance, Millennium Force and Top Thrill Dragster*.

*Although at the moment, the shadow of Dragster is only really a literal than a metaphorical one. ;)
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When it was still operating Wicked Twister was probably the single most overshadowed major coaster in the park.
 
Wakefield said:
When it was still operating Wicked Twister was probably the single most overshadowed major coaster in the park.
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Yeah, definitely. I only excluded it from the Valravn/Gatekeeper class as it's gone - but when operating it was, for sure, in the same league as them - in my opinion.
 
For me, it’s Blue Fire at Europa Park. It’s an absolutely brilliant coaster; a great ride that scores a solid 9/10, and just makes the bottom of my top 10 (#9, to be exact)! It’s got a punchy launch and some nice inversions, it’s smooth, it’s rerideable, it’s not too intense; what’s not to like? Even though it might not quite hit top tier status for me, it really is a very nice coaster!

However, it’s in the same park as the truly elite duo of Silver Star & Wodan (well, it’s an elite duo to me, anyway; they’re my #2 and #3, respectively, and both score a 10/10 for me), and I’m afraid it just doesn’t compete with that amazing one-two punch of coasters for me.

I know that this isn’t technically to do with the thread, as this ride is in a different park, but I also feel like Blue Fire sits vastly in the shadow of Icon for me. I like Icon a fair amount more (it’s a 10/10 and my #4), and riding Blue Fire, I couldn’t help but think of how I felt it was lacking a certain something compared to Icon. It’s weird, and not something I do when riding the lower-ranked coasters of other ride types (for instance, my slightly superior memories of Mako made me think no less of Silver Star, and riding Wodan recently made me think no less of Wicker Man even though I rate it slightly lower than Wodan). But part of me does feel like I would rate Blue Fire higher if I hadn’t ridden Icon.

If BF were in most other parks, or I hadn’t ridden Icon, then I think I’d have talked a lot more positively about it. One thing I felt slightly guilty about was that I thought a lot of my Europa trip reports and talk about Blue Fire around when I did my trip massively undersold how much I actually liked it, and I think that might be down to the fact that Silver Star and Wodan were in the same park.

On the worldwide stage, I agree with @Hixee about most of Cedar Point. I think some awesome stuff is brushed aside to an insane degree in that park due to the fact that it has so many world-class coasters that they’re almost taken for granted at this point, and anything less than the uber high end of world class doesn’t really stand out there anymore.
 
Matt N said:
For me, it’s Blue Fire at Europa Park. It’s an absolutely brilliant coaster; a great ride that scores a solid 9/10, and just makes the bottom of my top 10 (#9, to be exact)! It’s got a punchy launch and some nice inversions, it’s smooth, it’s rerideable, it’s not too intense; what’s not to like? Even though it might not quite hit top tier status for me, it really is a very nice coaster!
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But Bluefire is one of Europa's headliners. I don't think Silver Star or Wodan are better regarded. I think Bluefire stands on its own merits and consistently pulls some of the bigger queues at Europa.

Similar to Cedar Point, I think that Six Flags Magic Mountain has a similar problem. The park is so packed that some large scale B&Ms fade in the background. The worst offender is Scream! A coaster that feels like a last-minute decision in typical 00s SF manner.

SFMM would still be a great coaster park without Scream. They even have a large Arrow looper and a large B&M looper in Riddler's Revenge. Scream would have been a much better fit at Over Georgia or even Over Texas, where they are lacking large B&M multiloopers.

Great Adventure's Green Latern is also a bit sad. It's surrounded by so many great rides that it manages to be the worst B&M in the park (or maybe tied with Superman xD). I know it filled GASM's gap, but it's dwarfed by Ka and Toro.
 
Medusa/Bizarro at Great Adventure. It's so good, best of the 5 floorless coasters I rode that trip and an all round textbook B&M loop machine. Heck I even travelled all the way to Madrid earlier in the year mainly to ride a very similar ride in Superman.

