Skateboarding games are a subgenre that was very popular twenty years ago: the possibility of exploiting three dimensions represented a substantial novelty and the developers tried to explore it with more and more conviction, which gave a certain freshness to all the productions they aimed at. that direction, even the sports ones.
Old guard fans remember both the classic Tony Hawk's Pro Skater and the cartoonish Jet Set Radio: titles that undoubtedly inspired the small team at Flying pants games, made up of just two people, who took cell-shaded graphics and an elaborate cheat system to bring their own version of that kind of experience to iOS and Android.
Does the end result look like a perfectly executed acrobatic maneuver or a grind gone wrong where you lose your testicles? We tell you in Perfect routine review.
Old school gameplay
Perfect Grind's references are very clear from the beginning and the developers have managed to effectively reduce these types of adjustments on the touch screen: with the device strictly vertical, in portrait mode, it is possible to use one finger to move the view. and see your character leave, which at that moment will move automatically until we perform a maneuver to stop it.
Therefore, we can turn to ramps and railings, jump and let the system automatically hook us to the ledges, then managing the balance of the grind through a simple indicator or performing tricks in the air or sustained rotations that clearly require a well-made landing to close successfully and record. the total score and then move on to the next challenge.
Although the mechanics of game They don't seem particularly refined, and in fact the automatic movement ends up making the character handling a bit chaotic and imprecise, also highlighting collisions and incomplete interactions, after a while you become familiar with the philosophy behind Perfect Grind and have fun, obviously . as long as you appreciate this type of formula.
Il limitar In fact, the best thing about the title developed by Flying Pants Games is its too faithful reinterpretation of an approach that has already outlived its usefulness and that could immediately seem "already seen" if you spend several hours on the various Tony years ago Hawk's Pro Skater and Jet Set Radio. Soon, The ideas you will find in this game are not exactly new. and you can feel the pinch... or fall in love with it, you decide.
structure
La Career mode, which represents the fulcrum of Perfect Grind, will see us choose a skater from those available (with the possibility of unlocking others using the coins earned up to that point), complete a short tutorial and then launch ourselves into some scenarios with the aim of completing the missions that will be assigned to us by the NPCs with whom we will find ourselves interacting, as part of a kind of reward path that allows access to later maps.
The game can be downloaded for free from the App Store and Google Play, although by paying €3,49 it is possible to unlock a couple of extra modes (the Free Skate scoring challenge and the Editor Park) and remove advertising trailers, which actually arrive a bit suddenly and end up breaking the rhythm of the action. Our suggestion, without a doubt, is to try the game and reward the authors if you intend to spend some time with it.
Technical realization
As we mentioned at the beginning, among the inspirations for Perfect Grind there is also Jet Set Radio, a great classic of infographics cel shading: a technique that we also find here, used in a more than discreet way to add character to the different characters available, some of which are quite absurd (see the, uh, anthropomorphic banana). Unfortunately, the scenarios cannot have the same depth and, in fact, they generally seem empty and boring: a shame.
Little to say about sound compartment, composed of some music and very simple effects, which however fall silent in the first commercial break: a technical problem that we encountered during our test on the iPhone 14 Pro and that we hope the developers will fix through an update as soon as possible.
Conclusions
Tested version iPhone digital delivery app store, Google Play Price Free Holygamerz.com 7.0 Readers (2) 9.9 your votePerfect Grind is a skate game designed for those nostalgic for this subgenre, those who are still enthusiastic about correctly executing an acrobatic maneuver and do not find it repetitive to explore a skate park from top to bottom to try to complete all the challenges that it entails and that from time to time they propose to advance towards the next scenario. The touch controls work discreetly, although the automatic movement ends up highlighting some limitations of this production, while the 3,49 euros necessary to unlock the two extra modes represent a frankly insignificant sum in relation to the content.
PRO
- The classic formula still has its point
- Simple, colorful, immediate.
- Decent touch controls
AGAINST
- There is a risk that you will get bored quickly.
- Some technical glitches, ugly scenarios
- Intrusive ads in the free version.
