An Achievement in Failure
It is a rare occurrence for a game to so thoroughly miss the mark. Not only on a long standing, well established franchise but also on their own misguided vision. The latest and perhaps final entry in the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series is a return to the objective based arcade skating it was known for after a brief diversion towards the peripheral based, functionally questionable Ride and Shred. Choose one of a handful of real life skaters wearing sponsor branded clothing and boards, pick a level and you're ready to trick your way to high scores and killer combos. At least that's the gameplay used to work but developers Robomodo decided to shake things up to try and update the formula for modern consoles.
If you've played any Tony Hawk games recently you may notice that the core feel of the skating is very similar to Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD, also developed by Robomodo. Another game billed as a return to the series roots, and I feel the same way about 5 as I did about HD. Something isn't quite right. There is a surprising but welcome consistency between most of the games in the franchise that delivers a responsive experience grinding rails and popping off tricks in quick succession. Coming from a different developer than the originals you would expect it to feel different but it is no more satisfying here than in there last venture. Worse, perhaps, is the inclusion of the 'slam' technique which uses the same button as grind and allows you to drop while in the air. The effects of this to the flow of gameplay is severe, as I found myself slamming out of the air short of rails when I pressed the button to prepare the grind. Traditionally I wouldn't experience this kind of frustration unless I bailed part way through a 5 million point combo, but moans of anguish came to me frequently as I discovered how poorly executed each facet of the game was, extending even to the levels.
Rather than jumping right in to the action levels now act as hubs for multiplayer lobbies where a number of other real life players can be seen skating around. This might have been effective at recreating the feeling of being at an actual park with other skaters in contrast to the usual solitary experience of skateboarding videogames, except for the fact that the game clearly cannot handle the ambitions of the developers which becomes immediately obvious when all the other skaters randomly fly and glitch their way up ramps and across rails. Not content with resembling some kind of surreal contortionist act, this new lobby system also hampers the functionality of the game right to its core and may in fact be the largest problem with the game. Even as a ostensibly 'single player' game you are forced to connect to multiplayer lobbies upon loading a level, navigate the level to find a mission marker which starts a goal that then sends you to another loading screen as it dumps you in to an instanced version of the same level you were just loaded in to but without all the other players. Between each attempt and each discreet objective you are required to go through this loop of loading screens, destroying the fast paced arcade feeling of the original games. I still have the muscle memory in place for hitting retry on THPS3 the moment I bailed in order to retry the level, only made possible by the almost instant loading that games such as Super Meat Boy get right.
This, along with several other questionable design decisions make you wonder whether the developers understood what made the series so successful at what it did, or maybe they were incapable of executing on it. Regardless of intent or execution the game and marketing wear the facade of 'classic tony hawk', a tactic so many returning franchises use but it is superficial at best and deceptive at worst. This extends to the unfortunately small pool of levels, which in number, design and scope make the game feel more low budget than the big budget release price would indicate. Previous games have taken the approach of a 'world tour' of levels, while also including gimmicks such as a cruise ship. In that regard THPS5 is faithful to its roots but while the ramps and rails are all present and accounted for I struggled to find strength in the lines for combos created by the layout. A handful of level specific powerups are included to add some variation to your abilities but end up feeling rather out of place in this sterile environment.
Surrounding the unsuccessful and sometimes downright awful core components of the game are features such as a park creator, a punishingly slow progression system that allows you to spend earned cash and various other minor features which all have their own individual problems that may be worth explaining were the game not so flawed to begin with. It is the ghost of a game burdened with enough poor design decisions and terrible execution to make the final product something that I cannot recommend to anybody for any price. I can't explain why, but I got the platinum trophy during my time with this game. I had to see what this game was, and in doing so I kept going until I felt like I would be doing the world a service. Wallowing in the darkness so you don't have to. Let my experience be a warning. There is nothing for you here but a barren wasteland of half pipes and janky skater models.
