The Decline of SSX ~ Design Doc
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- Опубліковано 24 вер 2024
- What happened to SSX? It's a snowboarding game series ready for a refresh. Let's talk about the history and the highs and lows of SSX Tricky, SSX 3, SSX On Tour, and SSX 2012.
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One of the biggest reasons I think Tricky is really loved and well remembered is because of the color pallet. Its bright, all of the colors of the racers stand out and its easy to distinguish them from the background. there was barely any white in the UI and it made excellent uses of the yellow/orange/red colors. All of the other SSX games seemed to really focus on a more muted and white centered pallet that just felt generic.
Not to mention it's imaginative track design. I spent hours upon hours in freeride on Pipe Dream
SSX 3 also had those random pockets of random colors in the snow that looked awesome. Riding down a course with a random green or pink light on it was pretty cool
@@TheShadowscale Yes! Bring back the tracks! Do you imagine Pipedream, Tokyo Megaplex and others in HD?
Chris Brinkley The characters talked more
I think it's the voiceovers and backstories
Man, I miss EA Sports BIG. It felt like the one part of the Sports dev block that remembered they were making games, not just simulations.
yeah all the good fantasy/arcade sports. SSX, NBA/NFL Street, Quidditch (what? it was good), Def Jam...
I think Rocket League has come closest to those in recent years
@@TheShadowscale They also made FIFA Street which is a pretty fun game
Quidditch was a good sports game no arguments here
SSX3 is my nostalgia cryptonite, and I'm so happy to hear it holds up rather well. I hold many fond memories of playing it
Yup fr
One of the few games I have in an unlabeled case. It's a great time
Same. I played it lots as a kid. I dont even know how we got the game because i dont remember buying it or being excited about it before playing. But when I played that game, it was like everything to me at the time!
From the looks of it, the answer to 'what happened?' is 'EA happened'; the gradual sanding down of the things that made the series unique and the attempt to replace them with things that are appealing on a more 'generic' level - design elements that don't really take anything away, but add very little in terms of direct appeal - are both signature elements of EA's corporate process.
It's so 'textbook EA' that I'm pretty sure the SSX team being in-house was the only thing that kept them from shuttering the studio after 2012.
Camkitsune I disagree, SSX 2012 is the best
SSX 2012 was ok on its own, admittedly I ONLY played the 2012 version. But I had a lot of fun with it.
It's so sad. Just like they did with burnout.
Tae Ymssa Burnout was murdered by EA, damn I hate this company
@@sosamanotf642 SSX3 and 2012 (minus the microtransactions) all the way.
I enjoyed speedrunning the Descents and setting new records for the boards.
Rival shout-outs were a nice touch in Tricky as well. Elise's "Hey Kaori!" is forever ingrained into my memory.
Don't break anything on the way down, chicken legs
Get over yourself!
They did it In 3 as well
You unlocked a memory from my childhood
This shows the importance of Personality in Games, I remember playing Tricky over and over again and lost interest with on Tour after a few days, also I loved that the Characters in Tricky would speak their native language like in Punch-Out wii^^
Tricky did a brilliant job with world building and developing personality in its characters. That sense of attachment made it by far the most memorable entry and has been lacking from the series ever since.
@@ELCNUmorFnaMehT agreed^^
I think at the moment I'd rather see a different developer try to recapture what made SSX great, rather than EA taking another shot at the series. We don't need microtransactions in SSX, and the game just has so many opportunities to have them crammed into it that I know EA wouldn't be able to control itself. Tracks, costume pieces, boards and characters crammed into loot boxes or locked behind hours and hours of grinding if you don't want to pay. It wouldn't matter how good the game was at that point, I just wouldn't be into it.
Game Company: "Our last game didn't sell well? Why?"
Players: "The game isn't very good, nor was the game prior to that."
Game Company: "Nonsense, we can do no wrong. There simply must be no interest in the series anymore"
Players: "No, we like the series. You just aren't giving us a good experience."
Game Company: "Guess we'll stop making this series cause no one likes it anymore"
Players: "What the fuck?"
So true tho :'(
EA killed that studio
Ninja Gaiden 😞
many such cases!
Just goes to show, game companies need to listen to their fans just as much as movie directors
I remember there was a gamecube at the hair salon I used to go when I was a kid and there was only a snowboarding game. I was pretty young so I never knew the title of it and it always bothered me because I remember having a lot of fun with the game. But the second you showed footage of SSX Tricky I went : " That's it, that's the game." And as you said, I think it speaks a lot about its personality and uniqueness, just the fact that I can recall it by view almost 15 years later. Now excuse me while i download a gamecube emulator and thank you for granting this gift of knowledge, kid me would be happy.
