Review: OlliOlli Switch Stance

Kickflippin’ Good!

Title: OlliOlli Switch Stance
Platform: Switch (Reviewed)
Developer: Roll7, General Arcade
Publisher: Roll 7, Gambitious
Price: Â£13.50/$15
Release date: February 14, 2019
TL;DR: Two games wrapped in a bundle of technical 2D skating madness!
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Back in the late 90s everyone I knew was obsessed with skating in some form or another, whether that was actually skating, video games, watching VHS tapes or if you were lucky DVDs. I was generally shit at actual skating, so I played Tony Hawks Pro Skater 2 but unfortunately, that time came to end and after the PS2 era, skating games slowly got phased out…

OlliOlli Switch Stance is a bundle of the two games in the franchise. Switch Stance is a revival of the skating genre but within in the 2D plain that tricks you into thinking it’ll be fairly simple but it is far from easy, it’s incredibly technical and takes a while to master.

OlliOlli has you creating a chain of combos using only the left analog stick and pressing the B button to bend your knees land a perfect trick making it feel more like a rhythm game as you time the tricks into grinding and hopping off that rail or curb to flex your knees at the right time to land a bunch of gnarly tricks!

The second game, OlliOlli 2 Welcome to Olliwood adds manuals and reverts. Just like in the later Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater titles this was a game changer. The expanded gameplay allows you to add more variety to your combos as you string tricks together without rails or curbs. You become a symphony of flips, nollies, noseslides and manuals, well, you do after falling over a lot to begin with.

The unforgiving nature may put a few of you off the ride of OlliOlli but damn do you feel good when you throw together something Rodney Mullen would be proud of! (Rodney Mullen is a master of manuals.) It’s definitely a game that’ll challenge your patience at times, but it really is worth sticking it out.

The graphical style of OlliOlli Switch Stance is an explosion of pixel art beauty especially in the second game which oozes variety with its stage variation filled with streets filled with burning neon signs, gorgeous theme parks and robots, I mean this is Olliwood after all!

Meanwhile, OlliOlli is rather drab in comparison which is fine, I guess, less distraction but the stages begin to feel rather samey after a while with the same kind of stage layout, whilst Olliwood has rollercoaster tracks you make your way across or kickflipping up and over a robot! You can tell I’m assumed by the simple things in life.

The soundtrack for these games is an incredible techno chiptune that just flows with the game harmoniously. I thought I’d outgrown all the chiptune music but dude! It just made me pine for the simple days of school and college. It reminded me of Anamanaguchi especially their soundtrack for the arcade style game for Scott Pilgrim back on PS3 and Xbox 360 just a real feel-good soundtrack to help you bop along.

At the end of the day, OlliOlli Switch Stance is the perfect game for the Switch much like the Vita before it as you can take this game on the go and improve yourself on the train, the bus or even whilst relieving yourself after a big dinner. Switch Stance can be played anywhere you like even on your TV thanks to the beauty of the Nintendo Switch.

Overall, OlliOlli Switch Stance is an incredible bundle for an incredible price as you could use the original game to get used to the core mechanics then once you’re done with that you’ve got a second game to learn a bunch of new mechanics to help make those combos and score fly through the roof! And remember if you’re not satisfied with how your combo is turning out you always quick reset using the X button.