If you love skating then chances are that your favorite games would be perhaps Skate or the more accessible Tony Hawks Pro Skating franchise. Both of these franchises have long served the skating community with titles that we still remember today. However, the skating crown might be in trouble from these franchises as a new contender Session by crea-ture Studios and NACON is currently in development and this title packs immense potential as it skips the arcade mode and switched to hardcore skating simulation. This is our preview of the Game Preview release of Session on Xbox Series X in which we break some teeth and perform some cool tricks.
Session is set in a skating-only version of New York City which has various districts and areas that you can visit via Bus Stops. Considering the fact that it is a hardcore skating sim, it still comes with various gameplay options to choose from which range from Assisted to Hardcore and Legacy for players who want only the most authentic virtual skateboarding experience. For starting, you get to choose one character from five pre-built options, and then you select your stance between Regular or Goofy. Moveset are different for both stances however the game details them very well later on.
Your main challenge with Session is to understand how its controls work and to master them and even tougher to press the required buttons on time to successfully execute different tricks. In Session, you control each of your feet with the two joysticks which means that the left joystick controls your left joystick, and the right joystick controls your right foot and when you switch the board around, this becomes reverse. For turning, you have to use LT and RT and the remaining keys are used for various tricks and moves that I cannot even remember at this point. Your main goal here is to master the controls which sound really technical and if you are actually playing the game, they still are technical.
For even the most basic moves such as a basic grind on a rail, you have to push the correct joystick in the correct order depending on which foot is ahead and which foot is behind. Take this up a notch and your brain start to melt as you try to land some advanced moves and tricks in the game. This is made worse by the fact that when you are on your board, the camera drops down to focus on your board but in return, you cannot really judge how accurately you land on rails or other surfaces for tricks.
Give the controls a fair amount of time to sit in your brain and then you can start getting somewhere. Considering this is a Game Preview release at this point, the whole map is riddled with various glitches here and there. Probably the most annoying one is when your skateboard keeps getting stuck in the ground in what looks like a perfectly smooth and not blocked at all piece of land. This is more frustrating than the difficult controls but considering the fact that you have a large amount of space on varied surfaces, this was probably expected in the game preview release.
Now coming to the good bit of the gameplay, Session offers you tons of skating moves at your disposal which come in normal mode along with special variants during the inverted or what the game calls Goofy mode. You can find the lists in the Options menu where you can start to learn the most basic tricks and then work your way towards the most advanced ones. My trick? Take snapshots and print them out. If you are planning on getting in Session, do this and you will thank me later. The combos are certainly not that hard to remember but since there are so many to remember, it is better to have them at your side in hard form.
Each of these combos can be performed with a combo of keys however you need to be in the right stance and the right place. This is what sets Session apart from the regular skating game. It treats every trick like you are learning in real life so you will need a few tries (and broken teeth) to master the tricks. Part of being good at Session requires you to master a couple of decent and advanced tricks and you will be golden. The game does have a story and it begins with a tutorial although I cannot remember how much time it took me to clear the tutorial since I was having trouble with the camera, and I would always land on the left or the right side of a rail instead of on top of it. The camera needs tweaking and polishing as well to give a good view of where we are going and where we want to go next. I love that it starts to follow your torso when you jump on your board but this is not an optimal view for landing tricks.
You have the whole map open to you right from the start of the game and you can explore the New York city-inspired setting where the whole city is just a massive skating park with grind rails and stairs everywhere. You can meet and interact with different NPCs for the main story and even visit the in-game shop for purchasing new clothes for your skater or upgrades for your board. For your board, you can purchase new trucks, wheels, grip tapes, risers, and custom paint jobs. You purchase all of this new stuff with money and experience that you earn from completing story missions.
If you want to kick back after a busy session or just want to relax until your teeth grow back, you can chill out in your own apartment which comes with various amenities on its own. You can also take part in various Challenges which range from Daily, Weekly, and Historical. Since you are free to explore the entire map, you will find the Historical challenges hidden around New York City so you can try to complete them for some exclusive unlocks. Daily and Weekly challenges change however they are a good source of money and experience so you can look forward to them as well.
Another thing I liked about Session is that you can purchase and put down DIY trick accessories in the map as well. You can visit the shop and purchase ramps and rails and place them down in the game where you see fit for your own customized skating areas. You can switch up the challenge by creating trick places that are an absolute nightmare for skaters or you can go easy and create your ultimate zen-skate park. There is not much to place at this point, but I am really looking forward to the expansion and improvement of this particular feature of the game.
Session is currently in Game Preview on Xbox and has been in Steam Early Access for a long time but even with that, I think that the game still requires a lot of work before you can actually start enjoying it on your console. My main concern is with the pavement design and how your skate responds to it. The ‘invisible’ walls on the ground need to be worked on since the skateboard gets stuck in random places a lot and once they are gone, you can truly start to appreciate the skating potential of Session. Session packs a lot of potential but it also seems too mature for its own good sometimes. The developer is aiming for a title that will put all skating titles to shame, but the trick is that they have to deliver first.
Currently, Session is receiving regular updates and with each update, you can see that the studio is making the game better and better but there is still a long way to go before this game can be released fully. I really hope that crea-ture Studios and NACON manage to deliver a product that manages to reach its full potential. Having an Online mode where other skaters could join your world and you can skate around with your friends would be really good as well. At this point, you may or may not enjoy playing the game because while everything is there, it is not polished much, and the physics needs plenty of work. I will definitely check out the title once the full version is released however, for now, it will sit in my library as it is waiting for more updates and refinement.
