OlliOlli World | Preview
The reality of the facts turned out to be very different and after being glued to the screen for hours and hours, we can tell you that OlliOlli World is one of the most interesting productions of this early 2022. Imagine merging together the frenetic action of Rayman Legends to the arcade nature of the Tony Hawk Pro Skater series, embellishing everything with Pendleton Ward's pencils ... the result is OlliOlli World.
In OlliOlli World we will play a young promise of skateboarding who sets out on a long journey of growth in the histrionic land of Radlandia. The protagonist will find himself skating far and wide through the five biomes that make up Radlandia with the aim of meeting the five gods of skateboarding, becoming one of the legendary "magicians of the four-wheeled board" and entering the mystical Gnarvana.
if (jQuery ("# crm_srl-th_gamedivision_d_mh2_1"). is (": visible")) {console.log ("Edinet ADV adding zone: tag crm_srl-th_gamedivision_d_mh2_1 slot id: th_gamedivision_d_mh2"); } To accompany him on his journey, our protagonist will be able to count on the support of a group of friends, including a "skateboard wizard", who will try in every way to teach him how to surprise the gods of skate in order to obtain a hearing with them.
If all this seems delusional to you, fear not. You have not even scratched the surface of OlliOlli World which in our first 10 hours spent together with the title has constantly surprised us with a plot so surreal and visionary that we seriously think that Pendleton Ward (the creator of Adventure Time) has secretly put a hand in it. .
As we mentioned at the beginning, OlliOlli World is nothing more than a 2-dimensional platform dedicated to skateboarding. A concentrate of good ideas able to be able to model a completely new identity for the series, able to bring out more the excellent gameplay already acclaimed, by critics and the public, in the previous iterations made by Roll7.
if (jQuery ("# crm_srl-th_gamedivision_d_mh3_1"). is (": visible")) {console.log ("Edinet ADV adding zone: tag crm_srl-th_gamedivision_d_mh3_1 slot id: th_gamedivision_d_mh3"); } In our long test we tackled the first three areas that make up Radlandia, discovering how layered and varied the experience offered by OlliOlli World is. Each Biome is composed of a different number of levels which are divided in turn into: main, secondary, tutorial and special.
Each main level of OlliOlli World is generally structured in the same way: the primary objective, which allows you to progress in the adventure, will simply require you to overcome the goal set at the end of the level, overcoming a series of obstacles that will gradually become more complex and frequent.
Reaching the goal, however, it will only be the principle as to unlock all that OlliOlli World has to offer you will have to replay the main levels several times to perpetrate certain objectives. From beating the three scores of the local crew, passing through three challenges of varying difficulty, to finishing the path without reloading any checkpoint, each of the levels that make up OlliOlli World proved to be full of things to do, bringing out both the excellent level design work done by the developers, that the high replayability offered by the title.
if (jQuery ("# crm_srl-th_gamedivision_d_mh4_1"). is (": visible")) {console.log ("Edinet ADV adding zone: tag crm_srl-th_gamedivision_d_mh4_1 slot id: th_gamedivision_d_mh4 "); } Dwelling a moment on level design, each level we faced in OlliOlli World was full of elements on the screen, branches, secrets and spots that allowed us to approach it in a multitude of different ways. In some cases we have been asked to collect objects found exclusively in a branch of the level which, once undertaken, turned out to be a perfect spot to ring more complex combos able to make us achieve the score we aspired to.
Taking the other branch, in the following run, we discovered that the conformation of that path would allow us to perform a series of cascading tricks to get another goal and, perhaps, pass the level without reloading any checkpoint in simpler way.
It is this variety of situations and approaches made available to the player that makes the level design of OlliOlli World one of its greatest strengths. The excellent architecture of the areas, combined with an immediate and addictive gameplay, manages to guarantee a constant variety of game situations thanks to a duration of the levels that is always contained and able to favor replayability through the fearful divine constant of "but yes , I'll finish in a couple of minutes ".
In addition to the main levels, in OlliOlli World we find short tutorials (divided in a painstaking way to encourage a feeling of constant progression and learning) and secondary levels which consist of frenetic challenges, of varying difficulty, adorned with concepts so varied as to be able to detach the player from the mental scheme consisting of: completing a level, scoring points, overcoming challenges.
These secondary levels, unlockable mostly by finding branches within the levels that allow us to meet the various members of the local crew, offer the most disparate challenges. Beating at speed a bear that is descending rapids aboard a mat, performing a series of tricks for commercial purposes or shooting down seagulls to show how high we can fly with our skateboard, are just some of the situations OlliOlli World will test. your skills.
