We all need some OlliOlli World tips to kickflip our way through Radlandia. If you're failing to make a dent on the leaderboards these OlliOlli World tips and tricks will help. Roll7 has pushed another challenging skateboarding adventure out into the world and it isn't for the easily fazed; for you score hunters out there, you'll need to forget everything that Skate and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater ever taught you.
OlliOlli World will teach you how to pull off all of the tricks in its Tricktionary, and help you learn how to better chain combos together, but it does this slowly – like, throughout the entirety of its campaign. That means you'll still be learning new ways to extend your combos and up your score some eight hours in. But if you're looking for some quick OlliOlli World tips to help you set some high scores your friends will struggle to beat, and make some early gains on the Online League leaderboards, you've come to the right place.
1. Master the controls and practice the basics
You need to learn the fundamentals… hmm, maybe 'learn' isn't a strong enough word in this instance – you need to internalize the basic controls. One of the reasons OlliOlli World works so well is that its controls couldn't be any simpler – execute air and rail tricks with the sticks, press the bottom-most face button to instigate a manual. It's with these inputs that you'll make magic, chaining tricks together with increasing agility and complexity to up your score counter. Study and practise the basics so that you know what to press for what results on instinct; the faster you can grasp this, the better you'll become.
2. Use manuals to link tricks and build combos
The key to OlliOlli World is building massive combos. You could get enough air and pull off one awesome trick – which may look good for a little gameplay clip – but the truth is, you're only going to start beating high scores and completing challenges when you're building and maintaining massive combos. The easiest way to do this is with manuals, which allow you to string tricks together. When you land – be it from an air trick, grind, grab, or wall-run – make sure you press the bottom-most face button as soon as your trucks hit the ground to manual. This will let you link tricks together to build up those combos.
3. But make sure you reset your Manual when it's time
You don't need to worry about manual balance in OlliOlli World, per se, but there is an artificial limit on how many times you can dip between tricks and manuals from the ground. If you have a sequence of three standard tricks – for argument's sake: Olli, Kickflip, and Heelflip – with a manual interspersed between each to link them together, a little red exclamation mark will appear above your skater's head. This means you can't link another trick into your combo with a manual – unless you reset the balance. Once you see that red exclamation mark, it's time to grind a rail, firecracker down a staircase, or add a wallride into your combo, which will then let you link another three manuals into your sequence.
4. Consult the Tricktionary to keep your tricks varied
Pull back from the Radlandia map and you'll be taken to a main menu of sorts. From there, you can open up the Tricktionary – a holy text in your pursuit of reaching Gnarvana if ever there was one. It's here where you'll be able to find information on how to pull off all of the basic and advanced tricks, grabs, and grinds in OlliOlli World. This is essential information, particularly for you score chasers out there. You'll want to be able to draw from a varied selection of tricks, as repeating the same set over and over in a single run will lower their value.
5. Perfect timing give you bigger scores
If you played OlliOlli or OlliOlli 2: Welcome to Olliwood, you'll probably remember that the games featured a pretty brutal mechanic: the perfect landing. If you mistimed your landing it would annihilate your score. That isn't the case in OlliOlli World – there's a greater emphasis on chaining tricks together, and less impetus on nailing the land between tricks. Still, perfect timing will help you achieve higher scores. If you execute a manual or grind, for example, in the small window before the trucks connect with the ground or rail it'll be 'perfect' which not only improves your base score earned from the trick but will also boost your score multiplier.
6. Grabs and grinds can boost your score
One of these easiest ways to up your score multiplier – and subsequently raise the score potential when your combo resolves – is to make liberal use of grabs, grinds, and spins. If you're in the air, you should also be trying to sneak in a grab (tilt the right thumbstick) and use a spin (with the triggers) as this will increase your multiplier. As for grinds, once you've gotten a hang of the basics, don't forget that you can hold the bottom face button (X/A/B on PS/Xb/Switch) and tilt the left stick to switch up your grind without having to disrupt your contact with the rail.
7. Complete the campaign to better learn the moves
OlliOlli World features a full campaign story which will take you across five distinct zones, chronicling your journey to meet the skate gods and ascend to Gnarvana. It's a little silly, but it will help you learn the mechanics, systems, and vibe of OlliOlli World. As you progress into the later levels and zones, the game will start ramping up the difficulty curve for the high scores and challenges, but it'll also start introducing you to more advanced moves – such as Grind Switches and Late Tricks. You can learn these in the Tricktionary, but the campaign will give you purpose-build levels to properly learn and practise these moves before you try and take them out into runs for real.
8. Focus on beating your own scores, not other people's
I get it. It can be daunting to see high scores being set by other OlliOlli World players, particularly once you start looking at the Online Leagues. Here's the thing, getting better at this game takes time, patience, and practice. Side step frustration in the early game by focusing on improving your personal best scores, rather than competing with your friends or whoever the game decides to flag as a rival. Incremental progression is what you should be aiming for, because you can always replay previously completed levels to up your score – there's a good feeling to be earned from returning to a spot and absolutely smashing the high score once you feel like you have a better handle on the controls and tricks.
9. Use replays to see where you can improve
There's a replay system built into OlliOlli World and it's perhaps the most effective way to get better at the game. Hover over the scoreboard on a level or League and it'll give you the chance to view a run, and it's through watching this that you'll better understand how to play and where you're going wrong. By watching some ridiculous score runs, I realized I wasn't using grabs and spins liberally enough when I had airtime to spare, nor was I making proper use of the full Tricktionary. It was through this act of studying the pros that I really began to see improvement, enough so that I'm sure other players have been doing so with my runs now.
10. Complete challenges to learn levels and unlock customisation
In your attempts to set high scores, it can be all-too-easy to focus on the number and multiplier in the top left corner of the screen, rather than the level in front of you. But completing challenges will not only give you a greater awareness of the spaces – which in turn will let you spot Gnarly Routes to run to increase your scoring potential – but it's by completing challenges that you'll start to earn some of the most rad cosmetics in the game. The customisation system in OlliOlli World is low-key awesome, and you'll want your skater to look as rad as possible before folks start viewing your replays to see how you're dominating the leaderboards.
