OlliOlli World – Review

Back in 2016, our site took a closer look at OlliOlli2: XL Edition, which proved to be a lot of fun. The game was great for those looking for a quick pick-up-and-play session, and, even though the skating aspect of the game was highly unrealistic, it was probably the best skateboarding game in years. Now, the franchise returns, but instead of opting for a pure arcade experience, developer Roll7 wanted to do something different with the series. For OlliOlli World, Roll7 decided to flesh out its world and create a fun story to go with the great gameplay mechanics. Even though we had a blast with the game, it was clear that the developer is still finding its footing when trying to add story content to an arcade franchise such as this.

Story

OlliOlli World takes us to Radlandia, a world that’s all about skateboarding. This world is being overlooked by the Skate Godz who reside in Gnarvana. Then, there’s the bridge between these celestial skating overlords and the common residents of Radlandia, who is aptly named the Skate Wizard. Sadly, the current Skate Wizard is close to retiring, and thus a successor has to be chosen. It seems you are the one that has the talent to be the next Skate Wizard.

Even though adding a theme and story to the OlliOlli series is a fun concept, and it does work to a certain extent, we couldn’t help but get bored with the story the further the game went on. Not only was the gameplay being slowed down with a lot of useless ‘story’ content at the beginning and ending of every level, many of the game’s dialogues just felt pointless and only witty enough for small children. We do like the effort that was put into fleshing out the story, but it just feels a bit bland and pointless at times.

Graphics

OlliOlli World is a very colorful and appealing game. The different environments offer different backdrops and obstacles, and the customization options for your character, your skateboard and your outfit(s) are a nice touch. As a whole, OlliOlli World stays true to its roots, albeit with some fun twists and turns added to the mix to spice things up. The simple 2D graphics still work great for a game such as this.

Sound

The sound design is fairly good. The music does what it’s supposed to do, but during intense levels, you won’t be paying attention to the music anyway.  The game will require all your focus, so it’s already good that the soundtrack never becomes grating or annoying. As a whole, the tracklist is quite mellow and also enjoyable to listen to when the game is idling in the background. During dialogues, the other characters will speak a gibberish Animal Crossing-esque language.

Gameplay

Even with the story thrown into the mix, OlliOlli World is still very much a 2D arcade skateboarding experience from start to finish. The game will have you play through different levels, in which you’ll have to reach the end unscathed, and try your best to beat the missions laid out before you, as well as get the highest possible score. The game will still allow you to progress by reaching the end of a level, but the extra missions create an incentive to unlock more cosmetics, or simply to beat your own scores.

The overall concept of the game is very simple: you’ll need to pull off timed jumps and tricks, in order to make it to the end of the level. OlliOlli World starts off very simple by learning you the basics of performing ollies and kickflips, to eventually learn how to grind rails, perform extra tricks, do wall-rides, and so on. Some mechanics will become crucial in later levels to simply reach the ending, while others are simply there to get a better score when trying to complete as many goals as possible. We do love that the game is directed towards both inexperienced and experienced players. Some later levels do require some spot-on timing, and on certain occasions, we do feel that the game somewhat ‘cheats’ you into death, as you’ll be presented with gaps and other obstacles you overshoot, because you simply couldn’t see that far. This sometimes felt like artificially making the game harder, forcing you to learn some tracks by heart in order to achieve certain goals, or complete the ‘no checkpoints used’ objective.

We do find certain aspects are missing. We would have loved to have a few more co-op and/or multiplayer functions, rather than just an asynchronous score-beating mode. We would have enjoyed being able to play locally with our friends, but we reckon this was harder to implement due to the game’s base levels requiring a proper overview, which would be harder to pull off when the screen is split into two. Then again, some dedicated co-op or multiplayer levels should have been easy to implement.

Conclusion

OlliOlli World is a great continuation of the series, and we absolutely loved all the content the game had to offer us. While we regretted the lack of proper multiplayer modes and sometimes got annoyed by the useless dialogues in the story, this game is still a blast to play through. The game can easily be cleared by newcomers, while veterans have loads of extra objectives to clear if they wish to unlock everything. If you’re a fan of the franchise, or simply love fast-paced skateboarding games, this one’s a must-have.

Ibuki

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Aspiring ninja.

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