SSX On Tour is THE reason I got interested in music, which has been a huge part of my life since then. It's so sad to see something that has had a direct impact on my life just fade away like this. Thanks for the video, I really hope SSX comes back sometime.
For me it was both ssx3 and on tour. I fell in love with yellowcard in 3 and got into iron maiden bacause of on tour.
Bloc Party?
@@krdjmtc YES
There's still a community for ssx. Look up streamers like daggy and rithek on youtube and twitch. That's just 2 of the top level players and they are very welcoming to new viewers.
A combo of all the action sports games influenced us! Mirra fbmx 2, ssx 3, ssx on tour, Sean Palmer, the THPS series, and other games such as DDR, Guitar Hero, and one of the top rated soundtracks of all time Burnout 3 Takedown! These got us into real music at a great time with a well rounded ear
I appreciate Woolie (SBFP) reference.
EA Happin' . They tried to fallow the trend of more realistic games. Also, big studios chew through a lot of staff and consider people expendable, so it's very likely that couple of stuff members were crucial to have a successful SSX game with right ingredients. I still fell that making game is more of an art than normal business and not a lot of people understands that.
I think doing away with the varied and larger than life locales of Tricky was the first and greatest mis-step that SSX took.
SSX at it's best always had this big celebratory, globe trotting aura and atmosphere to it. Going to stunning and colorful locations with EDM and funk blaring out the speakers and fireworks rigged up everywhere. It was only when you discovered the backwoods shortcuts that you'd find long stretches of just plain old powder to ride down. They were a special treat that you got for being adventurous and unlocking Untracked-the only 100% pure mountain riding track in the game-was treated as being an incredibly special occasion and completely out of character for SSX as a whole. You partied hard and made it to the end so here's something real and unique and away from prying eyes that you can enjoy by yourself.
Setting SSX3 in a gigantic interconnected mountain was a novel idea but it should have been a feature exclusive to that game. There's only so much you can do with a big mountain and SSX3 was already grasping at straws by the end. Without unique locations to go through, the vibe of the game suffered immensely and with them also taking away focus from the individual characters, that only made the games feel more generic.
Can't wait for the next game:
SSX - Microtransaction paradise
* cries in need for speed payback *
ironically that ea doesn't pay you back for the lootboxes
dont forget "diverse and inclusive cast for a modern audience"
Please don’t give them ideas.
don't make me sick, microtransactions is a bunch of illegal gambling garbage. just like lootboxing it is polluting the gaming community.
Are all snowboard game franchises doomed to blandify themselves?? It's especially odd considering snowboarding never seemed to reach any kind of cultural zeitgeist that would allow it to generate interest through groundedness (unlike, say, skateboarding and the Skate series).
I disagree.
I mean, Amped got crazier with each successive game. I mean, no one remembers Amped 3, aka The best Xbox 360 Launch Title, was, pretty much, "watered down Adult Swim, the game."
"More punk aesthetic." "Less personality of cast." - Well, that's an obvious screw up. More punk aesthetic should have been an opportunity to go back to the OTT cast of Tricky.
I'd be interested in a quick comparison between the way racers are handled in Tricky and the F-Zero franchise since I'm fairly unfamiliar with both franchises but I've heard a lot of praise for the complicated, almost to the point of soap-opera, relationships of characters in F-Zero and you just mentioned about scripted rivalries with a dynamic system to influence those for Tricky with some clear fondness.
idk if you ever got your answer but unfortunately in SSX Tricky it's not that deep. Every character has set "friends", "neutrals", "orange neutrals", and "enemies". these relationships are a bit more fleshed out in written bio and interview sections (particularly friends and enemies), and even scripted banter at the race gates, but on the track it means little more than "who will try to punch you back if you punch them".
I never owned these games but I absolutely LOVED playing SSX Tricky at my friend's house. It still gives me a lot of nostalgia
Yes, thank your for this. It reminded me that there was a time where I absolutely loved these kinds of snowboarding games. I remember liking the aesthetic and controls of On Tour, but also that I preferred SSX3 as the better game overall. What happened to this genre? For me, after On Tour flopped it was around the time I got an iPod Touch and in the early mobile gaming days before free2play existed, there were a lot of decent mobile arcade-ish snowboarding games that were on the iOS app store (including a port of the DS SBK Snowboard Kids game) that were generally pretty fun. Sadly, almost all of them have been delisted. I guess there isn't much to fill the void nowadays huh?
