I don’t think I’ve ever thought about the death of SSXWhile EA’s Extreme Snowboarding series is not officially in the groundthere hasn’t been an entry since 2012. Nevertheless, the franchise is still an important part of the minds of many players, including mine. This is especially true for the 2001 SSX trickyan arcade snowboard game full of style that has never been achieved, although many have tried and failedHowever, the demo for the new indie game Delicate madness gave me hope that maybe, just maybe, someone can recapture SSX‘s size.
Delicate madness is aware that this is a tribute to SSX tricky. If the name doesn’t give it away, then the Tricky meter and colorful snowflake symbols scattered throughout the demo’s single course surely will. This isn’t a problem, strictly speaking, and if you’re such a big fan of SSX like me, then the obvious homage is exactly what drew you in in the first place. But it’s a bold move to take so much directly from your inspiration when you might not do it justice.
The demo, now available on Steam, gives you access to a single character on a single course. You can try your hand at a time trial or a trick competition, just like SSX tricky offered races and freestyle competitions. The course currently available is a simple snow-covered course down a mountain, surrounded by large trees and with jumps and railings, very similar to an earlier course you could find in SSX or SSX trickyThe similarities are so strong that on my first run on the course I was surprised at how much my muscle memory took over.
Switch between Delicate madness Demo and SSX trickySome things that my muscle memory had suspected were quickly confirmed. Delicate madness is a much faster game, not in the speed at which you go down the mountain, but in the speed at which you perform tricks. Doing spins and flips feels incredibly fast, which I only had a problem with when I attempted the game’s equivalent of Uber tricks (also simply called Uber tricks here). The problem is that currently performing these particular tricks feels too easy in some ways, while the slower pace of the tricks in SSX tricky made Uber’s tricks seem like a risky venture.
Besides, I can’t get over it Delicate madness‘ current steering control mapped to the left stick. Once you press the A button on an Xbox controller to prepare for a jump, you can’t steer, but instead have to prepare the direction you’re turning in mid-air by pressing down on the D-pad. Switching between the left stick and D-pad on the fly when going from steering to trick preparation is a bit awkward at the moment, and I long for the ability to both steer and prepare tricks on the D-pad, like in SSX tricky. This is the biggest problem of Delicate madness: the game feels so much How SSX tricky that the moments when it deviates from its inspiration become unsettling. But again, this is just a demo and these things are still in the very early stages of development.
The more time I spend with Delicate madnessthe more I appreciated his clear understanding and love for SSX. Even though the game’s graphics aren’t quite as pop as those of its inspiration, the demo’s unique progression still gives the feeling that it would feel right at home among SSX courses. This feeling is even stronger when you look for secret routes around the edges of the course. I was happy to discover a handful of shortcuts that helped me shave seconds off my time, and even a hidden halfpipe that gave me the perfect place to perform a series of tricks seamlessly one after the other.
Delicate madness has no release date yet, but the full version promises eight complete courses and characters (who will be voiced and have unique tricks), a campaign and a free-roam mode, as well as a voiced DJ to SSX tricky Experience. After my time with the limited demo, I cannot say definitively whether Delicate madness is the SSX The sequel we’ve all been waiting for, but I can say it gives me hope that it deserves that title.
.
