Back in the early 2000s, Neversoft developed Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1-4 for the PlayStation 2, the original Xbox, and the GameCube. With the first two entries already having been remade in 2020, it was only a matter of time before 3 and 4 were remade as well. Developed by Iron Galaxy, the same people who remade the first two entries, and published by Activision, who have gone on to make more Call of Duty games in recent years. While most reviews have been generally positive from other critics, one of its major criticisms is that the career mode from the original Tony Hawk Pro Skater 4 was stripped down for the remake and replaced with a different type of mission tracker. Will this change negatively affect the game’s performance? Let’s grind the rails and combo our way into figuring that out. 

The gameplay of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4 has the same mechanics as the other remake entries, while also including mechanics from all previous games up to Tony Hawk’s Underground. The basic goal of most of the game modes within this remake is to achieve a high score, or by collecting certain objects like mixtapes, completing certain objectives will unlock more levels and areas. To increase a player’s score points, they must successfully perform and combine flips, ollies, aerials, manuals, and grinds to score higher points. The trick’s point value is based on how much the trick’s time is maintained, the degrees rotated, how many tricks were performed in sequence, performing certain special tricks on specific landmarks on the map, and the number of times the tricks have been used. 

Tony Hawks Pro Skater 3+4 features a total of 19 maps, 16 of them being classic maps from the original games, but remade into a more modern engine, while the last three are completely new for the remake. Some of these maps have new hidden additions that will surprise Tony Hawk fans, including one secret that involves the franchise SpongeBob SquarePants and another involving the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. On top of that it seems alongside those crossover editions to the map Tony Hawk Pro Skater is going back to formula by including guest characters that are from different types of franchises with the deluxe edition, including characters from Xbox and Bethesda‘s Doom franchise with DoomGuy and a Revenant while in the base game Michelangelo from the newest animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie is included as a purchasable skin within the game. The game features a total of 36 playable characters with 29 of them being available at the start, while the remaining seven need to be unlocked through the store, which is where Michelangelo can be unlocked. There are also four character slots where players can customize and create up to four characters using items that can be unlocked via the in game store and by completing certain tasks. 

Let’s talk about the challenge mode within this remake, which replaces career mode from the original fourth installment. While the concept is very simple being that instead of quests with dialogue it is replaced with simple tasks and objectives that need to be completed during a set time limit. Completing these tasks as stated earlier unlocks more maps. The simple arcade-style system makes the game a bit more challenging for players; however, it unfortunately takes away what made the worlds of Tony Hawk Pro Skater 4 feel more alive. The college map was one of the maps that was better in the original game because it had a few interesting side quests that are no longer available, such as one that involved clocking five members of a college football team. While this might be addressed later on with either an update or a DLC the removal of these quests, makes the game feel less alive and because it swapped the more traditional quests with quick challenges making it essentially more of an arcade-styled game rather than an open area environment filled with interactable people, which is no doubt what the developers had in mind because this in turn makes the game more faster and arcade like which wouldn’t be a problem if this wasn’t a remake of two games from the 2000’s era. These challenges and changes to the map while interesting and fun feel more like something out of a goat simulator type game especially when some of these challenges can lead to some very wacky outcomes such as getting involved in a police chase with a malfunctioning self-driving car or skating on top of a pirate ship that can transport the skater into Bikini Bottom but only as a transition. 

 Despite the game having improved gameplay mechanics and better visuals Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3+4 lacks a large majority of the charm that the original versions did. While this game could be great for new commers to the Tony Hawk series, especially those who never owned the consoles the original games were made for, it unfortunately may not resonate with players who played the original, but who knows if anything it’s a fun skater game that anyone of any age can enjoy.

Overall Score: 8 out of 10

Reviewed On PlayStation 5