Guess I'll just go emulate Snowboard Kids 2, the greatest video game ever made in human history, yet again.
I loved SSX 3, thats up there for me in terms of the best feeling movement in a video game
God, I love Snowboard Kids 2
what a freaking great game!!
you do realise that game wasn't released to half the world right...most people are like "there was a snowboard kids 2?"
I'm a little too young to have grown up with ssx, but I lovedddd we ski & snowboard on the wii as a kid. Playing ssx 3 right now and it has me totally hooked! it's amazing how well it holds up today, and there really arent any modern games like it
I loved the free roam aspect of SSX 3. They could just do a from the ground up remaster of that game and I would be happy as hell. Maybe with a couple new additions. Also I didn't mind how they organically started events at all.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who loves Snowboard Kids!
This video hit me in my nostalgia nuts so hard...
I used to play the first 3 games with my brother and my dad so much when I was like 4... Tricky in particular...
I hope I'll be able to relive those moments with them somehow sometime, now that I'm away from home to study...
Thanks for reminding me of the EA Sports BIG era, and Freekstyle by extension. And thanks for acknowledging that Snowboard Kids is the best snowboarding game ever made. You should talk about both of them some time.
Trust me, we both really REALLY want to and likely will sometime next year.
SSX Deadly was great imo those "dead pits" made you check your time on a jump or go through the course simple before you went full on tricky with it
Aye I really think it worked well. That’s why the trucks are sped up. The combo and boost system is the best it ever was as well, plus the revised control mapping was perfect.
And I loved SSX3, but my older self fully got the 2012 game.
What I want most of all is a up to date, modern SSX Tricky. Doesn't have to be all fancy, just memorable like the origianal! Please can we at least just get that? I was never a big Tony fan, nor a fan of any other snowboarding game other than SSX. So here's to bringing something great back!
i would prefer if SSX 3 got an update personally but Trciky would be cool too.
The one thing I think of about snowboarding and SSX
“It's Tricky to rock a rhyme, to rock a rhyme that's right on time
It's Tricky, it's Tricky (Tricky) Tricky (Tricky)”
I think anyone can agreed this gets stuck in your head a lot.
Im really enjoying these full series dives. As well as all the snowboard kids music sprinkled it... Very good.
DJ Atomika!! Yeahh, also in Burnout Paradise!!!
I knew that name was familiar!
Elise: “This is going to be very, very interesting…”
Me: *“IT’S TRIC-TRI-TRI-TRI-HERE WE GO!!”*
Talk about a blast from the past, you just activated the dark depths of my memory, I haven't though about the SSX series in like over 10 years dude! I played the original SSX when I was a wee lad and I can remember it being hella fun.
I have literally every single one of these 4 main games you talked about, and it’s definitely one of my favorite series of all times. Awesome video!
This series didn't have to die. I think its still a viable concept in 2023. If they take the character personalities and course design from Tricky, mechanics of SSX 3, and modern graphics I'd play that all day.
I'm gonna go into hot take land and say that SSX 2012 is one of the most underrated games I've ever played. Even with the death pits (that I agree are absolutely soul sucking) and the annoying deadly decent stuff, 2012, with a few tweaks could and should be the future of the series. Forget the uber cold and jagged rocks, but definitely keep the wingsuit, improve the track design and you could keep virtually everything else about 2012 the same and I'd still be playing it.
It's approach to multiplayer works for me, though I can understand people wanting actual opponents during a race. I also like the characters being somewhat toned down. Grown up Griff is such a cool payoff for longtime fans of the series. I would want a new SSX to be closer to the last one than anything: I know I"m in the minority on that.
I have few memories of SSX 3 but that’s how I got into the series after that I hadn’t played any until SSX 2012 and I really loved it , the instant deaths were frustrating, some of the deadly descent were atrocious but I did like the gameplay and mechanics.
The soundtrack could’ve been a lot better since I kept 3 tracks on replay . I still play it every now and then it’s a great time killer .
I'm surprised that not many others has done similar retroperspectives on the series. I think that you did a great video and I agree with your opinions.
