This video is sponsored by Skillshare. Use my link in the description to get a free trial
of Skillshare Premium Membership. I think if there’s one thing I’ve found
myself valuing more recently than at any other point in my life, it’s the comfort of nostalgia.
I know I’m not alone in this either—I think people are just looking for any hint
of a time where it didn’t feel like the world was actively falling apart at such an
alarming rate. For me, this yearning for days past has made itself apparent in the games
I’ve ended up covering for the channel of late—remember when licensed games were full
console releases as opposed to just mobile? Weird how multiple brawlers are releasing
at once that harken back to the more simplistic beat-em-ups of the PS2 and Gamecube era, huh.
Ah, simpler games, simpler times. But weirdly, one of the most intense nostalgic
hits of all—I’m talking real, knock-me-back waves of comfort, warmth, joy—came from
booting up 2020’s Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 Remastered, and bearing witness to that
opening FMV reel showing a bunch of skaters just goddamn shredding. People out doing what
they’re best at purely for the love of it, clearly having a great time pulling off cool
tricks. What sent me back though wasn’t the fuzzy feelings of remembering what it
was like to be outside doing things with friends—it was being rushed back to the Tony Hawk openings
of old and realising just what kind of game I was in for with this remaster.
See, as the series trucked along towards its inevitable demise over the years, you started
to see these titles loaded with all sorts of narrative hooks, or a new aesthetic direction
that featured very little skating or they were trying to demonstrate the myriad new
mechanics they were packing into the game—all needlessly complicating the action that made
the franchise so beloved in the first place. And here we are in 2020 with a bunch of skaters
skating and for some reason, in this day and age, that was enough to send my excitement
through the roof. And yeah, I know Tony Hawk 5’s intro had
a similar vibe but, ya know, that was Robomodo—they made Ride and Shred… among others. This
is Vicarious Visions, the team responsible for what are widely regarded as some of the
most innovative and enjoyable handheld ports ever, establishing over the years their keen
understanding of exactly what exactly makes the series tick, and thinking outside the
box in order to effectively translate that experience wherever it might be played. When
I saw their decision to just show people skating, it felt like a statement of intent about the
simplicity and fun of their approach to this remaster—one that, I’m immensely thankful
to say, they more than follow through on. Seriously, this is that rare kind of experience
that really rejuvinates my love of games. I mean, despite the obvious pedigree of this
particular developer, my misgivings going into this remake were palpable, given the
series’ prolonged mistreatment by those at the helm and hell, the fact that this is
the second remaster of these two games specifically. And yet, Vicarious Visions have really gone
above and beyond to do the seemingly impossible. While, to an outsider, it may just seem simple
to graphically update the older games—and boy have they done so in a way that exudes
a kind of cool confidence—what you find is that it’s often way harder to present
something that looks simple and effortless, than it is to overcomplicate things.
What Vicarious Visions has done instead is pull apart and carefully analyse every aspect
of the series on a level of granularity that’s honestly hard to comprehend; adding exactly
what needed to be added and removing exactly what needed to be removed to do what all the
best remakes do—create the perfect representation of how you remember these games playing, rather
than recreating them exactly as they were. Because, as much time as I spent enthralled
with them as a kid, there’s a reason I don’t often revisit the titles prior to Pro Skater
3. This might sound blasphemous but there’s a comparative sluggishness to the way those
older games control, their frame rates, etc.; issues that just vanish by the time you reach
the PS2 era. Those levels, however, with all their secrets and nooks and crannies, were
just begging to be updated—not merely to a higher graphical standard, but to the smoother
mechanical framework of later titles; where the barrage of new additions allowed players
increasingly unrealistic, but no less fun ways to glide around these areas as efficiently
and creatively as possible. The crucial thing here, though, is that Vicarious
Visions has recognised when those extra mechanics stopped being useful and became pure gimmicks.
Like, why would you ever need to actually get off your board, stealth missions? Get
that outta here—we just want two minute time limits and simple goals to encourage
you to keep moving at all times. Things like Nail-a-Trick and the Natas Spin might look
cool the first time you do them, sure—but what benefit do they actually provide in terms
of forward momentum through a level? Nothing—so, they go. Skitching is potentially helpful
in building speed, but maybe that doesn’t make sense in a game where the levels aren’t
as open or expansive as the titles where the feature was introduced, or where there simply
aren’t many cars. The revert, on the other hand, became an essential
part of the franchise’s identity—it single-handedly facilitated the continuation of vert combos;
it’s crucial to the the flow of gameplay, so it stays. Combine the revert with spine
transfers, for example, and you now have the purest distillation of the series’ moveset
imagineable—giving you exactly what you need to fly through these iconic locations
in a way that you couldn’t in their original form.
