Skate City Review: Kick, Push; How Do I Coast?

What Skate City offers is a side scrolling Zen-like experience of a skater. Agens’ delivers a simplistic entry level approach to the genre coupled with a can-do mentality and constant sense of fulfillment. However, this sense of fulfillment falls solely on the player as the game doesn’t introduce hardly anything to you. Skate City offers plenty of aspects to aid the player in progressing, but doesn’t teach you how to navigate or properly use them leaving a slightly disjointed feel at the end of the day.

Presentation

Skate City is what I call R&B Zen. The tracks are absolutely where they belong. That, coupled with the chill vibes and rain tones continues throughout. The game’s menus and minimal art style are in a sort of Polaroid aesthetic that really supports its type of play. Agens knows their vision, and they portray it effectively.

Gameplay

You start in LA as a plain Jane skater. LA is one of three locations you can unlock using your in-game currency. The other remaining locations are Oslo and Barcelona. The moment to moment gameplay in this side scrolling skater is heavily challenge based. In fact, challenges and free mode are the only modes to choose from. Each location offers twenty-one challenges to be completed with a one to three star rating giving the player more in game currency per star.

For a novice to the genre like myself, I was pleasantly surprised by how quickly I completed the first fifteen to twenty challenges. The tricks and skill involved to complete them seem very entry level. The controls, while simplistic, are pretty enjoyable. The bulk of these controls are simply flicking the analog stick to initiate jumps or grinds while adding flare to them with triggers if you so desire or the challenge demands it. Skate City's entry level feel aided my experience and introduction to the genre, and its place in said genre could be very important acting as a sort of gateway. However, I can see seasoned veterans finding the game a bit too easy as I was able to breeze through it fairly well.

Even when you fail, which I did often, it's almost never a sense of dread that befalls you. You quickly respawn and maintain a can-do attitude as the feeling that you just about have it persists. A sense of accomplishment in moments of failure isn’t something to overstate and I think it's a testament to the games’ minimal approach both stylistically and mechanically.

Can-do attitude aside, the game teaches you literally nothing. When you boot the game up you are greeted by a quick tutorial teaching you merely the basics; how to go, jump, grind, etc. However, the game has a trick guide in its menus, a shop to buy upgrades, special tricks, and cosmetics, and even a skater creator tool. Not a single one of these things I just listed are shown to you. I skated for about an hour before I discovered I could edit and improve my skater, and on top of that I totally spent all of my currency unlocking the locations as I thought that was the only thing I needed it for initially.

I can’t help but feel my personal route or journey while playing Skate City hurt my overall impression of the game as it was definitely not an advantageous one to take. I unlocked the locations first, leaving me with next to nothing to buy once I discovered the other facets of spending currency. This led to a huge increase in difficulty once I got over the hump. My impression of this game and the route I took could have easily been swayed if I had only been introduced to the game's systems for a mere few seconds. Since I was not, I played the way I played and my experience suffered.

The lack of introducing systems to the player is just one moment of disconnect for me personally. Another came in the form of how certain challenges were framed. For instance, a challenge would ask you to start out doing three kickflips over gaps. Simple enough, right? Well, this specific challenge was placed in a location that has hardly any gaps at all and you can’t really go back.

Yet another facet that wasn’t introduced to you are photo shoots. When in free mode you can start a photo shoot and earn currency by how well you follow the hints given to you by sponsors when submitting them. You are rated on a five star scale and given currency for each star earned. Photo shoots are a nice way to earn easy currency and could have been another aspect that aided the route I took if only I had known.

Breakdown

Game: Skate City

Developer: Agens

Availability: Apple Arcade, Switch, Xbox One/S/X, PS4/5, PC/Steam/Epic

Reviewed on Nintendo Switch

Runtime: Around 4 hours

Pros: 

+ Entry-level skill

+ R&B Zen

+ Can-do gameplay loop

Cons:

- Disconnect between player and game

Final Thoughts

The disconnects Skate City glosses over aside, the game does a lot right. The game is constantly filled with R&B music that compliments its Zen-like style of play. The games’ simplistic feel is extremely welcoming and pairs well with its entry level skill set and can-do attitude when dealing with failure. That said, these disconnects could have easily been avoided with just a little more consideration for the player. Overall, Skate City has everything it needs to succeed, you just need to know how to find it.

Reviewed by Austin Ernst