I think that the series peaked with 3 - yes, I do agree that it's a bit toned down compared to Tricky, but the level design from a gameplay perspective is great, the exploration bits add a nice sense of downtime and I love the progression system where you can choose your own way to play - doing either trick or racing events or just getting enough collectibles and you'll unlock all the tracks in the game, and from there you can yourself decide where you want to go. I also love the audio mixing - the dynamic soundtrack is awesome and the way that music gets muted as you reach the peak of a jump and then goes back to full blast as you hit the ground just makes you want to do more cool tricks.
I don't "hate" many games, but the SSX reboot is one of them. The death pits, the annoying rewind feature, the ultra barren tracks, the stupid gimmicks that control really badly, the annoying grind for better gear because of microtransactions, the multiplayer system and so much more just makes me angry to think about even today - this if anything is a prime example that trying to add too many new mechanics to a game just for the sake is a really bad idea. I hope that one day somebody does an SSX like game like we've seen other series have gotten.
The best snowboarding game is final fantasy 7.
This is the only good UA-cam comment. I ❤ you.
You spelled Death Stranding wrong
You spelled Tony Hawk wrong
Sonic Adventure says, “Hello”
@@nicknackpattywhack3485 Tony Hawk adventures says ‘hello’
Yep, this earned a thumbs up from me. I was hooked on the series since the first installment and I would love to see a new entry go back to the personality that Tricky and SSX 3 had and make the gameplay just as memorable. EA Sports BIG needs to take a little jump with this series just like it initially did with the first title in the franchise.
Ssx and skate, the best series put on hold.
Will there be a Design Doc on Snowboard Kids?
I played tricky at a friends house on ps2 and was amazed. I finally got my hands on a used copy from the flea market and it didn’t work. I was so mad, On top of that my friend moved. i had to wait all the way until the reboot on 360. And it didn’t let me down in my eyes. I loved it
The move to open world killed this. The original design with tracks and taking turns with friends to set times and high scores was what people loved about SSX. The open world ironically made everything bland and the same.
Bring back the bombastic cast of characters and unique and colorful courses of Tricky and the smooth controls and fluid trick system of SSX3 and you would have the perfect game in the series.
Ssx 3 is my favorite in the series. Moby was the guy I always played as.
It's my favourite game as well on the Xbox One. They need to remake that to Switch.
Amazing how the first game that started the whole thing gets glossed over so easily.
SSX Tricky is one of my all time favorite games. So many hour so my childhood poured into that game. I'd love a simple remaster of the game, since those are all the rage today.
The worst part about On Tour for me is that it's 30FPS. After playing through Tricky and 3 it just feels so sloggy. I wish these games would get a full remaster treatment that sold well enough to get a new game made, but I know good things don't happen in this timeline :(
RIP SSX, Burnout, and NBA Street.
Randomly suggested to me.
This is a well made video
Nailed it to a T, say it with me now
FUCK.THOSE.DEATH.PITS
Once I played the latest SSX and kept falling into those pits I was instantly turned off and didn't play it anymore. I love how you respected 3 (my favorite of the series) and I completely agree that it's a good game but they couldn't be as creative with the tracks like in Tricky. I alsp want to point out that the customization in 3 was so great too, since different characters had different special accessories you could unlock. Great video!!
The death pits and survival challenges killed the game for me too. The whole thing felt off, characters had no personality, it was too grey/colourless etc.
The death pits and survival challenges were the only reasons why I played SSX 2012 in the past lol. I would go to the Rockies descent with the slowest possible board and no armor to see how many times I could go down, while my brother would go to the Alps and play a run that was literally nothing but ridges and death pits. We would crush the leaderboards. The gameplay was fun, but the challenges were honestly quite tedious, so we never completed the game.
SSX 3 is by far my favorite videogame of all time. I’m a sucker for ambience, so the natural track designs, terrific sound designs, and perfect controls cemented 3 as a legendary game for me. I haven’t played tricky yet, so I would really like to see how it feels once I get the controller in my hand.
Ansem: Darkness darkness
Xemnas: Duality duality
Brodi: Yeah bro, yinyang is cool
SNOWBOARD KIDS! OOOOOOOOOOHH THE NOSTALGIA IS OVERFLOWING!
Ssx3 was my childhood
oh wow ssx tricky is hands down one of my favourite games ever, its honestly such a shame that this cool of a series basically just faded away.. what made tricky stand out so much were the really distinct exaggerated characters (that are basically all kinda crazy and i love them for it), and the distinct exaggerated courses, they are all so different from eachother and ive spent so much time just memorizing all the fastest ways to go, the best places to jump, where the shortcut signs lead-- combine that with a cool ass soundtrack and a super vibrant colour palette and thats a great game right there
ssx tricky has huge part of my childhood, loved that game so much as a kid.
