izigame.me

It's almost like the DCS of skateboarding games. MASSIVE learning curve after almost twenty #$#&!!@ years of steering with left stick, ollie/trick with buttons or left stick. However it is proportionally as rewarding as it is challenging. Once you get the hang of it it's not so bad. I feel like any reviews talking about how shitty the controls are just couldn't wrap their brains around input layout changes and having to form new memory pathways. Also, my money is on them playing with the default settings and *still* complaining about it.
Try it on manual board catch, endless spin/scoop. It's fucking HARD yeah, but omg is it fun and rewarding when you get it. It's just like skateboarding. People aren't pulling off 540 body varial laser flips into backside noseblunts on the regular. That is going to take you try after try after try to land.
I'll find myself skating around - and there's a TON of maps to choose from included (DLC is okay - nothing spectacular but I got it anyway bc maps.) and finding a rail, ledge, gap, stair set, or line I want to do and try for the silkiest kickflip to bs tailside or just one stylish af crooked grind down an impressive feature. It's just relaxing and fun. It can be frustrating, but only if you let your emotions control you.
The story is.... a feature. I guess. It's not bad per se. But it's not great, either. It does however alleviate the itch when you need something defined to be completed. It will also open up new cosmetics and props as you gain xp and skrilla. Which is nice.
The tutorial I found to be tedious and too slow. I made it as far as the fifth lesson maybe before I exited and said "I got the basics. I'll figure the rest out." Aaaaand I did. But it was A LOT of failure until I could do things somewhat competently. Flip tricks are easy to get the hang of. Catching the board can be hard to learn but man is it great! Grinds are taking me longer to learn. I have everything on the higher difficulty/manual settings so that's part of it, but even before turning those on I was still floundering for the first hour or two.
There's some glitches here and there. You'll go all limp sometimes like one of those toys where you press the underside of the platform and the figurine collapses because you put slack into the strings holding the pieces tight and keeping it upright. Some minor clipping here and there. Nothing that makes it unplayable. I can't imagine the coding that had to go into all this so I'm more than willing to overlook some imperfections; especially with only six devs. Even the most polished AAA games will have their bugs and glitches so don't hold this to some unreasonable standard there as bleed-over rage from your brain too fried from low nutritional value, fast-food gaming to learn something new and that offers a sizeable challenge.
I read somewhere where someone called "The Dark Souls of skateboarding games" and that's pretty accurate.
This game is a delayed gratification type of game.If you put the time into learning things, you'll be rewarded for it.