Session: Skate Sim Reviews
Definitely living up to the “sim” aspect of its title, the controls are a formidable obstacle, but possibly not for the reason you’d think
Session: Skate Sim on Switch feels better when controlling the board, but the visuals certainly suffer in both handheld and docked.
Physics adjustments on the fly, animation adjustments, and massive maps. In an attempt to include this fully featured PC game on the Switch there had to be concessions and we see that in both visuals and how it plays. It's a miracle that the game runs at all, but just because you can port it, doesn't mean you should.
Session: Skate Sim is a valiant attempt to recreate the trials and tribulations of actual, real-life skateboarding that eschews the arcade flashiness of other skating games in favour of slow and methodical repetition and mastery of both your board and your environment. There's a deep and involving game here for skate fans who want something to really sink their teeth into, or at least there would be if it wasn't for blurry visuals, control issues, poor mission design, and frame rate issues that make for an uphill struggle that just doesn't feel worth the pain in the end. If you've got a ton of patience there's still some joy to be found here, but it's gonna take some patches and updates to get this particular port to the place it needs to be in order to earn a full recommendation.
Session: Skate Sim is true to its name: it's a true-to-life skateboarding simulator, so if that's all you want to do, it'll more than deliver.
Session: Skate Sim is one of the most rage inducing games I have ever played, and not because I didn’t want to try and learn to get better. It simply felt like overcomplication just for the sake of it. The inputs make sense, what they show on the trick sheet make sense, but it just doesn’t translate into the game.
This skateboarding simulation will really torture you. Hardcore players will enjoy it, others not so much. Session: Skate Sim is just an unfinished version of a project with good ideas.
Review in Slovak | Read full review
Overall I didn’t enjoy my time in Session: Skate Sim, I understand that it is meant to be a realistic simulation title. However, even the easier difficulties are still hard to master. Personally, it felt like there was a massive gap in the tutorial for someone who doesn’t skate.
Session: Skate Sim is a game of two halves at the moment. It presents a daunting, yet rewarding challenge that genuinely tries to move the genre forward through its dedication to being an authentic sim, but at the same time lacks the character and anarchy that the genre and skateboarding, in general, are synonymous with. Add onto that a healthy serving of jank and bugs, and Session: Skate Sim becomes a hard sell. However, if you can look past its flaws and are down for a challenge, it’s worth giving a shot as the innovations it does present are worth experiencing, and the highs you will receive from mastering the complex controls are unlike anything else the genre has to offer.
Unfortunately, I feel that while it’s a very good *simulation*, it isn’t a very good *game*, and I can really only recommend this to the hardcore skate fans who don’t like all the arcade-style skate games out there. While I did have some fun with it, there was just way too much frustration with even basic elements that shouldn’t be as difficult to understand as they were.
I adored the concept but was entirely underwhelmed by the reality. Session Skate Sim is enjoyable, but only if that's what you're into. It's clever but only if you're appreciative of its exacting existence. And Ultimately it is rewarding strictly to yourself, with no scoring system or a competitive edge to set it against your friends or even existing skating IP's.
Despite the 1.0 release, Session: Skate Sim still has a few issues. However, this shouldn't keep any skating fan away from this deeply rewarding simulator that can, at times, feel just as rewarding as the real sport.
A difficult and authentic skate sim which sometimes feels unfair just because some parts of it are unfinished.
Review in Russian | Read full review
Session: Skate Sim is undoubtedly a love letter to skateboarding enthusiasts that embraces the realistic aspects of the sport, but it might not appeal to everyone with its convoluted control scheme, and it still needs more polishing.
Sim games approach their subjects with a mix of reverence and intense focus. Unlike more arcade-style skateboarding games, Session is a pure, unfiltered experience. If you want to recreate the slow, careful process of learning how to skate, this is your game. But be warned! The mix of intense difficulty and self-directed gameplay isn’t for everyone. Anything less than a pure, powerful love for skateboarding will leave you feeling dissatisfied with this game. But if you’re looking for a pure challenge, and don’t mind a few bugs, you’re in luck. Session: Skate Sim is exactly what you’ve been waiting for.
Imperfect, unkind, and rough round the edges, Session captures more of real skateboarding than almost any game that has come before.
A game clearly made by skaters for skaters. With a high learning curve, Session brings the ultimate simulation of the sport, leaving your mouth watering for what the crea-ture will bring next.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Session: Skate Sim is the best skateboarding simulator you can play today. It might not be the best skateboarding game, though, with so much focus on getting the feel of the ride just right. The learning curve is such a steep cliff that many more casual skateboarding fans (or especially those without huge chunks of time to dedicate to a game) will likely give up before being confident on these virtual decks. Still, Session: Skate Sim is a challenging simulator worth your time if you’re a hardcore skateboarding fan.
In particular, it’d be nice if the game did more in the way of teaching you the ropes, offered different control schemes, and provided a wider array of accessibility options. In general as well, it’d be nice if the game offered more in the way of incentives, excitement, and action to keep you coming back for more, regardless of its punishing difficulty.
An unapologetically tricky ode to street skating, Session is packed with a palpable love for the sport, but bugs and unsympathetic tutorial and mission design decisions undermine its approachability.