I really enjoyed SSX Blur, it was way more enjoyable than On Tour for me. A little getting used to steering by tilting the nunchuck and making big movements for the uber tricks (which, once you get the hang of them, are actually impressively tight), and you had a surprisingly immersive experience. The nunchuck controls in it were actually so good it could have acted as a second analogue stick for other games, which, along with using the pointer to aim, would have effectively have enabled triple-analogue controls, and as far as I remember SSX Blur was the only Wii game to use the nunchuck like that.
It was definitely overhated. I agree with you on everything. Even though the characters look like shit the controls weren't as bad as most people think. It takes a little getting used to and it's super enjoyable to do uber tricks.
Green Is Not A Creative Colour it’s okay once you get used to it but it’s just meh a big meh I kinda wish that the motion controls were more responsive well from my experience with Blur only one of the Ubertricks worked for which was the drawing for the Uber Kickback Jack which only responded to my drawing of its shape on my Wii U gamepad.
We just need a Tricky, 3, and On Tour remake.
Just rebuild them all from the ground up with modern graphics and a trophy/achievement system... not just a simple remaster.
Backwards compat Xbox program already remastered 3
I'd argue that modern gaming elements would make the game worse
Just got snowboard kids reintroduced to my brain, thank you, I thought it was lost forever
I totally get the polarized reaction towards SSX 2012, but I do think it's a solid entry into the series. I actually really liked the deadly descents (minus the avalanche one that reversed the camera for some reason, that was a weird one), it put a spin on traversing the tracks where it forced you to slow down and figure them out rather than mindlessly score big air or going real fast. After a while I knew the tracks inside and out and avoided those death pits unless I legitimately screwed up.
But yeah, it did lose a lot of the personality of the previous games, and pulling of crazy amounts of tricks was way too easy. In a perfect world, we'd have Tricky's style/personality, SSX3's connected world, and 2012's graphics and online play. I just started playing Steep from the PS+ free games this month, and it's interesting but way more realistic than SSX which is a bit of a bummer, but still neat.
SSX tricky was a blast back in the day I think that lack of personality and uniqueness in the tracks really hindered the experience in later installments of the franchise.
I might try steep now since its free on ps+ now
Yeah, I saw that deal this morning. I heard some really mixed reactions to that game on release so I never really gave it a chance. Now's the time to see if it improved.
I would say its definitely worth a try if its free, the game was a blast when I still had stuff to do in it and a while after that. but if you are not the type of person to set your own goals or wants to get gold most of the time there won't be that much to do.
I'm nowhere near the Plat trophy but I have Legend(?) rank on some of the styles. It was a ton of fun. If you want something between SSX arcadey and true to life realism it's a great game.
It's very fun, but it's not arcadey like SSX. It's more about exploration and finding descents to challenge yourself on your own terms. If SSX was Tony Hawk's, STEEP is more like Skate.
ive started playing steep just 2 weeks ago. havent played too much yet but it's been pretty fun, though the controls on PC can be annoying sometimes ,, hard to describe why
The addition of those DEATH PITS was tragic. Completely broke a pretty good game (I also really liked its soundtrack). Its like they desperately _wanted_ to remove the fun with those chasms and rewind rewind rewind re...
Great video dude.
I'm just glad I've got SSX3 on my Series X!
I think my biggest disappointment with the 2012 verson was the lack of a direct competitive race and local play. You couldnt actually race people in it just their ghosts which stole some of the life out of it. In ssx3 you could bumb into, punch, and watch the enemy ride down the mountain with you which gave the races some real competition. That along with with local play with friends made everything really feel like im fighting for first
What do you mean by "direct competitive race?"
I literally would invite the players who had the Daily/Weekly Score/Speed records and run the course with them essentially every single day.
Am I the only one who Loves and still plays the 2012 game??
I learned about SSX from the Sims 2 or 3 as the sims would play the game on their consoles and computers. Which felt like false advertising to me since in the real world there was no PC version of SSX and I wouldn't mind if there were.
3 is easily my favorite of the series played the ever living daylights out of it, ps I always played as moby
In On Tour, all my brother and I would do was put in the cheat codes to unlock everything, then free ride down the peaks over and over again without using Uber tricks. It would take me 10 to 30 minutes to make it down, depending how I felt. I was 6 years old then. But now, my favorite videogame of all time is and will always be SSX 3.
