{"id":81995,"date":"2019-02-12T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-02-12T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/reviews\/switch-eshop\/olliolli_switch_stance"},"modified":"2019-02-12T18:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-02-12T18:00:00","slug":"review-olliolli-switch-stance-a-grind-in-the-best-possible-sense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2019\/02\/12\/review-olliolli-switch-stance-a-grind-in-the-best-possible-sense\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: OlliOlli: Switch Stance &#8211; A Grind In The Best Possible Sense"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/reviews\/switch-eshop\/olliolli_switch_stance\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/reviews\/switch-eshop\/olliolli_switch_stance\/small.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n<div id=\"\">\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"OlliOlli: Switch Stance Review - Screenshot 1 of 5\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/94916\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/94916\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"OlliOlli: Switch Stance Review - Screenshot 1 of 5\" \/><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>Remember <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/switch-eshop\/olliolli_switch_stance\">OlliOlli<\/a><\/strong>? Its addictive 2D take on the trick-combo formula that fuelled the <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/gamecube\/tony_hawks_pro_skater_3\">Tony Hawk<\/a><\/strong> franchise for a good fifteen years launched on PS Vita back in 2014 and then got ported to pretty much everything else, including <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/wiiu-eshop\/olliolli\">Wii U<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/3ds-eshop\/olliolli\">3DS<\/a>. For a game so suited to portable play sessions, it\u2019s taken a remarkably long time to come to your favourite \u2018homeheld\u2019 console, but here it is, and the belated arrival feels like a handheld homecoming. Fortunately, the wait has been worth it; OlliOlli is just as satisfying \u2013 and infuriating \u2013 now as it was five years ago.<\/p>\n<p>If this is your first encounter with Roll7\u2019s indie title, <strong>OlliOlli: Switch Stance<\/strong> combines both the original game and its 2015 sequel, <strong>OlliOlli 2: Welcome to Olliwood<\/strong>, in one <em>gnarly<\/em> package. For the uninitiated, it\u2019s a side-on, auto-scrolling skater that relies on twitch movements to negotiate short but tricky courses filled with grind rails and obstacles. Every time you come a cropper you restart the course, although hitting \u2018X\u2019 restarts immediately if you\u2019re not satisfied with your performance.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"OlliOlli: Switch Stance Review - Screenshot 2 of 5\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/94914\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/94914\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"OlliOlli: Switch Stance Review - Screenshot 2 of 5\" \/><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>Pulling and releasing the left analogue stick launches you into the air, and rotating the stick in different directions (as you might in a beat-\u2018em-up) enables you to pull off a wide variety of tricks, the names of which will be familiar if you\u2019ve ever dabbled in the skating genre \u2013 plenty of ollies, nollies, kickflips and the like. Grinding is achieved by holding the left stick in any direction when you&#8217;re above a railing or other grindable surface. Perfect timing gives you a minor speed boost \u2013 you\u2019ll otherwise have to tap \u2018B\u2019 on the ground to gain momentum.<\/p>\n<p>Tony Hawk casts a long, lanky shadow over the skateboarding genre and OlliOlli is obviously indebted to the series which bears his name, but its trick system also reminds us of <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/n64\/1080d_snowboarding\">1080<\/a><\/strong><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/n64\/1080d_snowboarding\">\u00b0 Snowboarding<\/a><\/strong>. You tap \u2018B\u2019 to \u2018flex\u2019 your knees on landing, which took us back twenty years when we were trying to land spins by hitting \u2018Z\u2019 at <em>just<\/em> the right moment on the slopes with Dion Blaster (<em>work your body, wo-work your body<\/em>). Similarly, it takes a while to learn but proves to be a fluid, satisfying system once you nail the basics. It takes longer to master the spins on \u2018L\u2019 and \u2018R\u2019, but each one adds a 1x multiplier to your trick score, so it\u2019s worth incorporating them into your repertoire. All the moves are catalogued in the Tricktionary, accessible at any time should you need to consult specific inputs to fulfil objectives or challenges.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"OlliOlli: Switch Stance Review - Screenshot 3 of 5\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/94917\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/94917\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"OlliOlli: Switch Stance Review - Screenshot 3 of 5\" \/><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>Both games feature five worlds, each with ten courses (five amateur, five pro). Completing challenges unlocks the harder difficulties \u2013 these can be as simple as collecting tokens and making it to the end or performing specific tricks and getting perfect launches off ramps. Fortunately, you needn\u2019t conquer them all in one go \u2013 they remain unlocked once you\u2019ve met the requirements, even if you wipe out.