Skate Story

I got Skate Story on sale. I was sold on the allegedly amazing soundtrack by Blood Cultures which was underscored by the game subtitled with an auteur-style creator's name (Sam Eng).

Well, Sam, et al. you crushed it. Skate Story is a fun skate game that tells a beautiful story about a demon made of glass and pain. The skating is exciting and rewarding and the restart mechanism is nicely implemented. And the tricks and skate areas are very well done with movement and momentum and the tricks flying around the demonic underworlds. And the soundtrack is absolutely amazing.

The story is thoughtful and surreal. You meet unvoiced Ghibli-esque characters as you fly around on a cat-ish subway car. In essence, you are descending the depths of hell for something you care about along with revelations made therein.

The open world is a bit ho hum with some clunkiness. And the poetic artistry is sublime yet devolves here and there into huffing it's own farts while standing in the way of beautiful skateboarding to great beats gameplay.

If you like skate games and you've got artistic flair in the fiber of your being then it's an instant recommend. As a Tony Hawk Pro Skater veteran (which provided me a great deal of my musical appreciation earlier in life), you will enjoy the skating. And if you like artsy and enjoy Annapurna style games (e.g. Sayonara Wild Hearts) then this is up that same alley but it does feature some (relatively) intensive gameplay vs. Annapurna-fare (and yes not Annapurna but the almost equally impressive Devolver publishing this one). All in all, prepare for a bit of frustration with big rewards.

I hope you play it and I hope there's an update with a more straightforward time-trial attack sorta mode so I can rip through the levels with the incredibly well woven in soundtrack.

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