Skate City takes us to skate to 2D versions of Los Angeles, Oslo and Barcelona with a simple and relaxed gameplay, but also not very stimulating.
We are experiencing a kind of resurgence of skateboarding video games : after a few years in the doldrums, both the great simulation sagas that gave rise to the genre and new and fresh proposals are once again finding an audience interested in this type of experience. Skate City was launched a couple of years ago on mobile devices precisely trying to fill a perhaps little-explored space: that of zen skateboarding in two dimensions. Clearly inspired by the OlliOlli of Roll7 , this independent title establishes a more relaxed game cycle, based on short games , and with challenges to overcome in each of its three scenarios.
Even with his good intentions, the end result of Skate City leaves a lot to be desired. On its arrival on new platforms ( it is already available on PS4, Xbox One, PC and Nintendo Switch with texts in Spanish) it has hardly modified anything to take advantage of the particularities of each of them: the graphic section is practically identical to that of smartphones , with what that entails, and in what is playable you can see that it is a project designed specifically for the rhythm favored by mobile devices, something that does not fit quite well in the new systems that it has reached.
Three cities, one skate
Seeing the title chosen for this work, Skate City , one would not expect anything other than a division of the game by cities. This title takes us to a total of three scenarios ( there is one more on mobile phones that is not available in this new port ) that recreate known cities in the skate world in two dimensions: Los Angeles, Oslo and Barcelona . We start with the first one and to move on to the other two we will have to overcome a series of challenges to get coins that allow us to unlock both the new scenarios and customization items (clothing, boards, wheels and even special tricks).
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When playing in these scenarios we can do it in two ways: a free tour , without a time limit, during which we can do the tricks we want, taking photos and fulfilling specific objectives of each map, or challenges , which are levels within of the map in which challenges are marked for us that we have to do to get between one and three stars. In either of these two modes we will always play from left to right in infinite but not procedurally generated cities .
The challenges range from racing against NPCs to scoring challenges.
Simple controls, lacking in difficulty
The mechanics of skating is another key point within Skate City , obviously, although its approach to it is much simpler than what we see in most games of the genre: being a Zen experience, we perform the tricks in a way very simple, using the joysticks , and there is hardly any challenge in the very act of making an ollie or a manual . Perhaps there are those who value this way of facing the game because it requires little thought about what we are doing with the controls, but those who want a real challenge will not find it here. Again, it is a very automatic game, made to be enjoyed in idle moments, which fits much better on mobile phones than on consoles and computers. Precisely inNintendo Switch , where the touch controls are used , shows that the experience changes completely compared to playing it with a traditional controller.
Just by moving the joystick in any direction we will perform a trick.
When facing the challenges in which we are required to have a minimum score to get stars , the execution of the tricks ends up becoming somewhat chaotic and a bit ridiculous: just by moving the joysticks in various dimensions you can already add points without having to think about practically nothing else , except to overcome obstacles that you encounter along the way. There are a number of challenges that try to solve this, proposing races against NPCs or forcing you to do the trick in a specific area, but in the end it is a patch imposed for what is definitely a design flaw.
One of the less inspired aspects of Skate City is the lack of variety in its challenges. Each city has around 20 challenges to overcome to which must be added the objectives of the free mode, a huge list of tasks that for practical purposes translate into doing the same thing over and over again in the same scenario. At first this amount of challenges is stimulating, but soon after we find that the schemes are repeated over and over again, changing only the score, the tricks or the time needed to get stars.
‘Skate City’ challenges us to flee from the Mossos d’Esquadra in Barcelona.
Photo mode, graphics and lo-fi music
More inspired is its photo mode , one of the best aspects of Skate City and probably the most wasted. During our skating session we can enter camera mode to capture the section we want, take several photos and send them to sponsors to get money . There we can modify the angle of the camera, the shot (giving it more zoom) and the speed at which we want to move. Recording tricks is inherent in skater culture , so the inclusion of this mechanic is not only something that makes all the sense in the world but is also well done. The pity is that it is limited and we can only send a total of 10 sessions per day (although we can record as many times as we want), a restriction inherited again from the mobile format and that makes no sense here, not even to frame the artificial game cycle that they have tried to give it.
With the photo mode we can get spectacular captures from custom angles.
On an aesthetic level, the game has a double facet that is difficult to assess: you only have to see a screenshot of Skate City to verify that its scenarios seek a stylistic beauty of a minimalist cut , focusing on lighting for this, but as soon as we get closer looking at the models we see that it is a game full of technical narrowness, with strange volumes in the outfits, saw teeth everywhere and a flat character design , lacking in delicacy. In its sound section there are few complaints, since its lo-fi style soundtrack is perhaps the best of the whole.
Conclusions
Skate City seeks to position itself as a Zen experience within two-dimensional skateboard simulators, however the end result lacks the charisma and good work that it would need to achieve this goal. It is not that it does not have virtues, which are appreciated above all in its accessibility, its landscapes and its music, but that for practical purposes it ends up being too simple a titleto hook into a supposed daily game cycle with short games. It didn’t take long to see all their maps, their challenges (very reused) and their tricks , something that shows that their loop may work on mobile phones, but not on consoles: precisely that is the main problem with this title,it inherits too much from its original mobile format without worrying about adapting to the new platforms it has arrived to, resulting in a graphic finish and game design that is not up to par.