<\/p>\n<p>And you\u2019ll wipe out often; there\u2019s very little middle ground between a perfect run and total failure. Be prepared to stick with it through the initial learning curve if you want to get your money\u2019s worth. Learning the courses takes time, and while you may be able to wing it through earlier levels, the later ones require careful memorisation and planning.<\/p>\n<p>As you complete levels, \u2018Spots\u2019 open up \u2013 essentially a high score mode limiting you to a single trick combo per stage (you\u2019ll halt the moment you land). Both games also feature the Daily Grind, a one-time opportunity to post a single score to online leaderboards every day.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"OlliOlli: Switch Stance Review - Screenshot 4 of 5\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/94912\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/94912\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"OlliOlli: Switch Stance Review - Screenshot 4 of 5\" \/><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>While the base experience is very similar in both games, the sequel adds a Hollywood film set spin to the worlds you travel through, ditching the pixel aesthetic in favour of a cleaner, simpler style that works well on screens big or small. Personal preference will dictate which you gravitate towards \u2013 we preferred the cleanliness and visual variety of Welcome to Olliwood. Given the choice, we\u2019d prefer to grind on steam trains and oil wells in the Old West or kickflip through a zombie-infested amusement park.<\/p>\n<p>The sequel also throws new tricks into the bargain, with manuals (performed by tapping left or right while landing with \u2018B\u2019) enabling you to string combos together over flat ground, just as you did back in the day in <strong>Tony Hawk\u2019s Pro Skater 2\/3\/4<\/strong>. The original game feels decidedly calmer after you\u2019ve sampled the hectic trick-chaining of the follow-up. The sequel also includes Skate Park, an area to practice specific moves, and Combo-Rush, a local split-screen multiplayer mode that came as a free update for the original release. You can tailor the competition to be either a straight race or score-based, then crack out the Joy-Con and challenge up to three friends. It\u2019s mildly diverting on a TV, but the likelihood that you\u2019ll have three mates proficient enough to make the contest interesting is slim. The screen is split in four even if there\u2019s only two of you, so your screen is <em>minuscule<\/em> in tabletop mode \u2013 it\u2019d be tough to get a tournament going at your rooftop rave, in the park or under the flyover \u2013 all those spots where Nintendo reckons the cool kids hang out.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"OlliOlli: Switch Stance Review - Screenshot 5 of 5\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/94915\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/94915\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"OlliOlli: Switch Stance Review - Screenshot 5 of 5\" \/><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>Oddly, you can\u2019t switch between games without quitting to the Switch\u2019s menu \u2013 no biggie, but a tad irritating. The touchscreen isn&#8217;t used in any capacity, but HD rumble gives some satisfying feedback. Beyond the difficulty, the most off-putting thing about OlliOlli is arguably the smooth chillout that plays in the background. It grows on you, but it\u2019s undeniably repetitive. Maybe we\u2019re simply dinosaurs who associate skating with VHS tapes of hilarious, eye-watering fails, but OlliOlli\u2019s ambient acid jazz didn\u2019t really gel with our constant faceplants. New tracks unlock as you progress and you can skip them by tapping the right stick at any time, but we\u2019d rather fire up a podcast or, better yet, find a Tony Hawk playlist on Spotify (or your streaming platform of choice). We\u2019ve always found digital skating goes down awfully well with a spot of Goldfinger or The Offspring (google it, kids).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"conclusion\">\n<h2 class=\"heading\">Conclusion<\/h2>\n<p>OlliOlli is one of those games you really have to <em>live with<\/em>; perseverance pays dividends, but so does taking a break and coming back in the morning to find muscle memory kicking in. Before you know it you\u2019ll be grinding elegantly and racking up impressive points, but you need to stick with it. With the skateboarding genre largely on hiatus, this is an easy recommendation to newcomers with the patience to master it. This version doesn\u2019t bring anything new to the table if you\u2019ve played it before, but it\u2019s a fine game in fine form on Switch.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Remember OlliOlli? Its addictive 2D take on the trick-combo formula that fuelled the Tony Hawk franchise for a good fifteen years launched on PS Vita back in 2014 and then got ported to pretty much everything else, including Wii U and 3DS. For a game so suited to portable play sessions, it\u2019s taken a remarkably [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nintendo-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81995\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}