SkateBIRD

 Switch
Metascore
54

Mixed or average reviews - based on 20 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3 out of 20
  2. Mixed: 13 out of 20
  3. Negative: 4 out of 20
  1. Switch Player
    Oct 4, 2021
    40
    Humorous dialogue and bird customisation don’t do enough to stop SkateBIRD from falling far down the pecking order of skateboarding games available on Switch, with boring levels and controls that are janky and frustrating at best.
  2. Digitally Downloaded
    Sep 21, 2021
    20
    I’m glad that I played SkateBIRD, and it hurts that I’ve had to give it this score. I firmly believe that as games are an art form, game developers should be trying things, even if they don’t ultimately succeed. SkateBIRD is a brilliant idea and it takes a big, heaving swing at it. Sadly, though, it’s a strikeout. However, with that being said, if the developers get another innings, I would play a SkateBIRD 2 without a moment's hesitation, and I would fully expect that the developers would deliver having had this experience.
  3. TouchArcade
    Sep 21, 2021
    40
    You can have a great concept, nice visuals, and plenty of novelty, but it’s all for naught if the game doesn’t feel good to play. Unfortunately, SkateBIRD has a lot of issues in that regard. The physics lack weight, which I can forgive to an extent because they are birds. The ridiculous camera is harder to get past. Anytime you’re near pretty much any object, the camera has a tendency to start going haywire, making it hard to point yourself in the direction you want to go and really easy to fall off of raised surfaces. Your birdie boarder also falls off its board at the drop of a hat, and between that and the camera you can end up in some very frustrating situations. All of the charm in the world isn’t enough to save this one.
  5. Cultured Vultures
    Sep 15, 2021
    40
    Despite its amusing concept and charming vibes, Skatebird can’t get far when it actually gets on the board.

User Reviews

All reviews »
User Score
2.9

Generally unfavorable reviews- based on 8 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 0 out of 8
  2. Mixed: 3 out of 8
  3. Negative: 5 out of 8
  1. esimp18
    Sep 18, 2021
    3
    I wanted to love this game so much but after playing for a couple hours i just cant. There are so many things wrong with the game that youI wanted to love this game so much but after playing for a couple hours i just cant. There are so many things wrong with the game that you will be extremely frustrated very quickly. While this gave has some heart, the games mechanics are so unpolished that I dont think they actually play tested it. Tony hawk 1 is 10x less clunky and more refined than this game and that game was made like 20 years ago. At the current moment this game is not worth getting at all. They will need to make significant tuneups and modifications to the game mechanics before it is worth buying.

    Issues:
    ~The camera constantly clips or freaks out
    ~A really big mechanic of the game is the "fancy" gauge, its kinda like the special bar in tony hawk but in skatebird it controls your maximum speed. The issue with it is that unless the gauge is full, there are many quarter pipes that you are not able to reach the top of. So half of the quarter pipes are inaccessibly without maximum Fancy. While this is very annoying, there are two issues that make this unbearable. When you crash the gauge goes to 0 (see next issue), and the gauge fills up arbitrarily. You could do a huge combo and the guage wont fill up at all. Then you could do an ollie and it goes to maximum. It makes no sense and you end up spending most of the time during missions, just filling up the gauge.
    ~You fall randomly, and due to laggy controls & weird camera angles you will crash a lot doing simple tricks. If you bump something you will probably fall. You fall constantly
    ~The hitboxes for pickups are insanely small. You have to collect "SKATE" just like in tony hawk and to collect them you have to hit them perfectly. The
    ~The double jump would be really fun but it is very laggy and when you use it on quarterpipes it just launches you in a random direction.
    ~The soundtrack is very small so you end up listening to the same songs over and over again. You start off with like 8 generic songs and each level you can find some more. They only use like 4 bands so theres not much variety. Its mostly ska which i like but its low end bands so some songs are really bad.
    ~The grind button and stall button are both the same. So there are multiple times when you want to grind that you will stall instead.

    Pros:
    ~The quirkieness is nice and the birds are somewhat entertaining
    ~There is a lot of birds and outfits to choose from
    ~You can set respawn points and quickly respawn at them    … Full Review »
  2. ghostlytoast
    Oct 9, 2021
    1
    Nobody was expecting this to be a masterpiece. It’s a game who’s entire existence I due to a bad pun. But it could’ve been a fun, quirkyNobody was expecting this to be a masterpiece. It’s a game who’s entire existence I due to a bad pun. But it could’ve been a fun, quirky little Tony Hawk like experience. Instead of getting a few lols at a cute bird grinding a soup bowl, you just get frustrated at the poor controls, the annoying camera and the awful level design. I’m so thankful I got it on gamepass because if I’d paid for this I’d want a refund and some compensation for the 32 minutes of my life wasted. The developer should give every species of bird appearing in this game a personal apology.… Full Review »
  3. SpoopySkeleton
    Sep 17, 2021
    5
    Great concept, poor execution.

    The team behind SkateBird obviously likes skating games and wanted to create something like that. However,    Great concept, poor execution.

    The team behind SkateBird obviously likes skating games and wanted to create something like that. However, it seems that they couldn't figure out what makes skating games fun. There is very little variety in the tricks you can perform. The level design is cluttered and sparse at the same time and is more focused on the theming rather than gameplay.
    The theming is very cute, and the addition of a double jump could have opened up a lot of possibilities. However, as I mentioned before, it doesn't seem like the level was designed with that moveset in mind.

    There is no hook, you just get plopped into the game world without any ceremony or explanation, while the mechanics get introduced through walls of text. And the first few missions are so boring in their objectives that I could barely bring myself to finish them.

    I also expected the game to be far more forgiving and arcade-y because of the silly theme. Boy was I wrong. The player feels incredibly heavy and clunky to control, which to me is extra weird, given the theme.

    All in all, this game feels like a late alpha, not a full release. The basic mechanics are in, but they could do with a lot of fine-tuning.

    I hope the developers continue working because the game does have a lot of potential.    … Full Review »
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