OlliOlli World Review: Skateboarding Paradise

OlliOlli World successfully managed to fill up the gap in my soul, which was left by Tony Hawk: Pro Skater and the number of arcade skateboarding games from the PlayStation 2 era.

While it visually looks vibrant, gamers preferring a third-person skateboarding experience might be hesitant in trying it out, which, frankly speaking, is a disservice, as there is a lot of depth under the hood, which makes it a great skateboarding game.

Developed by Roll7, OlliOlli World is the third game in the series and the first one published by Private Division, the publishing house under Take-Two Interactive. Judging by everything offered through the package, it is evident that whatever they have learned all these years through the games they previously made has been used to create a brilliant skateboarding game.

The vibrant world of OlliOlli World

Sports games, especially extreme sports games, generally don't have an overarching storyline to tie into the experience. Similarly, OlliOlli World does not have any storyline to tie into the game, except for the backdrop of why the player's character is skateboarding.

The world of Radlandia was created by some great skateboarding almighty, and the player is a candidate to become the next big skate wizard. I won’t lie, the opening minutes were some of the most forgettable moments in an otherwise brilliant game, but the game does a pretty decent job of setting a backdrop.

To synergize with the setting, the world of Radlandia and everything surrounding it follows this beautiful cell-shaded, vibrant visual, which is pretty to look at and, at the same time, gives it that loud personality that every extreme sports game has.

The art style Roll7 decided to go along with is the best decision ever, as the cell-shading makes the game pretty unique and stand out, adding to the feel they were trying to achieve. I pretty much got hooked to the game after looking at its pretty cell-shaded characters and levels.

For characters, players will encounter four master skaters among many others throughout the game. They are named Dad, Gnarly Mike, Suze, and the current guardian, Chiffon.

None of the characters are voice acted. However, they have what I like to call the “animal crossing voice acting”, where they make cute noises that replace fully voiced dialog, accompanied by text bubbles, which is not a deal-breaker for me. Everything here gives the game its own identity and makes it much more charming to look at.

It is all about the drip

Fashion goes hand in hand with skateboarding, and just as much as safety and stunts are important, looking great while doing it is also essential. To keep up with that, Roll7 provides an excellent customization option to the players where players can choose what they wear, their skin color, hair, size, and even customize the skateboard they ride.

The customization for appearance is minimal, where only four faces are given to the players to decide from. However, the choice of attire in OlliOlli World is plentiful. Instead of bloating the options too much, the developers ensured that they kept it ample and sufficient, so two players would hardly look the same in the game.

In the end, I went along with creating a skater with short silver-white hair, and man, did I fall in love with him.

Grinding and Flipping through the world

The core of a sports game, and in this case, a skateboarding game, is how well the game mechanics work, along with its gameplay. After all, one is certainly not playing the game just for visuals and customization.

Sure, they add up to the experience, but if the main package is not great, then those two can hardly hold a game up. So, how well does OlliOlli World fare in that portion?

OlliOlli World, by description, is an “action platformer.” Now where this action is, I don’t know, I couldn’t even find it, but at its core, the game is a great side-scrolling platformer skateboarding game. And a pretty easy one to get into and very complex if played seriously.

Screencap from the beginning minutes (Image via OlliOlli World)

The game is a twin-stick skateboarding game, meaning that players will be doing stunts using the left stick, while they can use the right stick to hold the deck in mid-air, letting them do the more extraordinary stunts.

The game’s point is simple, players have five different areas, where each area has a set of single-player levels for them to choose and replay from. Each single-player mission has specific goals that a player can fulfill to unlock more customization options.

As for the gameplay, the game follows a straightforward rule. If players want to pass their time playing through the game, they can do so by doing basic combos and grinds on rails. If someone wants more challenges, they can make the dozens of moves available in the Tricktionary for the game.

The gameplay is presented in a side-scrolling format, and players have to finish a skate track while chaining combos. Making multiple complex moves in quick succession will result in combos. The higher the combos, the higher the overall scores, improving one’s position in the leaderboards.

Levels also have hidden routes and objectives, so replayability is not a factor here. Most of the stages are highly replayable, so players can always go back to search for a secret path they initially overlooked.

Speaking of leaderboards, OlliOlli World features an asynchronous multiplayer, where players will not be actively meeting each other out and competing. Instead, they’ll try to break each other’s scores by performing better.

In some cases, players can also try taking part in leagues, and the one with the highest score in a particular league stage wins that round, giving the winner the bragging rights.

I got challenged by two randoms who were dubbed “rivals” in my game, and I am pretty sure they were given to me randomly based on my scores. Regardless, I can proudly say that I defeated both of them by a higher margin!

The gripes

Even though my time in the game has been nothing but pleasurable, and trust me when I say this, this is a solid skateboarding game. However, it is not without its flaws.

For starters, the game is not playable without a controller, so tough luck if one did not have a controller with them. I understand the decision, and I kind of also support it, as most motions required to do in the game are nigh impossible, but at the same time, more input options are never too bad.

Secondly, the controller keybinds are not re-bindable. I cannot express my disappointment when I have pressed LB and RB accidentally to skip the music tracks playing and how much I wished to re-bind them to something better.

Third, and this is bizarre, there are no graphic settings in the game, like none. I have tested the game on my main setup, which runs the following:

Processor: Ryzen 2600 (Base Clocks)
GPU: RTX 3060 (Base Clocks)
Ram: 16GB DDR4 @ 3000mhz

Given that my system is sufficiently capable of running the game, I did not experience a single hiccup in the running. Still, graphic options should always be welcome regardless of the requirements of the game.

Conclusion

It shows that Roll7 used their past experiences from OlliOlli 1, OlliOlli 2, and Not a Hero in this game. A lot of care has been taken to fine-tune the experience for everyone out there.

Whether it is someone who wants to reel back after a day of hard work (essentially yours truly) and wants to do some level or someone who wants to make some sick moves, OlliOlli World has that all.

With a vibrant, loud personality, beautiful cell-shaded graphics, brilliant gameplay with replayable stages, the simple yet effective multiplayer portion, and an excellent soundtrack, the game gets a lot of things correct and manages to provide a well-made arcade skateboarding experience.

Hence, OlliOlli World is a definite recommendation from my side and a surprisingly good indie release this year. I hope this game is successful enough for us to get that eventual third-person OlliOlli experience soon if the developers ever want to. Roll7 has something exceptional here, and I hope this game gets a lot of praise and recognition in the upcoming months.

I will end this review by sharing this small clip of me playing the game, which I am proud of.

OlliOlli World

Reviewed on: PC (Review code provided by Private Division)

Platform(s): Windows (Steam), Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch

Developer(s): Roll7

Publisher(s): Private Division

Release Date: February 8, 2022

OlliOlli World review: Skateboarding paradise