But this involves a score multiplayer which is wiped out if you ever hit the ground, and even then you have to quickly hit the ‘X’ button as you land to bank your accumulated score. Your primary goal is simply to get a high score by doing as many and as complex a number of tricks as possible, most activated in the manner of a Street Fighter style special move. No matter what else you’re doing the one constant in OlliOlli is to never, ever touch the ground. But although OlliOlli does feature lots of authentic tricks it really is best to think of it is as a 2D platformer more than anything else. Since the death of Activision’s Tony Hawk series and EA’s abandonment of its much-admired Skate titles there’s been no mainstream skateboarding franchise to take their place. In other words, it’s a game first and foremost, which is just as it should be. Well, maybe OlliOlli isn’t quite that abstract but it’s certainly not a simulator and worries far more about getting the feel of skating right rather than the fine details. OlliOlli is a game about skateboarding just like Trials is about motocross. And give how hard, and how enjoyable, the game is that is going to keep you busy for a very long time. It works just as well on the Switch though, and while this compilation doesn’t really contain any new features it does have both the original game and its sequel in their entireties – which means 50 levels, with over 120 tricks to master. OlliOlli 2 is better than both of them, don’t me.Although it was quickly ported over to other formats it’s clear OlliOlli was always designed to be a portable game first and foremost, and it certainly felt most at home on Sony’s portable. tl dr OlliOlli: Switch Stance is a side-scrolling Skateboarding game with a retro look, a nice synthesized soundtrack, and gameplay and controls that are punishingly difficult and at times unresponsive to the point where I cannot see what everyone else loves about this game. *For the record, the other two were Skate 3 and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2. Review conducted on Nintendo Switch using a pre-release retail code provided by the publisher. Lowlights: Only for the very patient or very determined. Highlights: Satisfyingly tricky Beautiful art style Smart approach to controls It is intimately familiar with the art of not being deterred, of being willing to get up, dust yourself off and try again. It values skill and challenge, but it also understands that failure is an important part of the skater psyche. OlliOlli Switch Stance is the perfect game for those with a long commute, the kind of game you can pick up at any time and be rewarded. Jumping ahead before you’ve got the fundamentals down will limit your enjoyment and both of these games deserve better than that. The difference is so stark, the ramping of the difficulty curve between the two games so sheer that I recommend new players spend at least a solid day on OlliOlli before moving onto the sequel. With players agitating for greater level complexity, Roll7 were free to go to town. They aren’t sure how hard to push the player. The original features levels that, while certainly challenging, feel like they’re pulling their punches at times. Even in terms of level design, OlliOlli 2 feels like a liberation. It’s much more fluid and it helps all of the timings between tricks feel more fluid. OlliOlli Switch Stance launches on the 14th February for the Nintendo Switch. OlliOlli 2 more or less abandons this look for one more in line with hand-drawn animation. The original game runs with a light pixel art look that gives it a certain retro feel. Visually, OlliOlli and OlliOlli 2 are worlds apart. OlliOlli not only nails the endorphin rush that accompanies landing a trick for the first time, but also the zen-like flow state you enter when stringing them all together in a run. You know what you want to do, it’s just trying to find the sweet spot between body movement and physics that will allow you to land the trick. Don’t expect to get it right away.” That’s the magic of OlliOlli, it perfectly captures the frustrations of actually learning to skate. As the game warns you during the tutorial, “Skating is hard. Tricks, grinds and manuals all flowed together in a beautiful cascade of rhythm and inertia. It took me around 30 minutes to properly get my head around the controls, and before long I was putting truly ridiculous runs together. Both games have a deceptively simple 2D look that belie one of the most complex-yet-satisfying control schemes I’ve encountered in years. Roll7’s OlliOlli and its follow-up OlliOlli 2: Welcome to Olliwood are side-scrolling skateboarding titles that are all about putting the sickest runs together and racking up massive score multipliers. There are only four good skateboarding video games, and the OlliOlli series are two of them.*
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