Celestial skateboarding, a deal with the Devil, and giant philosophizing heads? Skate Story is far from your everyday action sports tale, which you’ll be finding out soon enough when it flips onto PS5 December 8 as a PlayStation Plus Game Catalog day one release.*
I got the chance to speed deeper into the underworld with the complete version of Sam Eng’s striking adventure, and shine a light on what it means to be a strange looking demon in the pursuit of eating the Moon.
Slick tricks with a story
So, you’re a skateboarding demon made of glass and pain. And that pain is only highlighted by the sleepless torment partly caused by the Moon’s brightness. Hungry and tired, the nameless demon aims to consume the pale planetoid, but the only way they can reach it is via a skateboard granted by the Devil… for a price.
After an intense introduction to the basics and skating into an unusual Lyceum full of giant stone heads pondering the meaning of life, Skate Story opens up into a wider adventure that dramatically goes beyond the first steps of the demon’s cosmos shaking quest.
Wisely, the game eases you into the vast number of moves at your disposal. I started off with a basic power slide by holding the square button, and ollie by holding down the circle button, but by the time I reached the end of the Lyceum I was brimming with techniques.
In fact, the very first boss fight acts as a trick tutorial, as you’re taught how to combine the L buttons with the circle button to pull off stunts like a Pop Shuvit, Heelflip, and Front Pop. However, there’s a catch.
Mix up your skills against bosses
For the most part you’ll be skating across large, open environments, or fast and narrow lanes, leaping over obstacles, jumping through gates to close disapproving disembodied white eyes, and completing hilarious and bizarre tasks, which I’ll get to in a moment. But when it comes to your skating ability, you will be judged.
It’s not enough to use the same move over and over. A combo meter tracks which tricks you’re performing, and it’ll only grow quickly if you change up your flips. You can also pick up extra points for releasing your jumps at a sweet spot, giving you a timing bonus. Crash or bump, and the meter drops back to zero.
This is all essential in the boss battles, where the only way to deal meaningful damage is to skate fast and pop a variety of tricks to build a combo, then pressing the square button in mid-air before landing to perform a devastating stomp. The higher the combo chain, the heavier the damage, so risking it all for meaningful attacks feels fun and frantic.
One particular boss fight was a mixture of everything I’d learned so far in the game, putting me on a cosmic chase through a constantly moving track where I needed to perform tricks while jumping over obstructions and attacks, making sure I stomped each time to deal damage before my demon was turned into shards.
Strange souls and chasing the Devil’s pants
Going back to the missions, Skate Story manages to mix things up to keep my demon on their glass toes. Many required me to use my skateboard to jump over placements like manholes, spin through environmental elements like the spindly soulflowers, or grind across a set number of surfaces.
The underworld is also littered with imaginative characters needing assistance, with floating skulls, a pillowy demon and a giant frog just a small selection of the bizarre souls that I encountered.
In one stage, a large talking trash bag asked if I could help it by taking down a smelly monolith it had taken a dislike towards. Another objective had me chasing the Devil’s clothes which had sprung to life and were trying to escape being dried after a wash. Skate Story’s sense of humour was a constant surprise and always kept the narrative lively.
Make the board yours
Accompanied by Rabbie the ghostly rabbit, you’re granted a shapeless soul space which acts as a hub that bridges each story chapter, but also gives you the opportunity to customize your skateboard. The soul currency you pick up by performing stunts can be used to purchase wheels, stickers and more at gift shops.
The devil is in the details
With its oddly endearing millipede train, the shattered remains of your skater’s failed attempts littering the environment, and a versatile soundtrack which slides from melancholic horns to funky bass-heavy electronica, Skate Story is full of nice touches.
A few times I was distracted by the DualSense wireless controller’s light bar to see how it was going to reflect the on-screen environment. While the demon’s skateboard itself told a tale of my journey, showing scrapes, nicks and wear influenced by my choices (and accidents), especially around the board’s tail ends due to my overenthusiastic grinding.
It was an experience which left me wanting to see where this celestial journey would take me next.
Intrigued? You’ll be craving the moon soon enough on December 8, when Skate Story grinds its way onto PS5 and the PlayStation Plus Game Catalog.
*PlayStation Plus Game Catalog available with Extra and Premium memberships.
