Review By Egan Click
OlliOlli is a skateboarding game inspired by the flip tricks, grinds, gaps and combo's skaters can put together in a single whisper of time. It first appeared on the Vita but was recently ported to every other system. I curiously nabbed it for my 3DS because not only did it look like a versatile portable game but, most importantly, because I love skating games. This was a cross buy promotion for Nintendo so I also got a copy for my Wii U.
A quick flashback to my roots. I got a PS1 only for Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1. My best friend had it and I had to have it too. I played them all until they got in the RIDE series. I got an XBOX 360 for Skate. I played the demo and got it on release day with my console as well. I played all of those. I've also skated since I was six. It's my favorite sport to watch and I'm still an active skater.
The game is rather straight forward. It's a side scrolling, 2-D, combo fanatic sports game. It might even be a rhythm-esque game since the game play relies heavily on perfect landings and stringing combos and lines together seamlessly. There consists 5 arenas with 10 levels each. 5 Amateur levels and 5 Professional levels. Each level then includes 5 goals to achieve. To unlock the professional levels for each given course, you must first complete all 5 challenges. To unlock Amateur levels, you just need to reach the end of the level. Challenges always consist of two being High Score related and Combo related, the other three can be specific tricks, grabbing highlighted items during the level, gaps, rail combos, and an assortment of other things. Some challenges still save if you did them such as doing 5 perfect grinds but others won't such as grabbing all the spray cans. While the control scheme is reminiscent of Skate, the challenges remind me much more of THPS. They are enjoyable and a few are something to really dig into and thrive on. I remember vividly needing a 35k combo in this tight section of rail to rails but I kept getting 32k. I needed to fit in a spin here but couldn't go more then 180 or I wouldn't make a perfect grind.
The game play consists of you pushing by pressing the A button for speed. Speed helps you hit gaps, get on rails, and to hit a section for a sweet combo. Once you come up to an obstacle, you flick the analog stick to do a trick. All the tricks are real skateboarding tricks. There's hard flips, kick flips, and shuv its. This is similar to Skate and works really well. For tricks flicking in front of you, you're swinging it to the right and for tricks going behind you, you're going to the left. I like this decision and for people not coming into this game with skate knowledge, I am supportive of this because it at least teaches people the physics behind the sport. While in the air you can also press the left bumper or right bumper to spin your body to do a 180, 540, etc. If you don't make a jump or hit a barrier, you fall and restart.
Next up is grinds. When coming down on a rail or ledge or a dinosaur statue, you press down the analog stick to get into a specific grind. As well as doing tricks, grinds can be landed on perfectly to give you a speed boost and a score boost as well. When coming down on a rail to get into a grind and landing a trick, you must press A right before you land will give you a perfect landing. To do specific challenges, you must land perfectly to retain your speed and also to be alert and ready for the next big air. If you press it late or not at all or super early, you will land sketchy or sloppy and lose all speed and all credibility. The crowd at the end of the level will infinitely boo you. Trying to hit every trick and grind and combo and line perfectly can be frustrating and at times, seem completely improbable especially in Pro mode. If there wasn't so much going on the screen from all directions on the screen, I could see how the grinding could be a bit stale. There isn't any balancing or any challenges to get into a grind. The only thing to worry about is speed which becomes a non-factor later on when you are hitting little segments of billboards and light fixtures and olling all across the screen.
There are 50 stages altogether and each Arena is made specifically with a theme in mind. Some having to do with stringing a combo throughout most of the level with hairpin jumps and long rails and some having to do with multi-tiered stages where your route is up to you. Some have a clear cut path and others are cut and dry on how you are going to complete the challenge. I thought the developers (Roll7) did a great job mixing it up with the scenery and the format of each arena and level. They never felt haphazardly thrown together. They all felt one of a kind.
After career mode, there is a Daily Grind, which is a way to compete with other people across for highest score and as you might expect, you only get to try once a day and it resets. You only get one shot at this, no redo's like in the campaign. I'm personally not a fan of leader boards especially if the game isn't online-competitive. I feel like trying to get a high score globally isn't in my wheel barrel and it's not something I'm personally striving for. If we were playing each other in a duel then I would be interesting. Or locally as well. But trying to beat someone that just sits at home and perfects a crazy combo isn't interesting and doesn't add to the replayability for OlliOlli.
The only other notable thing about OlliOlli is the soundtrack. There are about 10 tracks of electro fusion that is great to hear. All the tracks are bangers. I turned up the music and lowered the skating sound effects and it really helped me concentrate on the map and what I wanted to achieve in each run. I wish there was more.
Two issues I had pertaining to this game was the 3DS version has game crippling bugs. During three different gaming sessions (this game just came out yesterday), while getting my combo stacked, the game froze and restarted my system. Also, playing on my television and not my on game pad, was extremely difficult to do. There is so many minute things to do and perfect timing situations that I felt like it didn't feel adequate for a console game.
Final Thoughts
OlliOlli is a ton of fun. If you love arcade games where high scores are the main factors in your success then you will definitely enjoy this game. The replayability is high because there are 250 challenges to do that can take you from one session to complete all the way up till you have blisters all over your fingers and your hinges are loose.
Pros
+ Skateboarding
+ Arcade
+ Lots of Challenges
Cons
- Frustrating
- End game is leaderboarding
- Bugs (from game crippling to collision detection)
Score
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