If I remember correctly, SSX was the best launch title for PS2. I loved that game
I remember playing The Sims 2. You can make the character play SSX3 on his computer. X)
Even though all the flaws for SSX On Tour are right and I agree on them, I did lose my childhood over that game! It was my favourite game for the PS2, when I was around ten years old. It holds a special place in my heart, with every flaw.
Decent review but how could you not do justice you the freestyle levels in SSX 2012?! Set pieces were unique with clean lines and big jumps. NO DEATHPITS EITHER. Some of the most fluent and amazing tricking the series has to offer imo.
This! I think 2012 has all the makings of an amazing SSX game, but it's hampered by bloat. If you take out the leveling system and survival gimmicks (except KEEP THE WINGSUIT), add an option to respawn mid-run (instead of having to rewind), and pare the game down to just its best content, it's a breathtaking kinesthetic treat. Once I finished the single-player mode, I spent hours upon hours doing Himalaya, Patagonia, and Alaska runs in multiplayer.
Also, the ability to play your own music and have the game remix it on the fly was key. I remember a lot of late nights, where I would zone out to the sound of my personal music collection combined with the drop-dead gorgeous views and insane sense of speed. Maybe SSX doesn't actually need to make a comeback - if a developer was able to make a game like SSX 2012, with all of the aforementioned changes AND a new cast of characters AND a focus on the, like, "high-speed relaxation" aesthetic, I'd be the first in line. At its worst, SSX 2012 was frustrating, but at its best? I've never played anything else that even comes close to the specific feelings it gave me.
Just bring back the track and character design from Tricky and combine it with the smoother mechanics of SSX3 and boom, you’ve got a great game. If that came to switch with good multiplayer, it would be very successful.
Also; Could you Imagine SSX 3 coming out now? It would have so much microtransactions.
almost 10 years now and still no more blips.
SSX Tricky gives me so many amazing memories and such a big nostailga wave
12:41 yeah he definitely looks like Woolie! Great reference!
Something most people forget to mention, On Tour sped up the games considerably. As in, when you hit boost you ZOOM down the mountain. I always loved this and thought the previous games felt sluggish in comparison going back to them. Blur and 2012 continued this trend, which I enjoyed. 3 is definitely the best overall though.
man, I used to play SSX3 all the time as a kid - I can't remember it too well and I was never good at it but this video was such a nostalgia rush! really interesting to watch too, I had no idea about the wider context of the series ^^
When you asked what Snow Boarding game we all remember, I shoutes out Kids Snowboarding just before you answer.
The SSX 2012 Global mode was a mess and really hurt the online part.
There were events you couldn't participate in but could see because it required high level gear which could only be unlocked after nearly beating the game, required enough global points in the game you were stuck doing the same 1-2 daily events for hours which is ALOT of runs down the same hill, and all the while the event is sitting right there in front tonting you ticking down. Not to mention your point reset / dropped each day you didn't play. And no voice chat and the stuff for community building.
I liked the deadly decent levels and the rewind mechanic was cool but the way the challenges and levels were setup you never really wanted to use it.
When you said it felt like a watered down SSX game you were right, but all the same i hope it comes back and does what SSX Tricky did as far as MORE CONTENT and personality.
I truly love ssx. Most of my childhood games were snowboarding games including ssx.
I didn't even know Tricky had a story, and this was one of the first games I had ever played, next to Monkey Ball and the original Rollercoaster Tycoon. Me and my sister just played the same thing over and over in split-screen, she was more into the racing while I was into the tricks.
Not to mention how in SSX(2012) the wing suit was heavily exploited. Making competing in the online stuff almost pointless since the best times would always be from guys who skipped half the track by gliding over it. Where's the fun if the only way to win is to not actually ride the course and do tricks?
Sad thing is due to how many of the tracks are setup, wing-suiting is usually the only viable option as there are so many death pits it's hard to even stay on the track anyway. Sentinel and One Step Ahead are two specific tracks that come to mind. However, I do remember seeing restricted global events (specific level gear, no wing-suits, etc.).
Tricky, what a throwback! I still remember those characters!
I grew up playing on tour. I personally like it a lot, but I’m sure it’s the nostalgia factor and the fact that it had mario, Luigi, and peach as playable characters
On Tour was oddly enough the one I played the most because it was the first game in the series that I actually owned. I only rented/borrowed Tricky and 3 until around the start of the 7th console generation. I have a bit of a soft spot for it but I recognize its faults and why people got turned off by it.
