Game Over: Session

 So… if you’ve read my previous article about Session on the Nintendo Switch (which you can read here), you’ll know that I didn’t have the best feelings when I wrote it. However, after looking up some recommended board settings and physics changes, I continued playing. Ever since I’ve been working on it, and now I have beaten the main campaign. So, have my feelings changed?

Transition skating is... not great.

Well, let’s talk about the controls first. They were fine but tricky to get used to, but after changing it so that the sticks move the front foot and back foot instead of the left foot and right foot, it made pulling off tricks much more natural, and I slowly began turning off all the safety nets and unrealistic settings I put on as I got used to it. I even began using experimental tricks like Primos and Caspers, and I consider myself at least good at them. It’s really fun once you really get going, however, there was something I noticed when I was looking up tutorials.

You see, there is an option in the control settings called Legacy. What is that? Well, it’s the Skate controls where you only use one stick to perform your tricks. Sure, you lose out on certain tricks such as Pressure Flips, but it would’ve turned Session into the Skate game I’ve wanted for so long (until skate. No, seriously, it’s spelt that way. It’s a new game. I hate modern naming conventions). However, this isn’t available on the Switch version. Actually, a lot of features aren’t available on the Switch version because there hasn’t been any updates for it in a good while. It doesn’t even have some of the latest DLC like the Abandoned Mall.

I really like the Santa Cruz boards!

My biggest complaint because of this lack of updates was this one damn mission: Rock Ride. It’s decently hard on your first time, performing three sets of tricks on a rock in the park. Well, I managed to beat the first two sets, but that last one where you have to Ollie up, do a Pressure Flip, then do a FS Half Cab down is… glitched. Yep, I can do that line perfectly after spending literally hours practising it until it was practically burned into my fingers. I can do it, I’ve seen others do it on other versions, but it’s not working because you either need luck or a future update that will never come to complete it. And that’s not talking about some of the other missions that I managed to complete by accident or screwed out of beating early because of bad completion triggers.

So many missions were a pain.

Should you get Session on Switch? No, like seriously no! Get the Steam version instead and don’t look back if you want to play it. I bought the Switch version because it was cheaper than what I could find online! It’s a real shame because, despite its issues, I really did like the game in the end. I wouldn’t have gone so far as to complete all the missions (except Rock Ride and whatever other missions that were locked behind it) and meticulously customise my board whenever I got the chance if I hated its gameplay. I still play it just to skate around. Should I blame the Switch and its inability to bring out the game’s true potential, or should I blame the developers for abandoning this version?

Maybe the reality is that it’s both.