20.4 hours played
Written 14 days ago
I was stoked to see the developers are still working on this game. Judging by the comments, it's gonna have some growing pains as they get "there", but with time, I hope this will be even better than what it was. Skating in this game is harder than a priest at a playground, but it mimics real life like that. Practicing the same trick over and over and over till you get it just right, and that feeling you get when you do, is quite addicting.
The playback options work quite well and have become an important feature for me, which I didn't think it would be. The ragdoll physics are pretty good, actually, and hilarious as well, I find myself purposely trying to launch my avatar off different things and replay the hilarity. I only wish they would give the skaters speech, cuz I'd love to hear them curse at different things or yell out when they get hurt.
I feel like I don't need to talk about graphics, it's 2025, watch the plethora of videos that currently exist. But I do like them, and it looks just fine for me. The real meat and taters is the actual gameplay. The developers knew what they wanted to make, for better or worse. So much so, that there's even a warning that splashes on screen telling you that this game is basically impossible for most. It takes a certain ilk to look at words like "accessible" and "easy" and turn their nose up at it. They certainly made the game they wanted to make. Skating is hard, but it can be made easier by the many different difficulty modes that have been implemented along with a myriad of options to fine tune each one even further.
Want to ollie higher? Push kick faster? Grind on anything? Not worry about which foot is where? Spin faster? etc etc, you can do that. This means that almost no two skaters will be playing with the same controls. I can't see how that would affect anything except maybe finding it harder to discuss tips and tricks since you'll be operating on completely different sets of controls, and even different settings in gravity in some cases. One skater may tell you that it's possible to grind a certain McGuffin, only to realize that they put smooth surfaces on making it so any ledge can be grind on, and cranked up the height of their Ollie. But it's a small price to pay for truly being able to fine-tune your experience.
Under the hood, she needs some love. There's strange anomalies throughout, like the way your skaters foot will bend in bone breaking directions when pulling off a trick. And while I applaud how hard they made the game, I feel like the skater shouldn't bounce off the board as easily as it does. It can borderline into ridiculous territory. Does the game have more than 3 songs? I wouldn't know, since it only seems to play the same boring 3 songs. Quick aside about the soundtrack, I find it rather slow and boring, and you may too if you think skateboarding is synonymous with hip-hop or punk music. It bears mentioning that MANY people actually love the music, so don't listen to me unless you feel the way I do about skateboarding music.
All in all, if you want a skateboard game that really gives you the freedom of expression that real life does, and are willing to put in the time to learn it's controls, I'd say you're in for a great time. The developers have posted recently and it looks like they're really trying to crack down on it's foibles so I am looking forward to see what they cook up. This recent update helped some things, while breaking a few others. So I am hoping they can really lock in and make this something special. There's no need for a sequel, just make this a feature rich game with a bevy of options and I can see myself playing this when the mood strikes for the rest of my life.