‘OlliOlli: Switch Stance’ Is The On-The-Go Skateboarding Game Of Your Gnarliest Dreams
For years, skateboarding video game enthusiasts have been clamouring for a follow-up to the deified Skate 3, or at least something to make everyone forget the utterly abysmal Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 ever existed.
In 2014, Roll7 churned out OlliOlli, an unassuming 2D skater that impressed players with its addictive gameplay loop and elegance. Following the original’s success, OlliOlli 2: Welcome to Olliwood was released the following year, which was bigger and better than the first in just about every way. Now comes the inevitable final destination for all successful indie games – the Nintendo Switch.
Bundled into one neat little package under the guise of OlliOlli: Switch Stance, the indie skating duology on Switch is the best way to play since the game’s initial release on the perennially-unloved PlayStation Vita.
As its title suggests, OlliOlli is all about sick skateboard tricks like ollies, nosegrinds, impossibles, and all those other words in typing I feel like Steve Buscemi in that episode of 30 Rock I still haven’t watched.
Upon boot-up, you’re prompted to choose which of the two OlliOlli games you want to play. Unfortunately, you can’t swap freely between the two without closing and reopening the software. It’s a small gripe, but each second lost is a second spent not skating.
Both games begin with a competent tutorial running you through the basics; hold the left stick in any direction to prime a trick, release to launch, and then press “B” just before landing to complete the trick. Depending on how well you time the button press, you’ll be rewarded with a higher points multiplier.
Timing it right before impact will net you the highest “perfect” rating – any later, and you’ll tumble off the board, eating concrete and your own teeth in the process.
Grinds, spins and OlliOlli 2’s manuals performed with various other button combinations and stick rotations – all of which are listed in the series’ gnarly-named “tricktionary” – are all there too to ensure there’s plenty of risk, reward and depth for the leaderboard hunters. This all sounds pretty daunting at first, but the act of doing is the best teacher, and it’s surprising how quickly your high score ambitions grow after learning the basics.
OlliOlli the first features one main game mode: play. Packed with sets of levels to skate through, the original OlliOlli sees you skating down various slopes, avoiding increasingly bizarre obstacles such as Soviet-styled weapons caches, and showing off your sweet skills en route to the cheering crowd of people at each level’s end. Every level tempts you with five optional challenges to complete, like beating a target score, or nailing a specific trick. Completing all challenges in a level unlocks the “pro” version of the course – a more difficult variation featuring its own challenges.
You could probably achieve the same sensation in real life by slamming your junk into a metal handrail, but each to their own.
It’s satisfying ticking off OlliOlli’s challenges as you skate, especially the more obscure ones encouraging you to skate in ways you previously may not have considered. One such challenge set the gauntlet of scoring a lowly 10,000 points, but without grinding, which is how you link tricks together to form one long combo. This forced me to approach the level in an entirely unique way, going for big tricks in the limited opportunities available instead of relying on rails to chain a big score, which was a great way to break me out of a monotonous mindset. In addition to chasing high scores, these challenges incentivise replaying levels in a clever way, feeding into OlliOlli’s addictive one-more-try loop.
After playing the first, OlliOlli 2 immediately impresses with a fresher art style pumped with more colour and feel-good visual prompts when landing killer combos. Aside from more levels and more grinding than the seediest of nightclubs, OlliOlli 2 steps it up with bigger jumps and bigger chances to score. The previously-mentioned manuals are a great addition to increase the risk-and-reward element by giving you a chance to keep combos going, leading to an almighty payoff at the end, or agonising frustration after stacking it at the same obstacle for the fifth time in a row.
There’s also Combo Rush, a local multiplayer tournament mode, splitting the screen into sections allowing up to four players to skate simultaneously for the highest score – a nice addition for the competitive beasts out there.
Particularly in the later levels, OlliOlli: Switch Stance is tough – even before diving into the pro levels. Did I mention that completing all challenges unlocks the even more difficult RAD Mode where anything less than perfect timing is an instant fail? Well, there’s that for those of you who view pleasure and pain as the same thing. You could probably achieve the same sensation in real life by slamming your junk into a metal handrail, but each to their own.
All genital-whacking aside, both OlliOlli games offer a tough but fair challenge, helped by the tight and responsive controls, so that you know it’s your own fault when you skate right into a pit of lava. I do recommend using the Switch Pro Controller where possible, as the Joy-Con’s small control sticks aren’t as well suited to the precise flicks and quick rotations required for complex tricks. Otherwise, OlliOlli: Switch Stance’s performance is flawless across both docked and handheld configurations, with the bite-sized levels ideal for playing on the go.
What makes OlliOlli: Switch Stance such a compelling Switch game is how lightning quick it is to restart levels. In a game where you will make regular mistakes, it’s reassuring to know that a retry is merely two quick button presses away. Combine this with the replay value of the challenges and short levels, it equates to a satisfyingly classic one-more-try experience that regularly teases you to keep going. Both games hold up incredibly well due to their deftly balanced layers of simplicity and complexity.
Of course, OlliOlli 2 is the stronger of the duo thanks to its more substantial content offering, but its predecessor arguably wields the better soundtrack. Where OlliOlli 2 bounces each level along with mostly chilled electronic beats, the original shows more personality with an eclectic mix of electronica, shades of jazz, all contrasted with crunchy dubstep beats – it’s weird, but it totally works.
OlliOlli: Switch Stance is undoubtedly the premium way to play this bundle of 2D skateboarding goodness. Playing the series and chaining up mega combos generates a great sense of flow and satisfaction, made better by now being able to play OlliOlli on the go on a console not named Vita.
Chris Button is a freelance writer whose life revolves around Donkey Kong Country 2. For some reason, he’s on Twitter talking about games, entertainment and sport to no one in particular at @BibbyBhoy.