Nice video! Explains why I couldn't get into later games when trying them at friends' places, even though I enjoyed Tricky
SSX 3 is the best in my opinion. Polished, ambient, immersive and addictive. I'm not big on the wacky gameplay that Tricky offers. SSX3 is just perfect.
Who else would donate money for a new ssx game. Just like ssx3 with fun gameplay and one huge mountain to beat
Wow thanks 🙏 what a wayback trip!
SSX 1 + 2 was go-to with my 1st Beloved over like...6-7 years?? We used to relax with it when we weren’t up for storyline games (we beat those as 1 player-he did fight/platform/fast-reflex etc parts; I solved puzzles/did dialogue trees/searched environments pixel by pixel etc...& 2gthr we were a mediocre gamer).
Hadn’t thought about Tricky in ages but this made it all came back like a Proust madeleine. I played Brodi (who I apparently totally thought was “Bodhi” or “Bohdi” or “Bhodi” & just now found out he’s “Brodi” wtf??? in my own personal Mandela Effect Moment when I googled for spelling) or Kaori the most, I remember everything Brodi used to say & I loved Kaori’s vibe + jpop interstitial. My Ex played as Zoe or Mac; he had a crush on Bif & Mac looked/sounded/behaved/dressed just like our friendly neighbourhood dealer/DJ, they even shared background character beats, it was eerie. We both dug Luthor, more bc character actor performance; Luthor controls awkward AF but he was ridiculous & while I mostly kept my other characters sweet snowboard paladins, Luthor was absolute fun playing as aggro-mayhem-chaoslord so we used to do “Luthor runs” on bad days, to decompress-ignoring usual course goals to concentrate on knocking out everything & everyone possible in our path tumbling down a mountain, until we alienated the other characters & were laughing in real life.
In retrospect, it’s funny how much of the game language leaked into our couple-shorthand...like we’d say we had a “Luthor Day” or needed “Luthor time” to signal a rough day, eventually just drawling a Luthorism meant something was pissing my Ex off or it was time to leave a party. We used other phrases from the game, esp from fav characters, to mean all sorts of things. Even alone!-I remember self-soothing or bolstering for stressful events with Brodi or Kaori phrases bc they were OTT positivity personalities, which I lack, so their catchphrases + verbal tics became in-jokes-so-in-only-I-got-them stuff. Absolutely wild 2 goofball games got so woven into my life for 6-7yrs then I totally mindwiped til this video.
Was so striking when you said 3- onwards Tricky felt lacklustre, grindy, repetitive. That says so much to me about how the series must’ve done away with elements that made the first 2 SSXs truly charming bc those games were 4evr playable. Our 3rd Xmas, I gave my Ex his 1st console-I was super poor so it was a big big big surprise, planned my whole year around that thing lol worth it tho just to see his face plus he became a lifelong gamer. Anyways, the store I got it at had this deal where if you paid x amount extra you could pick 3 games from a bin. If I remember correctly the console only came with a demo disc so it seemed like a good idea, it’s a bit sad to get a present you can’t just play with no matter how old you are. Can’t remember the other 2 but Tricky was under the tree with the console that year. We beat the game over holidays, maxxing out all the characters within a few weeks, kept playing the original with the same maxxed characters, then with SSXt2, played both while beating dozens of other games/series, despite getting newer consoles/PC gaming, we held onto old setups & kept playing Tricky 1 & 2 for at least 6 more years. Those games never bored us, we probably discovered all secrets within our initial months playing then ran likely thousands (!!!) of the same courses with the same characters. Even tho I’m sure that compared to SSXt3-onwards, SSXt1+2’s models/sounds were simpler/rougher, gameplay less sophisticated, content thinner, & stories more gestured-towards via worldbuilding + design rather than explicitly existing as arcs/plotlines, it really speaks to the series losing its core spark or soulfulness or something if followups felt grindy + repetitive. Makes me wonder what the original magic was.
Tho I could NOT wrap my head around no Rahzel. 🙀There it is! Mystery solved; no Rahzel, no Tricky😹
All the PS2 SSX games are still awesome today
This is gonna sound dumb but I’d say the reason is because time have changed. Aesthetic particularly of the late 90s/early 00s played a big part in this series. Unfortunately everything that made up those aesthetics are no longer as popular as they were but that’s no excuse. Make it popular again. Or choose good music. Make the characters fun again. Make the maps fun again. Make the game visually interesting to look all the way down to the menu/character selection.
