When we were little my cousin and I played Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 on his PlayStation 1. Still, I have many fond memories of this title, but I also remember that it required a LOT of coordination and was difficult to understand the mechanics of the game. Ever since I started skateboarding myself, I’ve been aware of the incredible precision these movements require. Well, with that in mind, my appreciation for this series has grown even more. Last year brought us a complete remake of THPS 1 + 2 for PC, PlayStation and Xbox. Now Switch players can finally join the party.
It goes without saying that this adaptation does not offer the same performance as the PS4 and Xbox One equivalents. This can be seen in several points: The slow storage system makes the waiting times when loading a level very long. The blurry textures load very slowly, which detracts from one of the key updates to this remastering: the customization of the characters. During the game, we earn virtual money thanks to our services. While it’s an odd novelty given the original skaters mentality, the game wants us to spend the money on expensive clothes for our character. Since the console won’t stop loading, customizing your skateboarder can be crazy and it takes a lot longer than previous remakes. Unfortunately, it also makes the game’s challenges less interesting.
The small buttons and sticks also differ from previous experiences, especially if you want to spend a lot of time in laptop mode. On that occasion, my cousin and I didn’t manage to get very high scores from the start. Fortunately, we were able to complete the levels without much difficulty and managed to create one or the other cool combination. You can get used to controlling the Joy-Con, but the precise movement of the little sticks in eight different directions is tricky. In order to lengthen the combos when switching from Revert to Manual and to keep the balance until you reach a ramp, you mainly need the left stick of the controller. Grabs and flips are also performed with the left stick while an associated button is pressed. If you’re handy or using a pro controller, this is your good thing.
Not much has changed in the game itself. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 offers 15 levels in which you can test your skills with your skater, with lots of very cool combos and tricks. Each level has different tasks, including getting high scores, finding collectibles, or performing certain moves. It is also possible to play locally with other switches. The split screen has a very low resolution but runs surprisingly smoothly even when playing in laptop mode. Another novelty is an online multiplayer mode with rankings.
Even considering the low resolution of this adaptation, it is clear that Vicarious Visions went to great lengths to recreate the legendary THPS levels. A lot of the maps might not be all that spectacular, but usually there is at least one cool detail to discover in each level, and some of them are dynamic elements. For example, if you roll over the famous hangar map and drag across the spinning blades of a helicopter, the helicopter will take off and destroy a roof.
Even such dynamic elements do not make the Nintendo console give up. Despite the fact that some frames are lost there, the FPS of the adaptation (30) are quite fluid. Although it’s been a long time since my cousin played these titles, even he noticed that the new versions are much faster than the originals. Speaking of the old days, luckily a lot of the songs from the original games are back to help you take on the role of a skateboarder. There are also a couple of new artists on the soundtrack.
Obviously the Switch adaptation of Tony Hawks Pro Skater 1 + 2 is not on the same technical level as the one for PC and other machines, but there are more important things. I took the console for a relative’s birthday, took my cousin (who is now a father), and played the game. We are both grateful that for a moment we felt like we were returning to our childhood. No clipping in the graphic can take away this feeling.