The new additions they’ve implemented, such as the glitch effect for bails, might seem
like an odd inclusion initially but actaully allow you to get back up more quickly; to
the point that you can more or less negate a bail’s effect on your momentum if you
time your button mashing correctly. All in it’s zero-fat game design that, upon closer
inspection, ends up going way beyond the broad mechanical strokes of what features they included,
and sees the team drill right down into the more abstract but, simultaneously, perhaps
most important thing to get right in a Tony Hawk game—the ever-elusive “feel”.
If you’ve never played a Pro Skater game before it can be incredibly difficult to articulate,
through footage and words alone, just how make-or-break said feel of the gameplay is.
Just know that the biggest reason the Robomodo efforts to revitalise the series failed as
dramatically as they did, was down to things like a noticeable lack of momentum in your
movement, input lag on ollies, the floatiness of grinds, and so forth. It might look like
Tony Hawk, but Tony Hawk this is not. By comparison, Vicarious Visions really did their homework
here; utilising the code base of the old Neversoft engine and using the smoother, snappier feel
of titles from the PS2 era onwards as their reference points for exactlt how much speed
you build up; precisely how high an ollie should take you; how close you need to be
to a rail to connect via a grind; the need to be able instantly restart a run without
load screens; right down to elements as granular as exactly how much vibration you should feel
upon pulling off a successful revert. It sounds insignificant but what this attention
to detail allows is for you to instantly tap into that muscle memory you’ve built up
over your years with the series, without having to readjust to the less charming quirks that
came with booting up those older titles. Remember what I said about it being harder to present
something simple than to overcomplicate things? This is what I mean; it’s this tightrope,
traversed with such confidence and finesse by the devs, that so solidifies the remake
as a true love letter to the series, while also recognising where things could be improved.
What results is one of the most viscerally enjoyable gameplay experiences I’ve had
in years—at once mechanically intense and totally zen. While soaring through these levels,
I would sometimes find myself snapping out of a kind of trance state to realise that
my fingers have been moving in ways and at speeds that other games simply don’t require,
and I didn’t even notice. Never has complete and total control over every aspect of your
character’s movement felt so relaxing. Let me put it this way—Pro Skater 3 is probably
in my top 3 all-time favourite games and, honestly, this is at least as good as that.
That said, there are… some… issues… I guess? Like, as much as the more agile,
forgiving movement model of the later titles sees Vicarious Visions somehow manage to render
levels like Downhill Jam and Mall… not… totally insufferable (you know, at least you’re
not stuck constantly headed downward—if you miss a goal here you can always just…
turn around and go back), their relative linearity still renders these maps as the wholly vestigial
weak points of the collection they always were.
Further, it’s not so much a problem if you know these levels inside and out already,
but certain goals like “wallride the bells” might become a little frustrating for newcomers
frantically scouring the map, now that the bells in question are more realistically rendered,
to the point that they more seamlessly blend into the environment than their easily distinguishable
pixel-blob predecessors. And god, I’m going to sound like even more
of a nitpicky loser here than I already do but bear with me. When I hit restart in these
games I instinctually hold down the ollie button while I do it in order to get going
as quickly as possible; but here I need to tap it then wait the milisecond for the game
to load then tap it again once play starts—otherwise the skater just kinda floats along aimlessly
for a second or two—and it sounds so, so dumb, I know, but believe it or not I’m
not the only person I’ve talked to who has brought up this issue specifically.
It speaks to just how ingrained the muscle memory of this series is to so many that,
even if you’re providing a more rose-tinted view of the older games, those games were
still incredibly tightly designed; the smallest of details, the most minute of interactions,
matters way more here than it does in other games. That said, of course it shows just
how incredible a job the devs did here that these are the biggest issues I could find
with Pro Skater 1&2—the game made me press a button twice and the bell rendering technology
is almost too good. All told, it’s abundantly clear that Vicarious
Visions’ ability to think outside the box has not dulled in any sense, and neither has
the inherent appeal of the series—this is a game where I 100%-ed both 1&2 within a few
hours of installing the remaster, and yet, despite this being some of the most fun I’ve
had actually writing a piece in months—it comes so naturally to just gush about how
great this whole package is—all I want to do is finish this review so I can get back
to playing it and spending forever trying to ascend the new speedrun leaderboards. I’m
really not kidding when I say that this has revitalised my love of the medium; that this
is my ideal for what games should be; this is the power of games as I see it—that in
what is otherwise such a fucking draining, horrible time, a game like Pro Skater 1&2
Remastered comes along and, just for a short time, washes all of that away—making me
so, so thankful that I simply get to experience it.
And speaking of new experiences, let me tell you about the sponsor of today’s video,
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and I hope you all enjoyed this piece on Tony Hawk Pro Skater!
As always I’d like to sincerely thank my patrons here—I can’t emphasise enough
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you all next time.