OlliOlli: Switch Stance review for Nintendo Switch

OlliOlli: Switch Stance comes at a nice time for me. After all, as much as I loved both OlliOlli and its sequel back when they first came out, I?d be lying if I said that I?d given either of them much thought at any point in the past several years. Getting a chance to play them again (albeit on a different system) offers a good chance to see whether they live up to my very fond memories.

Unsurprisingly, they do. I remember them both as being fairly challenging, super-addictive endless skating games (which is to say, like an endless runner, but on a skateboard), and…well, that?s exactly what they are. Both OlliOlli and OlliOlli 2 are the kinds of games that are easy enough to pick up, but that require some impressive thumb dexterity if you want to master them at any kind of higher level. That was true when they first released, and it?s just as true now that the games are on the Switch.

That said — and as a long-term resident of Vita Island, it pains me to admit this — the game works much better with even the slightly larger thumbsticks the Switch offers. I never played the game after it got ported from the Vita to pretty much every other platform under the sun, so you can understand my surprise to learn that all the moves are significantly easier to pull off when you?ve got a larger controller to work with. It doesn?t make the game a breeze or anything, but it does mean that the game doesn?t feel nearly as impossible as it did when I last played it. (I imagine everyone who played the game on PS4, PS3, and Xbox One already knew this.)

Of course, as great as OlliOlli: Switch Stance is, because it?s already been ported everywhere else, there?s the question of whether it?s worth checking out again now, a couple of years after the fact. And on the one hand, it?s hard to say that the answer to that question is yes. There?s nothing new about this version, so if you had your fill of OlliOlli and OlliOlli 2 when they first came out, there?s nothing here that?s going to bring you back in.

On the other hand, though, both of those games were top-notch when they were originally released, and that describes them just as well today. OlliOlli: Switch Stance isn?t going to make you rethink anything you thought about them first time around — but if you thought they were great games back then, this package will serve as a nice reminder that they?re every bit as good as you may remember.

Gambitious provided us with an OlliOlli: Switch Stance Switch code for review purposes.