Know who was a good measure for the downfall of the series? Kaori. As a weeb I was impressed by her in SSX Tricky and 3 where they actually had a Japanese voice actress speaking Japanese for her. But then in On Tour she looked waaaaaaaaaaaay older and spoke English in an almost racist accent (I also remember Psymon suddenly becoming friendly and British). In Blur she turned into Ma-Ti from Captain Planet. Then in SSX 2012 she was indistinguishable from Zoe!
It's frustrating! SSX is like the ONE EA game with actual CHARACTERS AND PERSONALITY! Buuut they completely forgot who the characters were and they lost all their personality.
Also, yeah, Snowboard Kids is the best.
i adoooored kaori in tricky and 3 and practically refused to use any other character, and i actually really liked the 2012 design and thought it did a good job of "maturing" the character without falling into the pit of awfulness that was her On Tour look (and even worse, voice). in general i thought 2012 was a pretty good reboot (which seems to be an unpopular opinion?).
havent made it far into the video, but i remember the original SSX! i was a really young kid when i had it, and barely understood how to play it, but i recall having a lot of fun anyway - seeing the snippet of footage from it has given me a wave of nostalgia
-i wonder if i can get my hands on another copy...-
sad to see SSX went down that hole, I remember the time I didn't know other snowboard games that weren't 1080º and then my older cousin showed up one day with this quirky crazy game called SSX Tricky, it fucking blew my mind how amazing and fun it was to pull off all those crazy tricks, boosting like crazy to the finish line while shoving each other out of the way. SSX Tricky is the best snowboard game I've ever played, maybe I'll give SSX3 a try later, but for me SSX Tricky will always be my number 1
I loved the SSX games and always wondered why they disappeared - this explains it really good - and it is also very helpful for the snowboard game we are currently working on, which will be more snowboard kids than SSX but nontheless this is really helpful - Thank you :D
And I gave the video a thumb up before it even really started just because you brought up snowboard kids :D
Great video, as always, I can't agree with your assertion that SSX Tricky is a straight upgrade to SSX. It's actually the first misstep of the series. The Ubertrick system replaced a high skill system of mixing tricks into combos into one where you cracked out low-skill signature tricks for maximum points. SSX Tricky was still better because of the various other improvements, but Ubertricks were an error.
Another thing that you didn't mention that SSX3 got wrong, in my opinion, was the soundtrack. SSX and SSX Tricky had elegantly dynamic music that changed depending on what happened on track which SSX3 dropped in favour of a generic radio soundtrack system. Good music on its own, but so disappointing compared to what went before.
ssx 3 had a very dynamic music system as well though. it can't be _quite_ as varied as the previous games could do with their original soundtracks, but the tracks are remixed and used in a lot of creative ways depending on the on-screen action. someone's actually uploaded the ssx 3 mixes of all the songs, with each being like 10 minutes with all the variations that the game uses. "Poor Leno" in particular showcases it very well imo
I'm pretty sure 3 actually had alot more going on audio mixing wise. I get you though, and I actually do prefer the original songs they made rather than just licensed radio tracks.
you need to go back and replay SSX3 then because it actually had the most dynamic music system of the entire series, every track had 4 different versions that seamlessly transitioned into each other depending on what was happening, while riding normally, in the air, going through tunnels or underground areas or maxing out your boost. You just weren't paying attention lol
On Tour was the one I grew up with, so I'm biased towards it. I fucking loved it.
I really liked this video, it's a good analysis of the series, and you mentionnned the flaws of SSX 2012 in a good way while mentionning its qualities too, the game had problems, but it was still a really good game in my opinion, and a lot of people just go the "it was a shitty game" road, which feels extremely exagerrated.
I only played Tricky, but all the others sound like they're completely missing what SSX is about. I like the over-the-top characture of Tricky, -that's what makes it good. Without that, it's just another snowboarding game. Toning down the character would be like adding penalties to NFL Blitz.
Wow I cannot unsee Moby as Woolie now amazing
SSX3 was the first game I ever completed/mastered. loved that game so much, I bought On Tour the second I saw it and omg.... It was the biggest disappointment I'd ever experienced. It was the personality, there was none. I couldn't bring myself to play more than an hour of it....
On tour PSP was alright but still watered down