[Review] Wave Break - Nintendo Switch

Developed and Published By: Funktronic Labs
Categories: SkateBOATing, Arcade
Release Date: 06.11.21

Do you like the 1980’s? Tony Hawk Pro Skater with boats and anthros? How about Weezer? Well, me personally, I prefer their older albums, but I did enjoy Wave Break.

Yes, Wave Break is like if you took the Tony Hawk Pro Skater formula and gave it a furry 80’s filter. Get a lot of points, get a high combo. Collect a certain amount of items, which in the first level is a bunch of scuzzy dirty magazines. Get every letter in BREAK or get all of COMBO in a single combo. There’s those secret tapes you probably remember. Each level has their own unique missions to do by talking to another character as well. One I like is “These guys on a boat have your “product”, destroy their boat, kill them, and then get the “product” back.” It’s a bit of an adventure.

You got 3 minutes each run, but don’t expect to get every mission in those three minutes unless you’ve gotten the game perfected. Luckily, if you start one of these unique missions, you can restart from the one you’re working on right away if a run ends. Restarting can be a bit of an issue however, as the load times to start or restart a level can be a little too long, something I can assume can be fixed in future updates.

Each run you do, each mission, they all give you cash. This’ll be used at the shop to get that customization game going. Dress up your character. Put new colors or parts on your boat, or even get a new boat. Level up your characters’ stats if they don’t feel the best or quite right. You can even unlock certain clothes by doing specific missions.

You can do the flips, grabs, spins, grinds…and shoot? The life of organized crime is an odd one for sure. Just be safe, because you can also die if you’re reckless and crash too much, get shot, or just run right into a barrel. There’s a lot of tricks, and especially some special ones you can pull off if your meter is full, but I’m comfortable in saying I still need much more practice to get some really big combos.

You have a nice selection of levels from a warehouse, to the arctic, to a nice beachside home, to even custom levels. The pre-made levels look natural enough, but still have that gamey feel to make for a fun play in. While all of them are full of water, they do all have their own unique feel too, and you can still ride your boat on land and will need to for many a maneuver.

I had trouble really getting a good feel for making a custom stage. Everything felt kind of clunky, which I never had when making stages in a Tony Hawk game. I’d love to see what people could make though.

I hope you really like the band Weezer, since there’s an entire level dedicated to them and there’s even a new Weezer song in the game. Really reminds me of how much love went towards KISS in Tony Hawk Underground. Much like how that game had an entire level for a KISS concert, Wave Break has an entire level for a poolside Weezer concert.

Music isn’t just Weezer however, the game is full of great 80’s sounding vaporwave artists. None of them were familiar to me beforehand, but I enjoyed the setlist nonetheless.

The game performs great, which I’d hope at the very least, but I have noticed it kinda struggles at the start of a run for a second. This mixed with controls that take…quite a bit of time to get used to can lead to some disorientating moments. For the most part, it works, but for certain moves, especially Acid Drops, I could *never* consistently pull them off. I found that jumping forward has some issues too, where even if you’re off your boat, it needs momentum.

Wave Break really gets me in the mood for summer with the theming. A nice bright, cool day at the beach or pool sounds great right about now. The game has a small handful of quirks that can drag it down, but this is such a charming game. There’s a novelty to turning what would otherwise be a THPS clone into a game about animals in boats doing tricks with that Miami Vice style.