Skate Story review – Eat the moon

Skate your way to the moon and then eat it: that’s all that’s required for you to leave the underworld as per the contract you’ve made with the Devil in Skate Story. But of course, you should always read the small print. You see, it actually turns out there’s more than one moon you need to eat. Also, you’ve been turned into glass, making all those times you mess up and fall off your skateboard extra painful. Ouch.

As you make your way through Skate Story, from solo developer Sam Eng, you’ll find countless other obstacles standing in the way of your task, too. You might need to clean the Devil’s clothes, for example, or get your hands on a particularly rare and valuable gem for a devious penguin. All can be achieved by skating, of course, but unless you’ve got some neat tricks up your sleeve, you might find yourself struggling.

Skate Story feels like a Suda51 game in many ways. For one, it has a surreal and unique visual style. Then there’s the fact that its story is absolutely crazy. It has a fantastic soundtrack to go along with its action, too. And then finally there’s the gameplay, which is quirky but rather rough around the edges. Overall, it makes for an endearing game – and some will absolutely love it – but might also rub some people up the wrong way.

Being a skateboarding adventure rather than a straight-up sports game like Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, there’s a mix of gameplay sequences here. There are times when you’re making your way through linear environments, simply using your skateboarding skills to jump over gaps and avoid obstacles. Then there are open areas where you’re free to show off your skateboarding skills a little more, and are tasked with completing missions such as collecting letters, chasing down items of clothing and more.

There are many sections here where you’re effectively engaged in combat, too. You need to defeat each moon you encounter in Skate Story before you can consume them, for example, and to do so you need to build up your combo meter before ending it with a stomp, doing damage which correlates to its score. You’re often placed under a time limit for these bouts of combat, as well, putting more pressure on you.

There’s a decent bit of gameplay variety in Skate Story, then. And alongside its ridiculous narrative, it attempts to keep you invested in the action. But you’re likely to frequently encounter frustrations that might make you pull away a little. I can’t help but feel like its controls are overly fiddly, for example, making performing impressive combos more troublesome than it should be. The camera feels like it works against you at times, too.

The level design in Skate Story isn’t all that refined, either, with many areas simply feeling a little too chaotic for a fun skateboarding experience. And while the game’s dark and moody visual style is genuinely a boon, it does mean that some obstacles are a little harder to make out than they should be. Many times you’ll fall off your board and it really won’t feel like it’s your fault at all.

Still, the good easily outweighs the bad here, and so you should definitely give Skate Story a chance if you find it appealing. And some of its frustrations can, and probably will, be overcome with continued play. It’s just a shame that a little more thought hasn’t been put into the construction of some of its environments to make them a little more fun to skate around, and that it hasn’t been on the receiving end of a tad more polish.