OlliOlli World, the proven game that mixes skateboard and cartoon
OlliOlli World
Fallen ... Is it possible that even the tutorial of such a colorful game represents a small challenge? Not particularly demanding, but useful to make us understand that, although our eyes are full of pastel colors and characters with very funny features, we must take what we are doing seriously. Because the game does not think in the least to simplify our life and, as we will verify in the OlliOlli World trial, its apparent lightness hides a title that reproduces some dynamics of the world of skateboarding better than much more rigorous games.Skateboarding passion
OlliOlli World, an artwork After all, what is described to us when we look at the levels as a whole is very close to the experience that many skaters have in their everyday life: on the one hand there is a world made of people walking, eating or chatting, that is, living on an island, called Radlandia, which seems a plastic representation of summer itself in its most worldly sense; on the other hand there are the skaters who make prodigious leaps on very steep ramps, who interpret the handrails as slopes and who often fall, sometimes get hurt, but as long as they can they get up and try again, they fall again and again until they dominate the trick they are attempting to perform.OlliOlli World is an arcade dedicated to skateboarding with some simulative ambitions, which takes the incapable player and tries to take him to the most extreme peaks of the discipline he tries to represent, videogame speaking. This is the sequel to OlliOlli and OlliOlli 2, probably the best synthesis of the franchise, at least according to what we were able to experience in the demo provided to us by the Private Division publisher, which included two of the four biomes that will make up the full game: a charming coastal town and a jungle full of frogs and bees.
Gameplay
The graphics are simple, but very beautiful Unlike previous OlliOlli, OlliOlli World wants to be more accessible, so as not to discourage novice players. This does not mean that it is easy, just that you are introduced to the action in a softer way. The goal is to get to the end of the various paths, performing stunts, collecting bonuses (where present) and avoiding crashing into some ravine or into some wall. After the first levels, from the elementary composition, we begin to get serious, with less linear paths that allow you to take alternative routes, contain more secrets and offer more possibilities to perform ever more thrilling stunts.The control system is very simple on paper, but complex enough to master, as it mixes the different actions, assigned to the various buttons (it is better played with a controller than with a mouse and keyboard), by asking the player to master them and learn to recall them automatically, almost instinctively.
We often talk to other characters, friends of the protagonist The first attempts are clumsy and stunted. We arrive at the end, but with the feeling of having missed something, because we perceive that the room for improvement is enormous. By playing and replaying you begin to learn tricks, the reaction times to obstacles become faster, the stunts become more articulated and you begin to feel that you are really in the game, enjoying the spectacle created by a trial without errors. To benefit from this is not only the morale, which grows every time you manage not to make mistakes, but also the aesthetic side, thanks to the pleasure created by the uninterrupted visual flow of the passing of the scenarios, which become almost vivid in their composition. Too bad we couldn't see all the biomes available in the final version. We would have gladly exhausted them, given the excellent impressions that the first two left us.
Graphics and style
From a technical point of view OlliOlli World is not a title that squeezes console or PC ( will be released on PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and S, PS4, PS5 and Nintendo Switch) but nevertheless appears very beautiful, thanks to its very marked style and the ability demonstrated by the artists of Roll7, the development studio, to know how to create a living game world, filling it with small details, which when you run are not even noticed, but which all together form animated pictures of great impact. What a contrast with the scenarios of the more "serious" skateboard simulators, which instead often appear gray and dead, unable to convey the joy and enthusiasm typical of the skater scene, which goes beyond the more consumerist aspects (usually the more exposed)!In this OlliOlli World seems to be a game on the passion of skateboarding, rather than on the simulation of the same, which if we want is a really ambitious goal to pursue, because it obliges to include in the representation a personal interpretation of the discipline, that is the way of feeling the same, beyond the objective elements that compose it. It is not easy to do it. We will see what will be the final result of so many efforts.
OlliOlli World promises very well. The demo we were able to try captivated us with its dynamics and the demonstrated ability to accompany us on the path that leads to excellence. The title of Roll7 manages to convey enthusiasm, a rare feature in modern video games, often more concerned with following the patterns of good design than presenting ourselves as unique. We'll see if the final version, much richer in content, will live up to it.