All the proposed challenges will be used to unlock aesthetic elements and songs of the substantial soundtrack present in OlliOlli World. And if you are wondering what you need, for the ultimate purposes of the game, to dress up as a bee and have an ice cream-shaped table ... the answer is simple: show off your style in the asynchronous multiplayer compartment present in OlliOlli World.
Once you have met the first divinity of skate, in fact, you can have a first taste of the mystical Gnarvana, unlocking the possibility of participating in the Lega del Garvana, a daily competition that allows all Skaters to try their hand at a path that changes daily , to get a score so high that you can progress in the ranking, level up and get exclusive items.
For what little we have been able to test, the multiplayer sector of OlliOlli World works well. We found ourselves visiting the League daily to face the new challenge and try to improve ourselves by observing the replays of other players who have achieved scores far higher than ours.
If about a hundred levels offline, an unknown number of challenges to be achieved and a multiplayer sector that encourages you to improve were not enough, OlliOlli World also offers a sandbox mode that, at the moment, we have only superficially scratched. As with the League of Ganrvana, once you have met the first Skate Deity, it will be possible to access the Portal of Gnarvana.
With a basic procedural system, this section will allow you to generate levels in any previously unlocked area, providing a set of options to configure the difficulty of the route and its length. Once these parameters have been chosen, a code will be created that can be shared with other players, in order to enjoy an infinity of procedurally generated levels, able to further extend the longevity of OlliOlli World.
Coming to the gameplay of OlliOlli World, we are faced with the perfect sum of the good things achieved by productions such as Skate and Tony Hawk Pro Skater. In a two-dimensional scenario, full of distinctly arcade and surreal situations, you find yourself moving your alter ego using purely the two analog sticks and the two triggers of the controller.
The left stick is used to do everything a series of tricks based on jumping with the board. Tilting it and releasing it downwards allows you to perform a basic Ollie, while performing the same action in the other directions will make our Skater perform a series of simple flips. The simplicity with which the first tricks are performed in OlliOlli World favors experimentation and, from the very first moments of the game, you will find yourself tilting the left stick in every direction to find out what you can do.
Lo The right analog stick, on the other hand, allows you to grab the board, while in the air, in the respective direction in which the lever is tilted. Keeping the G rab you are going to perform for a few seconds will allow you to transform it into an advanced trick.
The controller's triggers are used, on the other hand, to rotate the Skater left and right while in air, offering the possibility to "color" more their tricks. The front buttons, finally, are relegated to actions such as changing lanes within the levels, pushing the board and making perfect landings by pressing a button with the right timing.
The immediacy of the system control offered by OlliOlli World allows anyone to immediately try their hand at crazy, breathless races in the meanders of Radlandia, ringing increasingly complex tricks and favoring that mix of satisfaction and improvement of their skills, indispensable in such productions. If we add to all this that the progression of the adventure turns out to be soft and with a well-balanced difficulty curve, the final result is a challenge that is never incorrect and always aimed at encouraging the player to improve little by little.
With regard to the artistic and technical sector of OlliOlli World, we have already mentioned how the radical change of style has done a great deal of good to the project, providing that identity necessary for the series to make its way into an increasingly crowded videogame landscape. The artistic sector inspired by Pendleton's works manages to offer those disengaged and surreal atmospheres that blend perfectly with the purely arcade nature of the game.
Characters such as Chiffon, Mike, Dad or the Skate Deities, as much as they will do immediately emerge mischievous smiles to lovers of the adventures of Finn the human, they will be perfectly characterized both aesthetically and temperamentally, offering that minimal narrative component important to support the entire playful system.
Technically, however, we have practically nothing to be noted at OlliOlli World. The game offers solid performances in every moment and the only smudges that we could notice are confined to some sharp animation during the scenes in which the characters are intent on talking to each other and some minimal inaccuracy during the execution of the most complex tricks through the analog sticks. But with regard to this last point we will devote ourselves to some more in-depth tests in the review phase.
Finally, the audio sector is solid and well packaged. In terms of sound effects we are faced with a superfine level of sampling and the possibility offered by OlliOlli World to make all the sound effects come out from the speaker installed in the Dualsense, leaving the speakers to manage the other sound sources, manages to identify more the player.
The tracklist that composes the soundtrack, finally, does not shine for the presence of mainstream hits, as in the case of the more famous Tony Hawk Pro Skater, but it is made with care and succeeds, since the first notes, to return those typical sensations of the iconic Venice Beach. Undoubtedly there is a bit of variety, as all the tracks chosen focus on the same genre made of very relaxed and dreamlike loops and beats, but we are sure that some songs like Jim Alxndr's Fruit Salad (yes, that's right) will echo in your even hours after you leave OlliOlli World Radland.
