

In Japan, Game Machine listed Cool Riders on their Jissue as being the seventh most-successful dedicated arcade game of the month.

You didn't make it." When this happens, mini-cutscenes depending on the character the player chose play, ranging from one character throwing a tantrum on a scooter to characters being carried or thrown off the screen, followed by the map appearing showing the route the player took with the word "RETIRE" appearing in the center of the screen. The announcer says the same "game over" message as in OutRunners: "I'm sorry.

The game has failure animations when the player runs out of time during a race and comes to a complete stop. When the player completes the game, his head and that of Tails are icons for the player's initials in the high score table. Regardless of what happens, the player character's ending will display on a projector if the player had time left over to finish the race, followed by a map containing the route the player took to reach the Extra Stage and the finish line, followed by the word "FINISH" appearing in the center of the screen. There are five stages, where stage five is an "Extra Stage" where the object is to outrace all seven computer-controlled rival opponents on the streets of New York City to the finish line.

There are three routes to choose from (westbound and eastbound routes with a middle route that takes the player through the United States.) For every rival defeated up to stage four, the player receives a promotion, indicated on the lower left-hand corner of the screen. Whoever finishes first gets to select the next stage. The object of Cool Riders is to finish each stage ahead of a computer-controlled rival by the end of a stage's checkpoint and within the allotted time.
