The more tricks you pull off, the more you’ll fill the meter, and the faster you can move. The issue there is twofold first, in order to get up a decent amount of speed, you have to pull off tricks to fill up a meter that reads “Fancy” in the bottom corner of the screen. While the controls are fairly simple, getting your bird to actually pull off tricks is, admittedly, an exercise in frustration. Additionally, the first few missions you take on will help you get used to the controls and flow of the game. But don’t be too frustrated! There’s actually a pretty thorough tutorial you can read over in the options menu. Once you’ve picked your bird, you’re pretty much thrown into the game. You can customize your skateboard as well, with different designs and colored wheels. There’s an awesome array of customization options to deck your bird out in different headgear, scarves, capes, and more. I mean, have you ever seen them lead their babies and do their little hop and their li’l head-bobber thing bounces? Adorable! But I digress. I ended up picking the quail, because they’re obviously one of the cutest birds in the history of ever. There are a lot of birds to choose from, most of which are adorable (and adorably derpy). It’s goofy, it’s fun, and you’ll likely get a few chuckles out of it.Īt the start of the game, you’ll have the option to pick and customize your bird, which you definitely shouldn’t name Flaptain Morgan. There’s some very meme-ish dialogue between the birbs scattered around each level, but again, it’s nothing serious. One of my favorites was making Big Friend’s bed, where you have to hit the corners of the blanket to attach balloons. The story is tied into many of the game missions, which leads to some improbably, delightfully whacky missions. It’s not deep or particularly engaging, but it’s there, and it’s adorably light-hearted and silly. Basically your owner, known only as Big Friend, is down in the dumps lately, and you and your bird buddies have to cheer him up. And then SkateBIRD, from Glass Bottom Games, coasted into my lap, and I decided to dust-off my rusty, non-existent skills and see how often I could fall off a skateboard. And, to be embarrassingly honest, I was absolutely, definitively not good, if not downright terrible, at those games.

In fact, I don’t think that I’ve played a skater since the days of Tony Hawk on the N64. My experience with skating games is… limited, to say the least. SkateBIRD Review: This One’s For the Birds

Skatebird switch review