Skate Story – PS5 Review 1

Skate Story is a skateboarding/adventure game from New York native Sam Eng which has been creating quite a stir on social media for a couple of reasons.  The first is that it looks a bit like SKATE, which is important because EA’s new free-to-play update to that franchise is a load of shit and so there’s an appetite for a new skating game.  The other reason is that it looks very different to the usual skateboarding games that we’re used to.

You see, Skate Story isn’t your usual skate sim or story about amateur skateboarders trying to make it by creating a ‘gnarly’ skate video or something.  In this game you play as a nameless demon, one who is created from “glass and pain” as he endeavours to *checks notes* eat the moon.  This is because the game is set in ‘The Emptylands’ (a sort of hell/purgatory type of place) and no-one can get any sleep there thanks to the all the moons there keeping everyone awake during endless nights.

So your demon makes a deal with the Devil:  eat all the moons and the Devil will free them.  It’s a lot to do for a bit of a kip but we get cranky if we don’t get any sleep, so we sort of get it.  And to aid in his quest, the Devil gives them a skateboard with which to get around.  So yes, you’re not going to run into Bam Margera in this game (you might bump into what’s left of his career though).

The game plays out as something of a dark fairy tale with odd characters such as a rabbit, a sentient washbag and a frog in there to guide you on your way but with a dark, almost Rez-like visual style.  It’s moody and imposing but sometimes quite sweet too.  It’s the sort of story that is only told in sparse moments but is compelling enough to keep you interested.

Invariably though, all of tasks the game sets you involve going somewhere and performing tricks.  The usual mix of grabs, flips and grinds are all there but the game takes a while to explain them all.  For example, you only find out about grinds during the game’s third level.  But the tricks are all available to you from the start if you want to figure them out for yourself.  That might be tricky though as the game eschews both the SKATE and Tony Hawk way of doing things.

You’d want a SKATE style system based on analogue stick inputs but instead the game uses buttons.  Just not the ones you’re used to.  is used to push off and generate speed while is both your jump/ollie button and also what you use to pull off tricks (in combination with stick directions and shoulder/trigger buttons).  is used as an ‘ender’ move, a stomp that ends combos (and is often the way you apply damage to foes and bank combos).  Meanwhile, just switches you from walking to skating and vice versa.

If you want to grind you just land on an edge.  It’s a bit more fiddly to do than the Tony Hawk way of pulling them off but everything is here.  It’s different for sure but the learning curve isn’t too daunting either and that’s because Skate Story isn’t really all that bothered about pro-level skating.  This feels a bit more realistic that the other skate games because it’s hard to look good skating in it.  As such, the skating is just a means to an end.  It’s never really given all that much focus here.  Sure, it’s always there – it’s the way you interact with the whole world after all – but it’s not flashy or exciting.  It’s just something you do.

It does put more focus on the atmospherics and the story but if you’re here looking for the next hot skateboarding game, this isn’t it.  Sure, it’s not miserable to play like Session but the skating isn’t particularly fun and there’s a lot of time where all you’re doing is just travelling through lots of portals on your way to the next thing.  The game hardly ever sets challenges that require you to get better and so you never feel like you are, at least not once you’ve nailed the basic mechanics.

Thankfully, the story and the setting do make Skate Story stand out.  It’s such an odd tale with interesting characters and a sense of despair but one that you’re actively fighting to escape.  And the presentation really sells it.  The visuals are certainly unique.  The moody visuals are highlighted with stabs of colour while the camera angles feel like the usual handheld skating footage that you saw in the ’90s.  The design of the world, while never all that conducive to fun skating definitely sells a sort of banal-but-oppressive hellishness.

But it’s the music that’s really interesting here.  The poppy ska punk and rap-metal anthems you’d normally get are nowhere to be seen (well… heard) and instead you get an atmospheric soundtrack of ambient dance and moody indie music.  There’s even some mild, cheery jazz in there.  It’s sort of at odds with the whole setting but it feels unique and sells a different sort of ambience.  It’s weird trying to fight a moon when twee indie is being used to soundtrack the whole thing.  We liked it though.

As such Skate Story is much more an indie game about feelings than it is a skate game, even if you’re skating for 95% of it and the rest is just bits of story told in an odd way.   Is it a good skate game?  We’re not all that convinced.  Is it a compelling story set in a world that’s interesting to experience?  Yes, definitely.  And considering that it’s being launched straight onto PS Extra, subscribers have no good reason to not check it out.  Just don’t expect it to be SKATE but, then again, neither is SKATE.