I refused to move on until I finished in one, long combo. But from then on, I was doomed to attempt it on every level, thus my progress was slow.
The first time I completed a level in one long combo, I danced around the room for a full minute. Not to mention that challenges included in each level, leaderboards, rivals and multiplayer. This sense of “gaming on the edge of your seat” is what keeps you coming back to OlliOlli World again and again. And just as you get your balance again and there’s no threat of the stack coming down, another dish gets added and you start the disaster ballet all over again. It unbalances everything you’ve just steadied and it takes you a second to adjust for the new thing. Then, you add a new mechanic and another dish is stacked on top. They sway left and right and threaten to topple over, but you just manage to keep them upright. When you begin, learning OlliOlli World feels like balancing a stack of dishes. Each new level builds upon the previous one, adding new mechanics and elements. My hands-on (on PS5) was limited to the first few biomes of OlliOlli World which saw me tasked with becoming the new Skate Wizard, meeting the Skate Gods and unlocking Gnarvana. It really is an example of a flawless marriage of gameplay, visuals and sound. It’s easy to pick up and play but takes dedication to master yet is forgiving enough that you’ll not get discouraged by failure. It’s fast and fluid and feels great to play. Now, it feels like an arcade game, a platformer, a puzzle game and an endless runner all at the same time. OlliOlli World is still a side-scrolling skateboarding game, but it’s been elevated. It’s as though Roll7 studied Nintendo’s best work and used that to create a skateboarding version of Super Mario.
The way in which levels are designed to both guide and challenge the player simultaneously, the visuals, that provide subtle clues about the gameplay and the very flow of that same gameplay. The spirit of Nintendo’s platformer lives in OlliOlli World. It’s not just naming conventions and UI/UX elements though. Not only do we get the classic overworld, level select, secret missions and additional paths, OlliOlli World also includes a special, otherworldly place known as Gnarvana…remember the Special World on Super Mario World? With levels like Mondo, Tubular, Gnarly and the like? OlliOlli World PreviewĪside from being a handy shorthand when describing the OlliOlli World, Super Mario World appears to have been a huge influence on developer Roll7 when creating the game.
I’m not sure if it’s the new focus on world-building and story or the tweaked gameplay mechanics or a combination but I do know that once I picked up OllliOlli World, I struggled to put it back down. And most importantly of all, OlliOlli World is an outrageously good time. A quantum leap forward, built of the incredible foundation of what came before. OlliOlli World is to OlliOlli, what Super Mario World is to Super Mario Bros. Instead of a simple, vanilla level select, OlliOlli World includes an animated overworld, complete with bizarre characters, living ice-creams and more. Gone are the flat, 2D levels, replaced by gorgeous, throbbing and living works of 2.5D art. Gone are the 2D pixellated visuals and in their place a vibrant, Pendleton Ward-esque fever dream of colour and wonder. The successor to both OlliOlli and OlliOlli 2, OlliOlli World takes the franchise in a radical new direction literally and figuratively. OlliOlli World is about as good as it gets.