OlliOlli World Review

Something wild has happened in the skate-filled worlds of OlliOlli. Eight years after the original game had you skating through a dilapidated Deptford, junkyards and docks, the series has morphed into a wild, sensationalised skater’s paradise. There’s still plenty of grime to be found here, but everything (and I mean everything) has a smile on its face as you kickflip, grind and grab your way through the five realms of Radlandia.

Where the first two games were defined by their clean and precise artwork – first with pixel art and then vector depictions of real-ish world locations (to start with) – OlliOlli World embraces the meandering chaos of dreams. It’s Adventure Time on a skateboard, there’s people with ice cream for hair, giant bees happily bumbling about, weightlifting seagulls. There’s a vibrant imagination to everything that’s stuffed into the game’s five worlds, there’s always something silly to spot in the backgrounds, but it’s all married to a muted colour palette within the comic book and Jet Set Radio-inspired cel shaded artwork and a chilled out soundtrack.

It’s a laid-back kind of warmth that feeds into the story as well. There’s five skate gods, you see, and their representative in Radlandia is looking for a successor, and that might just be you! You create your custom character from a sprawling customisation menu that balloons as you play, and then set off across the lands with a little entourage guiding your growth as a skater. You can skip the level intros, if you want, but there’s a disarming charm and innocence to how Dad, Mike, Suz and Chiffon (the incumbent Skate Wizard) natter about where you are and make little pun-laden jokes.

The actual gameplay of OlliOlli World has much less chill. The skill floor has been brought down, with landing your tricks happening automatically and no longer wiping you out if you forget to tap the button in time, but there’s now layer upon layer of new complexities to learn and master as you journey through the world. There’s new wall-grinding with surfaces often coming moments after you leap from a rail grind or ramp and altering your typical arc through the sky, there’s quarterpipes that send you up and then start you going from right to left for a change, grab moves on the right stick, grinding down stairs, and new ‘Gnarly’ routes that you can opt into, giving you a second and typically more challenging path through a section of the level.

It all adds up to stages that can become seriously tricky. Coming armed with an understanding of how the original games played, I immediately started chaining tricks, spins and grinds together with manuals to keep my combo growing and growing through the levels. “Mid-level checkpoints? I don’t need checkpoint!” I thought to myself. I realised I was wrong pretty quickly.

The game looks and feels forgiving, and it is in some ways to ease newcomers into the game. You don’t need to always land your tricks, there’s a feeling that there’s a smidgeon less precision required to get through to the end, but every once in a while, it will kick you in the shins and laugh when you clatter to the ground in a heap over and over again. Some of sections of levels really demand precise timing and execution to your tricks. If you get the timing of your launch just a little bit wrong, you won’t get enough lift, you’ll start your wall grinding too far down, and are doomed to fall into the chasm below. It’s a good thing there’s checkpoints, even if you’ll traipse over the finishing line with barely any points to your name.

Then again, each level is filled with reasons to go back and try again. There’s points scores to beat, there’s three challenges from Mike that include pulling off particular tricks, performing stunts in particular spots, following certain routes and grabbing level-specific collectables. The main draw is really figuring out how to get through the level in one contiguous trick chain and set an astronomical high score for the leaderboard.

This is a flow-state game through and through. Keep your eye on your character, let that soundtrack sink into your consciousness, and let your fingers and thumbs do their thing as the world rushes past you. The difficulty spikes and any momentary slip ups can interfere with that zen-like play, but there’s a huge satisfaction to when you enter the zone and nail a stage.

What comes after you ascend to Skate Wizard-hood? Well, as soon as you pass the first region, you unlock access to the Gnarvana League, a mode that hands out regular challenge levels for you to test yourself against to set the highest leaderboard score possible. There’s also the Gnarvana Portal, which generates shareable levels.

On your journey you’ll also pick up countless customisation items, from tweaking your character and their outfit, to the board, trucks and wheels you ride on and stances and animations they use. The UI feels a bit cluttered with so many options to scroll through, but really that’s like complaining about having too much of a good thing.

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• Source: https://www.thesixthaxis.com/2022/02/03/olliolli-world-review/