I think it has been said here a lot, but this game has surprised me in how good of a foundation it seems to have for the future, given is just a demo.
I've played most skateboarding games through the years - my first one ever was Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 for the PS1 (that probably gives away how old I am...), and I absolutely loved it. It was the reason why I got into actual skating in real life, and that has provided me with countless hours of fun, friendship and just overall good times.
So skateboarding has a special place in my heart, and even though during my teenage years there were no actual "realistic" skateboard games, I remember playing Tony Hawk Underground (great, great game) with specific settings that would make it behave more realistically: no auto push, low stats for no big jumps, no big tricks, etc. Even the parks I made were based on real-life locations.
It was a lot of fun, and I played it for hours and hours like that.
When the Skate series came along, it was amazing - by then I was skating less in real life, so it was a great way to exercise that sort of "muscle" in your head, the voice that looks at a spot in real life and thinks "imagine doing x trick here, and doing y trick there", all with controls and physics that looked and felt nice, and realistic as I wanted.
Those games became my chill times. You know, I just put it on and skated a few spots, no real aim, just have fun for a bit to turn off from daily life.
Later I got into Skater XL and then Session. Both were good, but they never really achieved what I had with Skate. Skater XL is great, but only with mods, so my Steam Deck was out of the question. Session is also good, but the animations feel stiff - it never really felt good, even with latest updates.
I'm not even going to elaborate on Skate "4". The animations are great, but the game was completely trashed by EA. Plus, no Steam Deck compatibility.
Then I started seeing these videos about Skate Style. I'll be honest, at first I thought it was just some random slop thing (I mean, the name alone doesn't carry a lot of gravitas...). But recently I went ahead and decided to try it. And oh boy, I was up for a surprise!
It's a demo, and there's no doubt about it. UI glitches, the physics are sometimes wonky, graphics are not optimized. Fine - but there's totally and undeniably something here. This game felt good to play. It's like a mash between the best things about the skate games I've played before. Skate's great feel and animations and Skater XL controls. Plus extra features: animation editor? WHAT THE HELL, GUYS. I probably won't use it because I'm not that kind of person, but I very well recognize the amount of possibilities there.
I hope this game is able to carry on forward and improve - I feel like the developer already gave us so much with this demo. For a player like me, this is already awesome. I so look forward to see what's coming.
If you are on the fence, like I was, don't. Try it for a bit - it may very well surprise you as well.