It’s been a long time since I’ve paid as much attention to an arcade game as OlliOlli World. A few weeks ago I got on the Roll7 studio skateboard and I think it was a success and a personal discovery. Its previous parts, especially the second one that won the heart of our colleague Mike (here his analysis), already had the bases on which this third part builds: Varied scenarios, a variety of obstacles and surfaces on which to run at full speed and a challenging slide is a difficulty that will drive you insane on more than one occasion.
The first thing that catches your eye is the colorful visual and artistic part. With a distinct cartoon touch and a color palette that seems to touch every pastel shade that exists, it immediately reminded me of cartoons like adventure time (Adventure Time) and not just for his drawing style, but also for that touch of humor that pervades the rest of the game. It’s another novelty that wasn’t previously in the series, because although it’s not its forte, there’s a story in OlliOlli World.
We embody an unknown skater, but destined to be Become the next skateboard legend in bike country. Thanks to the guidance and good advice of a group of charismatic companions, we’ll learn all the tricks and skills to join the gods of skateboarding in Gnarvana (the Olympus of legends on the board). It’s not the most original premise, nor does it add much to the narrative, but it does provide a little thread to follow the supporting characters’ comments and some context between the different areas of the game. Each zone is associated with a skate god and has a distinctive style. There are 5 areas in total, with an average of 18 levels per zone, and each of them differs for its aesthetics and for the skills and obstacles that appear in each level that we unlock by completing each “race”. In each level there are some individual challenges and a top 3 of characters that we have to beat in score.
Advertising:
With each completed goal or level, we unlock new aesthetic improvements for the avatar: costumes, hairstyles, accessories and even new skins for the boards and wheels. There are countless ways to make our avatar unique and well differentiated. But even with such a massive range of customization, it shines with gameplay that, for lack of a better term, is crushing. Because in OlliOlli World every level is a merciless challenge.
The tutorials at the beginning of each section show you the basics of a new trick, but once you beat each level, it gets exponentially more complicated, and every mistake means you’ll have to start over from the last checkpoint. We’ll move at full speed along ramps, fences, jump stairs and dodge holes while performing all sorts of tricks and stunts until we reach the finish line. At a certain point, alternative paths to the initial paths called extreme routes also open, the layout of which is much more complicated, but which can even open new sub- and special levels that were hidden in the map of the area. These secondary paths develop the game’s narrative in a rather original way, inviting you to discover them as you unlock them.
Most of the jumps and tricks are performed with the left stick and every move must also be executed at the right time or we’ll crash into the ground. In the end, all this results in a perfect choreography of fingers on the controls to race through the course or start over. Surely we need a few tries for each scenario, and in some cases the number of tries can increase so much that you want to throw the controller out of the next window. It’s not that it feels unfair, but sometimes there’s a feeling that control is failing or we just didn’t make that jump and need to repeat. This had a major disadvantage in my case, as the tension and speed required for the movements made me fear for the integrity of the command itself. Maybe being able to remap the controls would have been the icing on the cake.
Advertising:
And yet he didn’t stop compulsively trying to overcome each level. It’s great fun to drive the character and run at full speed through the crazy landscapes, doing jumps and stunts. Each new attempt taught me to hit the movements better, and that The sense of improvement as such an important player was constant. If you make a mistake, restarting is almost instantaneous, which is crucial if you want to maintain the fast pace the game demands of you. Playing online isn’t essential, but after playing the game for a few hours, you’ll have beaten the scores of other users. One of the funniest suggestions so far this year.
Advertising: