Skate Bums - Switch Review
"Reminds me of old Flash games you’d play in the early 2000s"
Skate culture really is such a vibe, you know? The freedom of rolling out on your board, feeling the wind in your hair, and the punk-like “stick it to the man” attitude. Those were the days… Oh sorry, you caught me mid-nostalgic flashback. Given to us from the fine folks over at Lucky Last Studio, Skate Bums aims to capture that nostalgic feeling of skateboarding in the 80s-90s.
The Good
Skate Bums is an auto-scrolling platformer with an interesting control scheme. All of your tricks are performed by flicking the left stick in different directions, while grinding on rails is performed with the B button. It took a bit to get used to, but once it clicked for me, it felt smooth like butter, making the platforming very fun and rewarding and giving you that “just one more level” feeling.
The art style in Skate Bums is a very charming mix of solid colours and cartoony exaggeration with just enough detail to flesh out characters and environments. It's very reminiscent of the competitive parkour racing game Speedrunners.
Completing challenges and finding collectables rewards you with money, which you can spend on clothes, outfits and new skateboard designs for the protagonist, Lux. There is an arrangement of different styles you can choose from, letting you customise her look to your heart's content.
TL;DR
- Quick and snappy gameplay
- Charming style
- Robust character customisation options
The Bad
Overall, Skate Bums really doesn’t have a lot of content in it. Yeah, it has about sixty or so levels, which seems like a lot, but they are very short and require you to repeat multiple times to find all of the collectables. It's a strange feeling playing a game that feels too short and very repetitive at the same time; it feels like these things shouldn't co-exist in the same game, but here we are.
The main thing stopping you from burning through the game, though, is its collectable requirements. Skate Bums has the same problem Banjo & Kazooie had, where requirements to access new levels are so high, you might as well just collect everything and go for 100% completion. For example, in the first area I collected every star on each level and had a total of 55 stars; to gain entry to the next area I needed at least 50.
While there aren’t a lot of cutscenes in Skate Bums, what little they do have is fully voice acted. That being said, it is very noticeable that each actor recorded their lines separately, possibly in completely different buildings and recording setups, with little to no voice direction. Most characters are at least fine but the protagonist Lux is very noticeably flat and sounds bored at times.
TL;DR
- Very little gameplay
- Strict progression requirements
- Poor voice acting quality
Final Score: 5/10
Skate Bums reminds me of old Flash games you’d play in the early 2000s while at school; it’s simple and charming yet not all that deep or engaging, but you didn’t care because at least you weren’t doing schoolwork.
Thank you for checking out our Skate Bums Switch review, thank you to Lucky Last Studio for providing the review code and thank you to our Patreon Backers for their ongoing support:
- Andrew Caluzzi (Inca Studios / Camped Out)
- Bel Cubitt
- Bobby Jack
- Jack Caven
- Nintendo Maniacs
- RedHero