Alto’s Odyssey
Year: 2018
Rating: E
Time Played: ~9 hours
While I appreciated that The Alto Collection contained both Alto’s Adventure and Alto’s Odyssey, there wasn’t a lot that differed between the two games. They both were endless-runner snowboarding games with simple gameplay, soothing aesthetics, and chill music. Alto’s Odyssey, however, had a desert setting that gave it enough distinction from Alto’s Adventure through the slightly different application of some of its items, tricks, and gimmicks. Still, it was a lot of the same game I had already played, so there wasn’t a lot of motivation to sink much more time into it.
If I had played this game first, I don’t know if I would have played the original as much as I did, since there were some definite improvements in the way things worked. Wall grinding helped in certain sections, bouncing on balloons and getting caught in tornadoes provided an easy height gain, and the distinctive variety of settings provided their own challenges.That it wasn’t all the same snowy ruins, forests, or villages made Alto’s Odyssey at least interesting to play. I had to change how I interacted with the settings instead of just performing the same tricks repeatedly.
All this being said, tricks were a little harder to come by and were punished for greed more frequently. I also found a lot of the gaps in the landscape to be impossible to cross, even with the right characters or speed. This was frustrating, as the procedural-generated course would kill a good run before it even began. Plus, having some of the “level up” goals locked to specific landscapes made it artificially challenging because I had to play long enough to reach those sections, then perform the required actions/tricks.
More endless-runner snowboarding with slightly different settings, I give Alto’s Odyssey 4.0 stars out of 5.
