I always thought there were two types of skating games: the ultra arcadey pop punk-fuelled trick attacks, a la Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, and then games like Session or Skate that skew more towards the realistic end of the spectrum. Turns out there’s a third kind: the kind of skateboarding game where you need to trick and grind your way through hell as you gobble up moons so you can return to the land of the living. Also you’re made of glass.
In a surprising twist, it turns out this third flavour of skating game is possibly the most fun.
Skate Story has you take the form of a glass-bodied demon looking to escape the depths of hell. While I was a little put off by the regular philosophical musings (“if a skater does a trick and nobody is around to see it, does it make a noise?”), it’s a unique premise, and thanks to a constant stream of unusual and surreal situations, it’s always interesting. One minute you’re tracking down a MetroCard to ride the cosmic subway or taking the Devil’s clothes to the laundromat, the next you’re dodging hellfire as you try to destroy a moon. As I said: always interesting.
While the dialogue sometimes turned me off, the same can’t be said about the setting which I absolutely adored. What, at first glance, just appears to be a lot of dark grey corridors and arenas filled with the usual skatepark geometry you’d expect, turns out to be a maze of corporate bureaucracy. You see, eternal damnation is big business, and so Hell is run exactly like one. As you descend deeper you’ll encounter different departments, get embroiled in contractual disagreements and remind the devil why he decreed skating as Sin #59484. Despite this all being the stuff of fantasy, it still feels surprisingly grounded at times, with arenas feeling like riffs on the cityscapes you skate in more traditional skating games.
Speaking of traditional skating games, Skate Story handles as well as the best of them. There’s a fantastic relationship between your speed and your tenuous control of the board. Your glassy form means that the stakes are high, and one big fall is enough to shatter you, and the game ensures you never forget that. As someone who used to skate (albeit only for transport rather than tricks), Skate Story does the best job of replicating that feeling of speed and the “oh shit I don’t know if I can control this thing” feeling that comes with it.
Your demon skater starts with a basic repertoire of tricks and grinds, with reverts, spins and more being added into the mix as you progress. The trick system is fairly basic: hold down B to ollie, or modify it with a shoulder button to do a flip trick. As you hold the button, a shape appears on the screen and a cursor runs around the perimeter of it. This could be a simple oval for an ollie, or a weird mutated version for something more complex. Letting go of the button pops the trick, however if you time it as the cursor is in a bold part of the shape then it’s a cleaner trick and you earn bonus points. This window changes depending on your speed too, so popping a kickflip while stationary is a lot easier than doing it in motion.
It takes what’s a fairly basic suite of tricks and makes it much more complex, and even overwhelming, at times. Bombing down the track at 27mph, dodging hellfire and trying to string together a decent combo so you can deal more damage is exhilarating, as you try to keep an eye on your skater, the surroundings and the trick shape. It all contributes that seat-of-your-pants feeling I mentioned before.
There are two main types of environments you’ll be skating in. The “corridors”, as I call them, have you moving from point A to B, manoeuvring around hazards that’ll leave you in a million glassy pieces on the floor if you hit them too fast. These were really fun as they let the game show off its sense of speed, and the feeling of power sliding round a corner before nailing an ollie into a grind and disappearing through a hellish gate into the next corridor is a real rush. There are also larger arenas you’ll play around in, which often have multiple activities to complete alongside the story missions, such as spots to trick and collectibles to find. They feel more like levels from traditional skating games, and while I like them, the speed of the corridors is unbeatable for me.
As mentioned, your tricks aren’t just for being flashy, they deal damage too. You’re thrown into semi-regular boss battles which are real tests of your skills, as your combo score determines the damage you do to the enemy health bar. At the start of the game I was more interested in those corridor sections of the game, challenging myself to complete them as quickly and smoothly as possible. As I played more of the game though I really started to appreciate the boss battles as they add something unlike anything I’ve seen in a skating game before. They’re spectacles in every sense of the word, with pulsing soundtracks and enemy attacks or obstacles assaulting your senses as you desperately try to squeeze in one last trick so you can tap X to stomp down and end the combo, dishing out your final blow to the moon.
The game really is an audio-visual feast. The soundtrack is provided by Blood Cultures, an indie pop outfit I’d never heard of before but now feature as the latest addition to my YouTube Music library. Their psychedelic electropop sounds blend perfectly with the surreal visuals of Skate Story, creating something otherworldly and unlike anything you’ll have played before. Music is such an important element of any skating game and Skate Story, as it does with basically everything, offers something unseen in the genre before.
Your demonic skater is impeccably presented too, with moonlight bouncing off his reflective skin. The animations are sublime, with every shift of your body being mirrored in your handling of the board. Hitting a curb at 25mph might technically be a “bad” thing, but seeing your skater fall is so beautiful that it’s almost worth it.
Skate Story is at its best during those aforementioned boss battles as they feel like they marry the music and visuals perfectly. An early battle with the red moon teleports you away from the action during an interlude in the song before bringing you back to pure chaos just as the music kicks back in. You’ll get to enjoy several moments like this during your time with the game.
Skate Story is a fantastic entry into the skating genre, not only by virtue of being unlike anything else we’ve seen before, but also because mechanically it’s just a very good skateboarding game. Between the sense of speed it offers and the unique skate-based combat system, it’s as good an entry as any of the big names. Grab your board and stick it to this corporate hellhole, it’s a lot of fun.
