If you can get past OlliOlli World's Gen Z pandering (or if you find the whole enterprise charming for whatever reason), the rest of the game is a white knuckle delight. The Skate Gods are the rulers of each of OlliOlli World's areas and gatekeepers of some of the game's hardest challenges. By the second world, it was extremely tempting to jam on the skip button whenever possible and just get to the skating. There's never anything of substance in these conversations, just a few lame jokes and a heap of praise that comes no matter how well you perform out on the halfpipe. It often feels like a pushback against those who might want to just play the game, but it feels unwarranted. The player always has an option to skip this section, but it comes via a comment that feels rude to this group of skating enthusiasts. Each level starts off with dialogue describing the backgrounds you barely notice as you wallride past at high speeds.

There are some concessions to players who really just want to get to skating. I love the idea of a camcorder mascot, but constant twee dialogue gets in the way of the skilled play the franchise demands. This whole setup charms at first glance, but it gets long in the tooth once OlliOlli's difficulty ramps to a point where those same new players find themselves left in the dust. For players who've never picked up a skate deck before, Roll7 has sanded off some of the harder edges of the formula by making landings optional and adding in a lot of friendly tutorials. You quickly meet a gang of colorful characters that single you out as the heir apparent Skate Wizard, and your mastery of complicated tracks across the landscape solidifies that position as the game goes on. OlliOlli World serves as a functional reboot of the series, dropping the conceit from the first two games in favor of the world of Radlandia. OlliOlli's core remains as smooth as ever, but that finely tuned gameplay ends up obscured behind an overzealous style that makes the path to Gnarvana harder than it needs to be. Developer Roll7 follows in the footsteps of Ubisoft's Riders Republic with OlliOlli World, a relaxed version of their arcade franchise that turns up modern sensibilities to the max. Many of the best skating games dive into the devil may care attitude that defined the heyday of the X Games, but more recent works have tried to tap into a more mellow generation to mixed results. Whether you're grinding a rail in real life or pulling off a 900 with a gamepad, skateboarding is all about vibes.

Olliolli video game