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dkirschner's Skate Story (PS5)

[August 14, 2026 05:18:17 PM]

The story, music, art, and general vibe were immediately cool as hell (ha…because the game takes place in hell). The story becomes less “cool” and more absurd and surreal over time, but I liked it. I read somewhere that Skate Story is mostly a vehicle for having an audiovisual experience. I agree with that. I typically don’t care for skateboarding games. They have to do something besides “just” skateboarding (or BMXing or snowboarding, etc.). More than just tricks and racking up combos.

And so here we have a skater (named “the Skater”) who is made of glass and pain, who signs a contract with the devil to get his soul back. To do so, the Skater must eat the moon. He does that, then finds out there are many moons leading through the depths of hell, whereupon reaching the bottom with a full stomach, the devil will prepare a banquet and discuss the terms of the contract. So, you progress through the game’s chapters as you eat one moon after another. Eating a moon involves waking up in a new part of hell, talking with your rabbit friend and meeting other strange characters, learning of the moon’s location, skating around an “open” part of the level, usually solving some little puzzles to open paths or move the story forward, doing some “portal” sections that are almost like races (sometimes timed), and then one or two “battles”, the final one usually against some moon guardian or area denizen.

My favorite of these activities at first were the portals because you get to skate fast, avoid obstacles, and sometimes race against the clock. As the tracks become more complex though, these became less fun. Since you are made of glass, you can imagine how many obstacles you can run into before you shatter. As the open parts of the levels became more creative and complex, though, they became more fun, so I ended up really enjoying skating around the levels, talking to characters, doing tricks on the environment, finding little things to do, solving the little puzzles, seeing the bizarre scenery, and so on.

The battles, though, are the shining stars. How do you fight in a skateboarding game? You build combos and then land a “finisher” to “hit” the enemy with your combo. This is cleverly handled by visualizing the enemy’s hitbox with light. For example, usually what happens is the enemy is floating/flying around. Beneath the enemy is a field of light. This is where you have to do a combo finisher to damage it. So, you can skate around racking up combo points, but you need to be near, or get near, the light before your combo expires or you crash or whatever (and lose your points) so that you can do a finisher in the light. This was challenging and fun.

The whole time you are fighting these bosses, there is blood-pumping electronic music playing. The soundtrack is excellent and fits the surreal visuals. So, when you’re fighting a giant centipede, the visuals are pulsing and neon and glass, the bass is thumping, it’s mesmerizing. The soundtrack picks up at other times, too, but the boss battles are where it really shines.

So, this was a nice surprise. I thought I would like it, but it was cooler than I thought, weirder than I thought, and it certainly was an audiovisual treat.