Session: Skate Sim Switch review

In September last year, Session: Skate Sim came out of Early Access and was met by mixed reviews. Personally, I found it a difficult game to master, and in the first few hours of playing I was ready to give up. It felt as though some of the most basic tricks were bordering on impossible, and it wasn’t until I practiced relentlessly until I began to get something out of it. Once you were able to pull of the simpler tricks and basics, it opened up into a much more rewarding experience. Session: Skate Sim has now been released on Switch, but has it improved at all?

The good news is yes. Quite substantially, in fact, to the point where the tutorial is vastly different to the one from little over six months ago. It was one of the sticking points for me, and did a good job of making me not want to continue my journey to become a pro skater on the streets of America. Thankfully, this tutorial explains things much clearer, and has clearer prompts on display, especially when learning to manual, which is the bread and butter of pulling off the more complex sequences on a skateboard. Much of what comes afterwards feeds into the freedom on offer in Session: Skateboard Sim on Switch. Learn the ropes, rinse and repeat, then take it to the streets in whatever way you see fit.

Other improvements to cre-ature’s skateboarding simulator are clear from the offset, namely turning on your board. You can still use the triggers to turn left or right, but being able to do so in a more traditional way with the left stick makes everything you do feel natural. It allows you to focus more on balancing on the board and hitting tricks with ease as opposed to cramming so many button prompts which often led to mistakes that could’ve been avoided. There’re still frustrating moments, though. For example, if you don’t jump over a curb, you’re off your board and on your knees. If you clip a small obstacle like a bollard or step you’ll fall on your ass and have to restart.

Unless you’re using the placement mechanic which lets you pick a place to quick start from, you’re put right at the top of a stairs or too close to an obstacle you’re trying to jump onto. It may not sound like much of a hardship, but when you’re trying to get familiar with the mechanics or just wanting to pull of a move, you have to get off your board, run back so you have space to build up speed, and try again. Flying through the air after a simple mistake is more punishing than it needs to be, and I’m not sure this is something that’ll ever be rectified.

Despite these issues, there’s still plenty to love about skating through cities and using everything in the environment as part of your playground. There’re missions for you to undertake, but having the freedom to skate how you want, take on challenging areas to pull off big air moves, and subsequently landing without an epic tumble provides plenty of sighs of relief and moments of satisfaction because you feel as though you’ve earned it. I had much more fun this time around, and it’s down to how the controls feel much tighter now, especially on the Switch.

One area where Session: Skate Sim on Switch falters is in its presentation. The visuals are pretty poor, especially in docked mode. While performance doesn’t particularly suffer, seeing bland textures and popping occur does take away from the experience. It lacks a crisp finish, and looks worse than it did on other platforms. Obviously, Switch doesn’t have the same technical capacities, but it doesn’t mean it can’t look somewhat polished. It’s a shame, really. Even in handheld the visuals suffer, with the lens looking as though it’s plastered with Vaseline.

Despite some weak visuals and gameplay flaws, I still enjoyed playing Session: Skate Sim on Switch. There’s a lot to love about pulling off tricks after spending a while practicing, and staying on the board after jumping through the air down a stairway felt great. The controls are tighter, and being able to turn with the stick is a fantastic change that makes the whole experience better. If you’re looking to jump into Session for the first time, the Switch isn’t a bad choice at all. It’s just a pity it doesn’t look too great, especially when compared to other platforms.