I don’t suppose I’ll ever recover from the loss of life of SSX. Whereas EA’s excessive snowboarding sequence isn’t formally within the floor, there hasn’t been an entry since 2012. But the franchise nonetheless looms giant in lots of players’ minds, together with mine. That’s very true of 2001’s SSX Difficult, an arcadey snowboarding sport dripping with model that has by no means been matched, though many have tried and failed. Nevertheless, the demo for brand spanking new indie sport Difficult Insanity has given me hope that perhaps, simply perhaps, someone can recapture SSX’s greatness.
Difficult Insanity isn’t shy about the truth that it’s an homage to SSX Difficult. If the identify doesn’t give it away, then the Difficult meter and colourful snowflake icons littered throughout the demo’s single course certain will. That isn’t, strictly talking, an issue, and for those who’re as massive a fan of SSX as me, then the overt homage is precisely what pulled you in within the first place. Nevertheless it’s a daring transfer to take a lot immediately out of your inspiration while you won’t stay as much as it.
The demo, now out there on Steam, provides you entry to a single character on a single course. You possibly can strive your hand at a time trial or a trick competitors, in the identical approach that SSX Difficult supplied races and freestyle competitions. The course presently out there is an easy snowy monitor down a mountain surrounded by giant timber and populated with jumps and rails, very very like an early monitor you may race down in SSX or SSX Difficult. The similarities are so sturdy that instantly upon beginning my first run down the course, I used to be struck by how a lot my muscle reminiscence took over.
Switching between the Difficult Insanity demo and SSX Difficult, I rapidly confirmed just a few issues that my muscle reminiscence had suspected. Difficult Insanity is a a lot quicker sport, not within the pace at which you go down the mountain however within the pace at which you pull off methods. Doing spins and flips feels extremely fast-paced, which I solely had an issue with when trying the sport’s equal of Uber methods (that are simply referred to as Uber methods right here as effectively). The difficulty is that in some methods, performing these particular methods presently feels too simple, whereas the slower tempo of methods in SSX Difficult made Uber methods really feel like a dangerous endeavor.
Moreover, I can’t recover from Difficult Insanity’ present steering controls, that are mapped to the left stick. When you press the A button on an Xbox controller to organize for a leap, you may’t steer however as a substitute should put together the path you’ll spin within the air by urgent on the d-pad. Switching on the fly between the left stick and d-pad when going from steering to trick preparation is just a little cumbersome in the meanwhile, and I yearn for the flexibility to each steer and put together for methods on the d-pad like in SSX Difficult. Therein lies the most important downside of Difficult Insanity: the sport feels a lot like SSX Difficult that these moments the place it deviates from its inspiration turn out to be unnerving. However once more, that is only a demo and these items are very a lot in an early stage of growth.
The extra time I spent with Difficult Insanity, the extra I appreciated its clear understanding of and love for SSX. Whereas the sport’s artwork isn’t fairly as poppy as that of its inspiration, the demo’s singular course nonetheless provides you a way that it will really feel proper at house amongst SSX programs. That feeling grows even stronger as you poke on the edges of the course searching for secret routes. I used to be glad to find a handful of shortcuts that helped me shave seconds off my time, and even a hidden half-pipe that gave me the proper venue to tug off a sequence of methods in seamless succession.
Difficult Insanity doesn’t have a launch date but however the full model guarantees eight full programs and characters (who will probably be voiced and have distinctive methods), a marketing campaign and free-roam mode, and a voiced DJ to completely evoke the SSX Difficult expertise. After my time with the restricted demo, I can’t definitively say if Difficult Insanity is the SSX successor we’ve all been ready for, however I can say that it has given me hope it would earn that title.
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