The year was 2001, and I was flat on my back in the middle of the street after bailing hard from a failed ollie.
Once I dusted myself off, I decided to try again, but in a safer, more digital aspect. Two decades ago, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 devoured my free time, and now the remake is back and doing the exact same thing. An excellent remake, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4 brings two classic titles to a modern audience but adds little to the original experience in a way that leaves the game feeling curiously anachronistic.
THPS 3 remains largely untouched aside from a much-needed graphical update (my memory of how the game looked does not match reality). On the other hand, THPS 4 has been stripped down significantly; it no longer features a Career mode, and the larger, more open nature of its maps has been scaled back to fit the same two-minute gameplay timer as THPS 3. You can think of it like a level pack for the third game.
In essence, THPS 3 + 4 is the same game with more levels, homogenized to fit a more streamlined experience. For series purists, this is a major downgrade. THPS 4 marked a turning point in the franchise, leading to later titles that were more open-world than the objective-focused gameplay of the first three.
But if you want more of the same style of gameplay, the changes to THPS 4 are like a large cake: it’s the same flavor, but there’s more of it to enjoy.
Dropping in to Canada felt like going home again, and revisiting Suburbia was like stopping by an old friend’s house. Things looked a little different, but felt familiar and comfortable. All nine of the original THPS 3 levels made a comeback, but THPS 4 lost Carnival and Chicago, instead gaining three all-new maps: Waterpark, Movie Studio, and Pinball. These new additions make a near-perfect landing into the game with all the over-the-top shenanigans I would expect from a Tony Hawk level. Waterpark, with its empty, perfectly-shaped pools and endless grind-worthy slides, feels like such a natural fit that it’s hard to believe it wasn’t always there.
But it’s only familiar because I spent so much time with the franchise. For a newcomer to the series, the remake fumbles things.
While a tutorial guides you through the basics, a full trick list is hidden inside the menu screen and divided into different sections. While that makes a certain amount of sense from an organizational perspective, it took far too long before I realized where it was. When most of the park goals include performing a specific trick, I turned to Google. The game would be better served by including a full trick list from the pause screen, in much the same way fighting games do.
Every few levels is a heat, a set of three minute-long competitions between skaters where they’re judged on performance and style. The game does a poor job of explaining how the system works. The key is to pull off a variety of tricks without bailing. Your overall total score, while important, doesn’t have the same influence. You can rack up 50,000 points, but if you wiped out ten times while doing so, you’re going to score low.
The Game Mods options can lend a hand, though. You can turn on cheats that give you perfect balance during different tricks, ensure your Special bar is always full, and much more. Even with multiple cheats enabled, I struggled to beat some of the top performers. And I am fully aware it was a skill issue.
What feels most out of place is the game’s culture. When THPS 3 launched in 2001, it helped usher skateboarding culture to a wide number of people. It landed at a time when emo and pop punk bands exploded into the mainstream, with Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance dominating the airwaves. Many of the park-specific goals and the humor of THPS 3 + 4 feels like something you would find in an early 2000s movie, but it feels like it’s missing something without the greater cultural context surrounding it.
And it’s hard to reconcile the soundtracks. Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 + 4 has more music than its original two games combined, but it isn’t the same. Only six of the original 20 songs from THPS 3 made the cut, and a trifling four out of 35 returned from THPS 4. As glad as I am to hear Motorhead’s “Ace of Spades” playing while I grind a rail, the lack of The Ramones’ “Blitzkrieg Bop” leaves a glaring hole in the music.
For the Tony Hawk franchise, its soundtrack is as iconic as the gameplay itself. To see such a massive change to the lineup is a bummer. I wouldn’t have been opposed to new additions, but I found myself wishing old favorites would return.
I only briefly looked into the multiplayer mode, but it seems promising. The Create-A-Park tool is sure to bring a lot of replayability to the game long after I’ve mastered (again) the single player modes.
All in all, Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 + 4 provides a satisfying (and at times challenging) experience that feels fitting for modern gamers while still delivering a heaping blast of nostalgia for those of us who grew up with the franchise. The lack of the original soundtrack is a disappointment, but new players will find the added songs match the vibes of the game. The gameplay seems straightforward at first, but leaves a lot of depth for those who want to master every map and learn to push their score into the millions.
Plus, playing a skateboarding Doomguy was just plain fun.