But at Great Adventure Medusa does not get a look in. I was there 3 days and rode it only twice despite the fact you could always bank on it having no queue. When down that end of the park taking another lap on Toro or wandering down to see how bad the Ka queue is was always a preferred option to trekking all the way over to Medusa's corner for a single ride. It shows how wild and varied the coaster line up is that a solid B&M falls to the shadows.
 
oriolat2 said:
But Bluefire is one of Europa's headliners. I don't think Silver Star or Wodan are better regarded. I think Bluefire stands on its own merits and consistently pulls some of the bigger queues at Europa.
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Apologies… I might have misinterpreted the thread title a bit there. I was talking about BF from my own standpoint and how I personally felt about it on my trip there, but I accept that others will not hold the same view.

With that in mind, I have a few alternative suggestions more in keeping with the spirit of the thread:
  • Most things in Busch Gardens Tampa aside from Iron Gwazi - I’ve read a lot of trip reports from Florida recently heaping praise upon Iron Gwazi, and a number of them say about how it’s so good that it’s “broken” Busch Gardens Tampa’s lineup and made everything else seem really poor by comparison. But when you look at Busch Gardens’ lineup, that seems mad to think; for a start, that park has Montu, one of the highest rated B&M inverts, and Kumba, one of the highest rated old school B&Ms period. If they were in any other park, I think they’d get loads more praise, and they did prior to Iron Gwazi opening. I’d also arguably throw SheiKra into the ring there as well; as much as Dive Coasters aren’t the biggest enthusiast favourite, SheiKra seems decently respected within the genre.
  • Formuła at Energylandia (and arguably Abyssus as well) - All the talk about Energylandia typically centres around Hyperion and Zadra, but the two launched Vekoma coasters at the park seem like decently respected rides that surprisingly don’t get a look in. I often hear lots of praise thrown at Formuła, and even though Abyssus perhaps didn’t open to the warmest reception, I’m convinced that that was down to a combination of expectations being very high (most people seemed to be expecting a launched Lech, and something that would compete with the likes of Helix and Taron), and also the fact that Hyperion and Zadra exist in the same park. If you plonked these two Vekomas in a different park, I think they’d get a lot more hype.
  • Intimidator at Carowinds - This often gets a very bad rap, but how much of that is down to Fury 325 being in the same park? I suspect that Fury’s presence might play a role in Intimidator being thought of so lowly; I dare say it seemed a bit higher rated before Fury opened. It is still a B&M Hyper Coaster, and I reckon that would go down very well in most other parks.
 
Matt N said:
  • Intimidator at Carowinds - This often gets a very bad rap, but how much of that is down to Fury 325 being in the same park? I suspect that Fury’s presence might play a role in Intimidator being thought of so lowly; I dare say it seemed a bit higher rated before Fury opened. It is still a B&M Hyper Coaster, and I reckon that would go down very well in most other parks.
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I think it has less to do with the fact that it's in the same park as Fury 325 and more to do with the fact that it's on the same planet as every other B&M hyper.

Jokes aside, I generally agree with you. It would probably be better received if it was at a park that is void of a hyper+ coaster, but it has always been subject to harsh criticism ever since it was built. Not only is the nearest B&M hyper (Goliath at SFOG) vastly superior, but you could argue that Intimidator has been overshadowed since day 1 when Cedar Fair chose to open two rides in the same year with the same theme. It never really had a chance against Intimidator 305.
 
Remy's Ratatouille Adventure in Paris stands out as one of the better rides in the park and was a much needed improvement all round. Epcot visitors are already used to that type of ride and could even expect more. So no matter how popular the clone is it wont have the same uplifting impact to the park as the original.
 
Virtually every major coaster at Magic Mountain.

I liked the park but I remember not being overly blown away by any of the coasters aside from X2.

If any of those coasters were at smaller parks, I reckon I'd rate them more highly.

There are just so many at Magic Mountain they all kind of blur together.
 
Surely the most literal example is Dragon Khan - once a mighty, B&M multilooper that dominated the skyline and everything around it. But ever since Shambhala was virtually plonked right on top of it, with an extra 100ft in height, DK now exists quite literally in its shadow.
 
Jamesss said:
Virtually every major coaster at Magic Mountain.

I liked the park but I remember not being overly blown away by any of the coasters aside from X2.

If any of those coasters were at smaller parks, I reckon I'd rate them more highly.

There are just so many at Magic Mountain they all kind of blur together.
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Speaking of SFMM, Full Throttle anyone? Although gimmicky, the ride is quite big and marketable, yet it pales in comparison to SFMM coaster collection. Plonk this at SFA or SFStL and you have an absolute star!
 
Taking a leaf out of the same book as @Howie, I’d argue that Oblivion at Alton Towers has become overshadowed both literally and figuratively in recent years.

Not so much among enthusiasts perhaps, but among most visitors, Oblivion seems to have become somewhat second tier within Alton Towers’ lineup these days, and often has one of the park’s shortest waits in spite of the throughput having gone down a fair amount since the 90s. A lot of people really like it, yet among enthusiasts and non-enthusiasts alike, it doesn’t really seem to get a look in anymore, even within Alton Towers. The newer coasters like Wicker Man and Smiler get a lot more chatter among non-enthusiasts and enthusiasts alike, and Nemesis gets far more hype and chatter among enthusiasts as far as older coasters go.

In terms of the ride that literally overshadows it; I’d argue that The Smiler made Oblivion lose a lot of its visual influence and gravitas within X-Sector. Before Smiler, Oblivion was a massive ride everyone was drawn to. Since Smiler opened, Smiler hogs much of the visual influence within the area and Oblivion just sort of fades into the background.

With that in mind; if Oblivion wasn’t in the same park as heavyweights like Nemesis and Smiler, and not in the same area as Smiler, I think it would have much more hype.
 
Winja's Fear Force.
I've sung it's praises here before but having had a recent re-ride, I still cannot believe that the best spinner I've been on is also the oldest, and the only one with trick track, and it duels, and it's all indoors, and it's got that ridiculous lift.

Like seriously, it's a piece of technical mastery and it sits humbly at the back of the park in a giant bamboo steamer basket.
As is the case with ALL phantasialand attractions, if this were at any other park, it would be a must do... but people often literally forget that its even there or prioritise all of phantasia's other glorious goods.
 
toofpikk said:
Winja's Fear Force.
I've sung it's praises here before but having had a recent re-ride, I still cannot believe that the best spinner I've been on is also the oldest, and the only one with trick track, and it duels, and it's all indoors, and it's got that ridiculous lift.
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It's even more mind-boggling to think that this is EARLY 00s, when Maurer was still very young in the industry, yet they were able to produce such a technical marvel. We are all so focused on the next gen Tilt Coaster that we even forget that trick-track and seesaw track already exists and it works reliably!

Winja's is everything I could want in a spinner and more! And it really feels overshadowed by FLY, Taron and, to some extent, Black Mamba. That is the insane level of quality at Phantasialand.
 
Sindbad's Storybook Voyage. An incredible dark ride with 100s of animatronics, an earworm of a song, a cute tiger, and a positive message

But almost nobody talks about the ride or even know it exists.
 
I totally agree on Mamba and Winjas, absolutely world class rides overshadowed by two rides within a class of their own. Mamba sits at the second to bottom on my list of B&M inverts (none are bad, but I digress) but it would be the best or second best ride in so many other parks, it's so damned good.

I'm actually going to add to this and day Colorado Express. It's just another Vekoma Mine Train on paper, but it really isn't just another Vekoma Mine Train when you actually get on that thing. It's right up there with The Ultimate in my "rides that want to kill me in the best way possible" list.



Phantasialand really is something else.
 
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